Make Maslow4 Faster for Free

Happy Wednesday Everyone,

As promised JST-XH controller boards came back in stock last Thursday and they are still in stock now. This is a part that we plan to keep in stock permanently so no rush, but if you want to grab one they are there. As with everything we do we would love to hear feedback on your experience with them!

Projects

This week @Kyleschoen put together this gorgeous executed dog proof cat litter box:

@Andith did a very nice test engraving for a gift that he is making:

And @Tims continued his streak of awesome base patches to cut this week with two more great ones.

Don’t forget to cast your vote for the project of the week here.

We also did a couple projects ourselves this week while testing.

I made a shelf to go above my laundry machines which I think is a good example of a project that certainly could be done without using Maslow or a CNC router, but I think that it looks much nicer and fits better because I had the tool.

Anna made a tiny library this week and put together a short video about the build process. 

Automatic Probing to Set Z-axis Height

Setting the correct router bit length can be a hassle. This week in the forums @Andith asked about adding automatic Z-axis probing to set the tool length automatically. I said that it should already be supported with some changes to the configuration file (no firmware update needed) and Andith jumped right into figuring it out. Not only did Andith get it working, they posted a beautifully done write up with photos and illustrations documenting the process so that anyone else can do the same without needing to figure it out from scratch. Great work! You can read the forums post walking through the process here.

As far as I know this is the first use of the Aux connector that we added to make future add-ons like this possible which is super exciting.

Acceleration planning

@Andith’s work adding z-axis probing to the machine by changing the configuration in the maslow.yaml file got me thinking about what other features we could unlock by changing the settings there.

I decided to play around with increasing the acceleration profile setting and I found that it can make a significant difference in the cutting speed, especially when cutting complex shapes with a lot of small curves in them.

This is the setting that I changed for X and Y:

Here is a video showing the comparison between different acceleration profiles:

Over a long cut this could make a huge difference. We’ll need to do some testing to see how high we can push the acceleration before it has an impact on cut quality, but it seems like we can get some free speed with a little tuning there which is exciting

For anyone curious about the cut in the background it is some coroplast that I was test cutting to make a giant version of a crow skull for a Halloween prop. I bought the design off etsy or I would share the files.

Overall the material cut well, but with a lot of burs. Unfortunately when it came time to drill all the holes for the zip ties that I was planning to assemble the mask from the router bit gummed up so I think I’ll need to adjust my drilling speed or tweak something there.

That’s it for us this week, have a great week everyone!

-Bar (Anna is still out)