3D Printing / Digital Fabrication

[DMR]

I haven’t used the Shaper myself, butI believe that the person moves the router to generally the right place, and then the device mechanically adjusts internally according to the tracking strips to maintain precision.

[karst]

big fan of the shaper. I have some friends who use them professionally and I think it’s a brilliant option when compared to the cost & bulk of a gantry system. I have no doubts about the accuracy of the system they use, I’ve seen it do really (really) precise cuts.

it’s worth noting that it’s really limited to flat cuts (or vertical cuts using the workstation or a similar jig), so it’s not really a replacement for 3D milling/carving in any way. I think a given cut is limited to a given depth, so you can’t even vary depth slightly across a cut, so it’s much more like a standard router in that way.

if you’re typically cutting flat wood stock and want to do more complex shapes (or do extremely precise cutouts) then I think it’s the best tool available today. some people also do brass and aluminium milling with them as well, but it seems like those materials are a little less forgiving and it might not be the absolute best way to get super clean finishes.

[Nordseele]

Thanks for this review !

Glad to read that this machine is very precise and really used by professionals too (that it’s not only a marketing thing). Considering the price, I don’t want to buy a “toy” if I decide to get one someday.

Yes I’m more into cutting flat wood than 3d milling. The fact that its only limits are set by the “Shaper tape” and not by the size of a gantry system is a huge plus in my opinion. + all the other features like svg import, etc… I hope I can try one soon, now that’s it’s sold in Europe. I want to see if it’s as easy to use as it seems.

I’ve looked at all the projects posted in the “Shaper Hub”, many interesting things… The downside is the need to buy and stock the “domino tape” perhaps, but…

But I also would like to cut and engrave aluminum sometimes, Eurorack panels for example, if it’s not really good for that it’s a bit problematic but this downside might be compensated by all the great things already possible with wood.

[karst]

I think engraving would be a much safer bet, depending on what level of complexity you’re looking for. I wouldn’t rely on it for meaningful milling of metals, but if you’re taking a flat sheet of ~2mm thick aluminum and cutting a panel to size and then engraving on top of it, it should be able to handle that. it could also probably handle cutting holes in that panel as well (but maybe using a drill press would be cleaner, idk).

keep in mind that while gantry systems are limited by their size, the shaper can have some issues if you’re not careful on longer workspaces. there’s an involved scanning procedure and you need to work to get multiple perspectives on the workspace (defined by the shaper tape) and take care not to distort the tape when laying it down (or you’ll introduce drift across your intended cut).

all that said, if you’re careful you can work on entire 4x8 sheets of plywood and the cost difference between the shaper and a good 4x8 gantry system will buy you a lot of shaper tape.

I’ll also point out that the shaper doesn’t need shaper tape where it’s cutting, but it needs it around where it is cutting, so for smaller workspaces you can easily create jigs or borders that have shaper tape permanently applied and so long as the shaper has a good view of that tape it can orient itself. it’s a good way to save on tape and get working more quickly.

[Nordseele]

Great advice, thank you. Yes for the “Shaper tape”, it’s not really for the price of the roll, but I don’t want not to be able to use the machine if the tape is “out of stock”, it’s just a matter of stocking a few rolls I guess But if it is not cut during machining, it might be possible to create a fixed guide like you suggest or perhaps even re-use it if it is not damaged or distorted. I understand its critical importance in the process.

Regarding aluminum I will try to ask their sales department too, maybe they will agree to post a demo and we will see…

[karst]

I’ll also just point out that the official workstation would work great for any uniform sheet of aluminum of a reasonable size and you’d never need to use shaper tape at all.

[Nordseele]

Ah, good to know !
There’s something else I’m wondering: How much does it handle “human error”, prevents accidents etc ? The machine can “auto-correct” the exact position of the router, that’s its concept, but what happens if by accident I suddenly push the machine and the drill goes out of its path, way more than it can correct, of if it falls, does it stops spinning or ? Hehe, I probably need to watch all their tutorials. At the moment this hand-held CNC seems so “new“ and amazing to me that it also brings up a lot of questions ^^

[karst]

the machine moves the spindle within a given range, so it can only correct within that range. if it detects the machine moving outside of its ability to correct, it’ll retract the spindle and stop cutting.

now, I’ve never tested it, but I imagine that if you suddenly slip and push the machine way out of its path, there’s a tiny bit of lag in that retraction and you’d probably get a slightly messed up edge. the whole kit is decently heavy though, so it doesn’t seem like much of a risk most of the time.

now, if you’ve ever done a bunch of hardwood routing in a day, you know that pushing a router around for hours isn’t super fun and the experience with this thing is pretty similar (albeit with required razor focus compared to a totally freehand router). the shaper is also not the most powerful router, so a lot of people wind up using the shaper to create jigs for repetitive tasks that they can then use a higher-powered machine hand machine on.

