Removing the power spindle and replacing it with the drag knife attachment is as easy as loosing and tightening a single screw. The attachment has a nylon end cap with a hole in the center that houses the very fine drag knife. This knife is supported by a small swivel bearing for very smooth and precise operation.It simply slides into place and is held by the bearing.

(Above) Here’s the UCCNC program dashboard with the “MAN” drag knife tool path preview in the upper left corner.

To operate the system as a vinyl cutter, all you have to do is setup the UCCNC drive control program just like you would to run an end mill. You create the job with a program that produces the required G-code, (I used V-Carve Pro), and input the proper dimensions and setting for the job. Since the attachment is spring loaded, this requires a cut depth of about 2 to 3mm (1/8 inch), so when the knife is cutting the CNC lowers the tool slightly to keep it under spring tension. You input the g-code as you would for all jobs, then zero all the axis and enter the new job zero position. Next the Z axis is set so the knife just touches the top of your vinyl material.

Before you install the attachment in the tool holder, you first have to set the knife cut depth and this is easily done with the top indicator dial. Install the knife in the end of the attachment, and adjust the dial so the blade just barely protrudes from the plastic end cap. You can check the depth of cut by pushing the attachment gently on top of a piece of test vinyl and drag it. Inspect the vinyl and see if it has been cut. If the knife cuts all the way through the paper backing, you have to retract the knife for a shallower cut. When properly adjusted the drag knife will cleanly cut through the vinyl but will only crease the paper backing.

I made a simply “MAN” job and produced the g-code for the job, I then taped a piece of stick-on vinyl to the work surface with some blue painter’s tape.

To zero out the Z-axis I moved the cutter over the middle of the test material and used a piece of paper while lowering drag knife manually until it just touched the paper.

When I ran the job cycle, it took  less than a minute to complete the job. I then used a hobby knife to “weed” away the waster material leaving my letters cleanly cut and attached to the backing paper.

If you ever wanted a custom vinyl cutting machine, the Stepcraft CNC desktop system does a great job for any size letters or designs you care to make, (within the limits of the size CNC system you have. Give it a try, you can make all sorts of custom airplane markings, signage, decals, etc. Your imagination is your only limit.

To apply the new vinyl letters to you model, all you have to do is use a strip of tape to lift them off the backing paper and position them on the model.

Here the “MAN” graphics have been applied to the Sonic model. Suitable vinyl stick-on material is available online on Amazon and craft stores like Michaels.

The post Cutting Vinyl — Make Custom RC Vinyl Letters appeared first on Model Airplane News.

Today, there are several free downloadable CAD programs and several trial use CAD programs. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to see if you like it.

Let’s get started:

Be careful! CAD can become an entirely new hobby in itself!

There are several reasonably priced CAD programs intended specifically for modelers looking to start playing with the design and drawing program. Also, there are “Lite” programs you can download from the web to get started.

I have been using Ashlar’s Graphite CAD program ever since it was first introduced. The program is in my opinion, the easiest and quickest CAD program to learn. I have designed many RC airplanes using Graphite and I am now using version 9.

Graphite is now available as a “Cloud” download program which you can pay for monthly from: http://ashlar.com/2d-3d-drafting/2d-3d-cad-graphite.html.

This CAD Kaos was the first design that I traced into CAD. I then simplifed and added modern hardware to the design. It turned out to be a great flying airplane just like the original Kaos 60.

When it comes to scale airplanes, CAD allows you to duplicate any airplane there is. Just start with simple designs and work your way up to more complicated ones.

Depending on the program you use, you can import, Bitmap, Tiff, JPG or other type of image file.

The other way to produce drawings, is to take direct measurements of the things you want to draw.

For the development of plans where you trace an existing airplane drawing, there are some rules I made that make the job a lot easier.

Learning what your program has to offer is also a first step to using it efficently.

The tools are found in the on-screen tool bar and the pull-down menu windows.

After developing your front, side and top views of your model, you have to make sure they are all to scale with each other. This is important before you start developing the plans’ details and add the spars, formers, ribs etc.

This is a section of a Wylam drawing of a P-40 Warhawk that I scanned and imported  into my program. See below to see the steps in developing the model’s wing.

Instead of using a freehand “spline Line tool” try to use the tool bar tools to develop the various shapes of the wing’s outline and basic details.

