ERC TimSav - Cheap DIY CNC Foamboard Cutter

HMS

New member
you can try this file and see if it works. note that this is not a FT plane so I hope its not against rules
Hello;
I worked with the gcode you shared and the servo worked. Meanwhile, the GRLB interface, which was shared with timsaw before, started to work and move the axes, it just doesn't show the axial movement values :) anyway; What program was the gcode you shared produced with?
Thank you.
 

Dudley1001

Member
laserweb4, I am just going to try recording a walk-thru of how I use the program so bare with me. I will post a link once I get it done,
 
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HMS

New member
This is a video I did showing how to use laserweb4 to do the svg to gcode and run the machine from Laserweb 4
Laserweb 4 run thru
Hello;
I watched the video, it was a nice sharing. I think there is no up and down movement with the servo on your bench. With the gcode you shared for me, the servo could move, I asked him what program it was made with.
Thank you.
 

Dudley1001

Member
Hello;
I watched the video, it was a nice sharing. I think there is no up and down movement with the servo on your bench. With the gcode you shared for me, the servo could move, I asked him what program it was made with.
Thank you.
I think you are right, I will thaw out my cutter and see where I went wrong. Its -27c here so will look at my other laptop from the garage and see where I went wrong
 

HMS

New member
I think you are right, I will thaw out my cutter and see where I went wrong. Its -27c here so will look at my other laptop from the garage and see where I went wrong
Hello;
I think I mostly solved my problems. You have been very positive and helpful in this, thank you. I produce Gcodes suitable for servos of the drawings I prepared with Inkspace. Then I run the workbench with the Openbuild control program. I am working with inkspace 0.91. I tried the new version (like 1.2) but interestingly it didn't see the dxf files.
I plan to share some photos after cutting.
Thank you again for your help and support.
 

HMS

New member
Here is the new corrected video for laserweb4 to process inkscape svg to gcode and run them . Laserweb
Hi,
Thanks to your support and explanations, I think I found the necessary program. I did a simple trial run and the system worked pretty well, with the servo :)))
The engine and other mechanical parts of the cutter head are not finished yet, and when they are completed, I will try to cut.
Thank you very much. As far as I understand from this part of the forum, I am two years behind for most people. Despite this, you did not withhold your help and support.
When I'm done with my cutting work, I'll share some of the shoot photos here.
Unfortunately, my country experienced a very bad earthquake and even though we were far from the region, we felt the same pain inside us. With this work, I had the opportunity to clear my head a little.
May God keep such a calamity away from all humanity.
See you later.
 

Dudley1001

Member
Hi,
Thanks to your support and explanations, I think I found the necessary program. I did a simple trial run and the system worked pretty well, with the servo :)))
The engine and other mechanical parts of the cutter head are not finished yet, and when they are completed, I will try to cut.
Thank you very much. As far as I understand from this part of the forum, I am two years behind for most people. Despite this, you did not withhold your help and support.
When I'm done with my cutting work, I'll share some of the shoot photos here.
Unfortunately, my country experienced a very bad earthquake and even though we were far from the region, we felt the same pain inside us. With this work, I had the opportunity to clear my head a little.
May God keep such a calamity away from all humanity.
See you later.
Yes we have seen the grief that your country and others in the region are going through and hope for the best outcome for you and your people.
 
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HMS

New member
Hello...
I think I'm the last to do it, but it was a nice job and I had good experiences. I drew the counter parts completely myself, of course my visual source was Timsav :)
I made the first cut today. I think I will do good work. Many thanks to my friends who helped me.
 

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isthatvinny

New member
I was in the process of making some plans and ended up with a Full Cut SVG, a Score Cut SVG, and was starting a new SVG for labeling the parts and putting reference lines and I said what the heck am I doing here this is a mess. In the spirit of "Do not spend an hour doing something you can spend 100 hours automating" I present MULTICUT:
View attachment 167641

This updated extension allows you to just have one freakin' drawing and have all of them in the same file. It uses the path stroke color to determine what type of cut it is.
  • BLACK - Full cut
  • RED - Score cut
  • BLUE - Blue cut
  • GREEN - Green cut
The last two I didn't name "reference" or "guides" or whatever because you can just use them for whatever you want. Blue is FULL BLUE (0, 0, 255, 255) and green is FULL GREEN (0, 255, 0, 255) in the stroke definition. No need to put things in layers or have separate SVG files any more, just make sure the line colors are what type of cut you want and export once. No copy pasting gcode files together either! The paths are all sorted to try to minimize travel moves, so all the cuts will be mixed in together instead of being completely separate passes. Note that the light blue color FT uses to declare A / B / C fold is not considered blue. Only fully blue things are blue!