[Nordseele]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate

@karst

the shaper is also not the most powerful router, so a lot of people wind up using the shaper to create jigs for repetitive tasks that they can then use a higher-powered machine hand machine on.

Oh yes, I really need to take this into consideration and find what I really want to do with a CNC, wether it’s occasional cuttings in plywood - MDF for creating custom studio furniture (like I did yesterday with more common tools) or more complex things like the projects displayed on the Shaper hub… I’ve never used a router but that’s an important point you’re mentioning here.

Sometimes I need some custom studio furniture like a stand to put my guitar pedals and other devices on, or a cables holder, I need a way to make it as fast as possible. But I also want to be able to prototype a Eurorack panel or create a sandwich enclosure for some small electronic device. I need to estimate the pros and cons.

@karst

if you suddenly slip and push the machine way out of its path, there’s a tiny bit of lag in that retraction and you’d probably get a slightly messed up edge.

You’re right, I’ve just watched a video in which they mention that too, at least it stops at some point They also mention that if you are not moving fast enough the edges of the wood will burn a little (like wood cut with a laser).

I guess I really need to try one of these machines to see if I’m comfortable working with it. Export from Illustrator or Fusion is something that will make my work easier but maybe I should also try to work with a small gantry CNC and understand the full “do and don’t” before ? I need to think about that.

[karst]

@Nordseele

custom studio furniture like a stand to put my guitar pedals and other devices on, or a cables holder, I need a way to make it as fast as possible. But I also want to be able to prototype a Eurorack panel or create a sandwich enclosure for some small electronic device.

see, this is where I think the shaper is pretty excellent. if production speed isn’t a big deal, it’s just about the best prototyping tool you could imagine. it can do some stuff just within onboard ui too, without resorting to to creating .svg files first (laying down basic shapes, tracing hand-drawn shapes, etc.) which is super unique compared to a normal gantry system.

it’s going to be good for things that aren’t too large or where speed isn’t a primary need or where you want to be able to change your mind part of the way through.

@Nordseele

They also mention that if you are not moving fast enough the edges of the wood will burn a little

this happens in a normal router, or a cnc, or really any cutter that spins. speeds and feeds is a big deal in this kind of work and while shoving the shaper around won’t be as precise as calculating an exact feed rate for your gantry cnc, it also doesn’t require calculating the exact feed rate for your gantry cnc, so I count that as a win.

[eblomquist]

Ive been wanting to find someone with access to a 3D printer to talk about designing a tool to turn knobs that are snarled in cabling or otherwise hard to turn with regular fingers…

I’ve got a few 2hp modules that have little knobs and are surrounded by other modules and cables which make it challenging to twist them. I’m thinking that it could be like a short pencil with a funnel-shaped opening at one end to put over the knob. The funnel could allow it to grab knobs of a small range of diameters.

This has got to be a pretty straightforward thing to make, or so I imagine. If done right it could even become a product of some kind… I can’t possibly be the only person who has wanted something like this…

Just throwing it out there in case anyone would be interested…

Thanks!

[Rodrigo]

Would be worth looking at some of the Teenage Engineering OP-1 accessories and/or guitar pedal solutions (WingMan).

[Rodrigo]

I had made a post earlier in the year asking about flexible mounts for cameras/mics in order to make a better holder/stand for my snare microphone. An important part of this is what I can take it on/off easily and quickly since this is basically an alternative to dangling it off one of the lugs of the mic. The idea here is that while it’s not in active use for friction/scratching playing, it’s somewhere kind of useful for sampling.

After some suggestions I ordered some 1/4" Loc-Line (well, ebay knockoffs) which sat on a shelf for a while, but I finally got around to making something with it.

