Simple tool and bit holder for my Longmill

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Now that I’ve been able to get the Longmill dialed in, and I’ve gotten through most of the learning curve for all the software, I’m starting to actually make some useful things for the shop. Late last night I sat down with V-carve Pro and started designing a very simple tool and bit holder for all the tools and bits I’ve had laying on the router table. Then I threw a piece of MDF on the table and hit start. After it finished cutting on the CNC, I carried it over to my laser and labeled everything. This was both an exercise in learning if I understand things, and also seeing just how much tweaking is really necessary after putting in measurements.

I’m curious to hear from those of you with more experience. When you take a picture of something and then import the bitmap, after creating the outline of the object, how much do you add to your measurements to make things fit in a pocket? For example, you import an image of a wrench. You measure the length of the wrench and see that it measures 7.25". If you input that into your size of that vector, it’s too tight for the wrench to fit in. So how much, on average, do y’all find you have to add to a dimension to make an item fit nicely into a pocket?

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That’s a nifty use of your equipment.

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Hi Cmorrowk,

I like that inlay. I have to do something like that sometime. On your question about fitting, I like to keep the pocket tight and do a fit to see what is needed to make things work.

When I have a tight fit, I run a profile on the inside of the toolpath with the same bit used to make the pocket. If that didn’t make enough room, I went into the bit settings inside the profile toolpath and edited the bit diameter a little smaller than it actually is to shave off a hair or two. Fit and repeat until you are satisfied.

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If you need another, you can calculate the actual size the pocket needs to be. But I usually don’t bother because I use this method for single-use projects, and it’s not really time-consuming to do a few shaving profiles.

Again, nice work, and I am curious about what laser unit you use.

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Thanks for the advice! I’ll try that. As for the laser, I’m using a creality Falcon 2 40W laser. It is awesome. It will engrave almost anything and can cut through a freakin 2x4!