IN ADDITION! If there is a file named "header" or "footer" in the destination directory, those are prepended and appended to the gcode file automatically. I have this as my header to pause 10 seconds then start the motor
Code:
G4 P10
M4 S70
and this is my footer to just stop the motor
Code:
M4 S0

Hopefully this will save everyone some time going through the files multiple times and deleting a bajillion lines and oops I saved over the wrong file.

INSTALLATION: Just extract the two files from the ZIP and put them in the Inkscape extensions directory (Inkscape/share/extensions/) not a subfolder, and it has the same title as ERC's (MI GRBL Z-AXIS Servo Controller). Note that it still has issues with the latest Inkscape (both 1.0 and 0.92) so Inkscape 0.91 r13725 should still be used.





this is a fantastic extension and thank you for spending your time making it. I've been using it and it saves me so much time.

what I've done is develop a pen mount for the ERC timsav that deploys using the same servo that runs the needle cutter z axis, its gear driven, and your extension really helps me take advantage of it.

what takes me a long time is developing a file, marking the draw files blue, deleting the rest and then offsetting the drawing the correct X, Y coordinates to get the pen to draw where I want.

now you have already done enough but I was hoping you could develop or help me develop a version of your muticut extension to include a blue line X and Y offset definition. this definition, I hope, will offset the carriage your desired amount, in MM, in both X and Y axis while performing a blue line "cut" while obeying the blue lines servo definition.

please if theres any information you can provide, on how I can do this, as i have no programming experience. thank you CapnBry
 

CapnBry

Elite member
I've updated my inkscape multicut gcode extension [link to 0.91 version] to work with Inkscape 1.1.2, as far as I can tell. It seems to work ok on the handful of files I've tried it on. It also no longer generates cuts for anything that isn't black, red, green, or blue (fully 100% color, not e.g. 'slightly blueish' or 'mostly blue').
 

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vhandon

Active member
I have had many failed attempts using the needle cutter. I cannot seem to keep the needle part from breaking. I think the wire I have chosen is a little too thick at .68mm. Just curious what everyone is using and having success with?
 
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HMS

New member
I have had many failed attempts using the needle cutter. I cannot seem to keep the needle part from breaking. I think the wire I have chosen is a little too thick at .68mm. Just curious what everyone is using and having success with?
Hi;
It broke once while cutting for me too. The wire I used was also 0.7 mm. I think the thick wires heat up between the bearings and break during movement. My guess solution is to center the wire very well. I'll try another cut and see the result.
 

HMS

New member
Hi;
I made a new cut today, the wire broke twice, I noticed that there was a heating caused by friction and a break as a result. Another reason for the problem could be that the wire diameter was 0.7mm. First of all, I removed the upper part of the wire guiding bearings and the cutting was done without any problems. I wanted to share it with the thought that it can be a solution for friends who use wire of the same thickness.
 

vhandon

Active member
Hi;
I made a new cut today, the wire broke twice, I noticed that there was a heating caused by friction and a break as a result. Another reason for the problem could be that the wire diameter was 0.7mm. First of all, I removed the upper part of the wire guiding bearings and the cutting was done without any problems. I wanted to share it with the thought that it can be a solution for friends who use wire of the same thickness.
I also noticed a lot of heat build up, even when using grease or oil for lubrication. I will try to remove the upper bearings. I did go ahead and order some thinner wire as well.
 
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HMS

New member
Hi; taht is the 5mm foamboard cutting samples.
 

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vhandon

Active member
Removing the top set of bearings did the trick. I have cut 5 full sheets so far without any issues. Enough to build the prototype of my latest design.
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HMS

New member
Üst yatak setini çıkarmak işi gördü. Şimdiye kadar herhangi bir sorun olmadan 5 tam sayfa kestim. En son tasarımımın prototipini oluşturmaya yetecek kadar.
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MERHABA;
Kesebildiğine sevindim. İyi uçuşlar dilerim.
 

Foamforce

Well-known member
Hey all, I’m interested in building one of these. Is this still a good choice, or are there others I should consider? I’m particularly concerned about needing to run the old .91 version of InkScape. Any thoughts?