It took quite a few designs and iterations before I arrived at this, but this holds in a super sturdy manner (the mount doesn’t move at all while adjusting the mic).

Checkit:

I wanted to prototype something that attached using only magnets, as I’m working on a revamp of all of my snare-mounted stuff and wanted to see how viable things were.

What you see there are 5mm diameter magnets that are 10mm(!) deep. The more shallow 2/3mm deep ones I had didn’t quite have enough strength. Having 8 of these is probably overkill, but better safe than sorry.

Here’s how it mounts onto the hoop:

I didn’t get the perfect radius, but I don’t think it matters here as it’s the two flat surfaces that really do the heavy lifting in terms of holding things.

And in context, it looks like this:

I ordered a multipack of the Loc-Line stuff, so I have tons of extra segments to play with, so I’ll play around with this for a while to see how many on want on there.

What’s really awesome is that Loc-Line has CAD models of all their products on their webpage, so in my first few iterations I modelled and printed some of the nubbins, but the friction was way too high with that. So what I’ve done here is cut bits off a segment and embedded/epoxied the corresponding parts in the base and mic clip.

[Rodrigo]

Back on a CNC tip. Is anyone getting their endmills from aliexpress (etc…)? I’m looking to get some 1/4" end mills to go with my Shapeoko3, but everything I seem to find on there is “6mm”, which is slightly smaller than 1/4" (6.35mm). So I’m wondering if that’s just used as an equivalency or these won’t work.

Also, if someone knows a decent place to get end mills in the EU, that’d be even better. I’m mainly looking for a 1/4" Ball Nose endmill (ala the Carbide #202) and a 1/2" V-Bit cutter (ala the Carbide #301).

[Rodrigo]

@Rodrigo

Back on a CNC tip. Is anyone getting their endmills from aliexpress (etc…)? I’m looking to get some 1/4" end mills to go with my Shapeoko3, but everything I seem to find on there is “6mm”, which is slightly smaller than 1/4" (6.35mm). So I’m wondering if that’s just used as an equivalency or these won’t work.

I ended up asking on the Carbide3d forum and was told that you can’t use a 6mm bit in a 1/4" collet. Was good to know!

On a more 3d printed front, I did some testing for the position and placement of the DPA 4060 I normally sample my snare with.

I normally use the included magnetic clamp and stick in on a lug of a drum so it’s kind of pointing “up”, figuring it didn’t matter cuz it’s an omni. To test that I recorded some examples of it aiming more directly at the center of the snare, and holy moly does it make a huge difference!

So after some measurements and loads of iterations came up with a mount that centers the DPA on top of my Sensory Percussion sensor, which is great as it makes all the “pickup” stuff more compact on the snare. And it looks kind of cool in an alien sort-of way.

It’s a bit niche, but I posted it on Thingiverse in case anyone wants to print one out.

[Demure]

Any specific reason you want to stick with imperial endmills rather than changing collets? Sounds like a headache for designing parts if you’re not bound to it. Not knowing the Shapeoko machines this might not be useful info, but most collets will have a clamping range that should allow such a difference (i.e. ER25 collets generally have a 1mm clamping range between min / max).

[Rodrigo]

I’m gonna change collets now. Rather, I’m gonna get some extra collets.

All the mills I have now have 1/4" (or 1/8") shanks, so don’t want to get rid of those. Though I imagine they will eventually break/dull.

I have read that as well, about tolerances since 6mm and 6.35mm isn’t too big, but from what they have said on the Shapeoko forum, the runout is a bit shit, and it can be a bit risky at 10k+ rpm.

[frankchannel]

Another year, another set of 3d printed cake toppers:

[karst]

does anyone have a go-to free (or just non-subscription) program for making technical drawings (either from a 3D model or from a .dxf/.dwg)? just need something simple, but my non-commercial license of Fusion decided that feature was behind a paywall after using it a few times.

hoping there’s some simple tool for this.

[Rodrigo]

I got tired of the little dinky hooks that came with my VEBEROD so I designed some longer/bigger proper cable hooks.

IKEA VEBEROD Cable Hanger by kriista

Night and day transformation I have to say. Before I struggled getting even a couple cables per hook and used both sides, plus the bottom bits to hold stuff. Now there’s room to spare!