Just new to Carveco Maker and want to add this Sienci tapered ball mill:
I’ve selected the Tool Type “Radiused Engraving” in Maker as it seems to have the necessary specs for something tapered like that… but I’m not entirely sure I have the specs right, particularly the Half Angle and Tip Radius… Any help would be much appreciated!
I just entered a bit just like that not too long ago. Let me check on something and I get back to you.
Edit: okay I’m still new to this and don’t remember off the top of my head.
Here is what I put in for 1/16 tapered bit. Maybe as a reference, it will help some…?
By the way, this is assuming I did it right 
I believe the half-angle is 3.65
Ah ya, looks like about the same bit. I did half of the 3.65 angle, which gives me the proper flute length (which is a calculated value)… well i guess I’ll just have to carve something and see how it goes!
scratch that… I think you’re right, my flute/cutting length was twice as long 
@jason.shoes One thing you may want to look at Jason, is your stepover. You have it set to 5%. The tip of that bit is .031" (.78mm) in diameter. At a stepover of 5%, the bit will step 1.5 thousandths of an inch (.04mm) each pass. You will get an incredibly fine finish but it will take forever if the job is of any size at all. I use that bit a lot and get very good results from a 20% stepover. I suspect even that is overkill. YMMV of course.
Yes good catch! I will bump that up for sure.
Another question… there are a zillion machine types under file format (when you save out the gcode), any recos on which one to use for the longmill?
@jason.shoes grbl inch or grbl mm.
What sort of result do you shoot for with that bit? I’m doing a fairly complex model (see below) it doesn’t seem practical to try and do finishing sanding on it… i tested on pine and its got some pretty rough/fuzzy areas that would be really difficult to clean up. I’ll be using something more hard/dense for finished piece though.
@jason.shoes What size will it be? Looking at it, I would use at least two bits for it, one for roughing and one for finishing. Maybe even three bits.
You can get very fine detail with that bit. While I use mine quite a bit, I do as much or more with a 1/16" ball nose. I don’t know anything about Carveco, but it seems to be much like VCarve. If so, you can do 3D previews to see how it looks. If it is not as sharp as you would like, you can play with other bits, or other modelling resolutions. I tend to do test runs of models in foam. It cuts better than pine or fir, it’s cheap, and it’s easy on bits. You can get very fine details in foam, too.
The one I’m working on won’t be that large, 6-8" wide. I’ve done a roughing pass with a 1/4" endmill to hog out a bunch of the material.
Great idea with the foam, I guess you’d use that high density insulation stuff?
What 1/16" ball mill do you use? The problem I see is that even on small carvings, i seem to need a fair bit of depth… the floor on this one is about 30mm from the top, seems a shorter small bit won’t get down that far without hitting the collet?
Side note: my test went great except for 2 lines on the X and 1 on the Y (green arrows). I used Kiri Moto and Gsender, there was nothing to indicate those rouge cuts…