Starting to look like something!

Now make a mirror image, flip it around and add it to this one and you have a complete wing plan.

Don’t try to draw the ribs freehand. Just download the airfoils you need and add to your CAD File.

Just like everything else, you develop the ribs starting from the outside of the basic airfoil shape and working inward in steps.

You can also loft ribs if you want to develop your wing with a progressive airfoil shape that changes from the root to the tip. Start with the wing planform, and the rib placement. Make sure the ribs are spaced evenly. The stack the airfoils and divide into a number of stations.

Connect the station lines from the tip to the root rib. Then divide these lines by the number of the ribs you want. If you want 10 ribs, then divide the lines into to 10 equal sections.

Using the spline tool, connect the dots and you develop the individual ribs. Start from the rear end point and work forward on the rib to the leading edge. Remove the station and projection lines and you have the ribs above.

Here’s the wing planform and the ribs. Now you would work inward and add the notches for the spars and the other details like the wing skin and dihedral braces, trailing edges leading edges, etc.

The same basic technique is used to develop fuselage formers.

It’s a lot of work but in the end, you have perfectly fitting parts.

Print the parts out, paste them to your wood and start cutting!

Lofting formers is exactly like lofting ribs. The same techniques apply.

So you don’t want to cut the parts out yourself? that’s fine, send the CAD file out and have someone laser cut the parts out for you.

These parts were designed specifically for producing laser cut parts that interlock and form simplified model structures that are strong and lightweight. Often they are self aligning.

Break out the CA glue and kicker!

After designing and building your model, you can still use your CAD program to do other things like figureing out where the CG should go.

It’s all easy if you know what to do. The CAD program helps a lot.

Also, the side view technique for developing the placement of your CG is easy.

Got the weight of your finished model? Great, with the CAD program you can quickly find the wing area so you can figure out what the wing loading will be.

The post CAD Design for Modelers appeared first on Model Airplane News.

The kit comes complete in one larger box and it contains everything you need to build the machine.

Lets take a closer look.

All the well packaged parts are German-made and they are of the highest quality.The system when fully assembled and running is well suited for producing all sorts of model aircraft parts with the highest quality and tolerances. The 2/420 along with its optional accessories, is perfect for making parts from wood (balsa, lite-ply, plywood and other hardwoods), various plastics and foam such as polystyrene, Styrofoam, EPS, Depron, Selitron, ABS, polyethylene, polypropylene (EPP), PVC, Lexan, Polyamide, Plexiglas, as well as fiberglass and Carbon Fiber sheet material. It is also perfectly suited for machining non-ferrous metals like aluminum, brass and copper.

All the parts and pieces required except for the spindle (power head) are included. Being a 3D milling machine, the system includes all the moving parts for the X, Y, and Z axis gantries including stepping motors, lead screws, and precision-machined tracks made from extruded aluminum channel. All the hardware is top notch and includes all the screws, nuts, washers, bearings, bushings and track rollers. The frame panels, gantry uprights and the end plates are all made of thick, powered-coated aluminum and all the fastener holes come machined into the parts. All the electronics including the main control circuit board, limit switches and wire harnesses are also part of the package. The main work surface is made from 3/8-inch laminated medium-density fiberboard (MDF) which slides easily into place for quick replacement.

There’s no soldering required and all the wiring easily plugs into place on the main control board which screws into place.

All Stepcraft CNC systems come with the required “CNCDrive” motion control program on a CD, as well as a nicely-illustrated assembly manual. The manual shows every step in detail and calls out all of the required parts and hardware for each task. Stepcraft also provides online tutorial videos which are divided into separate steps corresponding with those in the printed assembly manual.

Combining all of this with the company’s excellent Connecticut-based customer service makes putting together one of the Stepcraft kits very easy. In total, I was able to build the 2/420 desktop CNC system in about 8 to 10 hours, but I was also taking photos along the way. The tasks for the assembly are made very easy as the instructions are very well illustrated and all the hardware and parts are well identified and easy to find as everything is well packaged. The instruction booklet also identifies every single piece in the first 6 pages so you see what each piece is and where it goes.

The frames, end plates, guide tracks and the stepping motors all fit together amazingly well and there are only a hand full of tools required.

Being a 3-axis milling system, there are three stepping motors, one for each axis. The frames, end plates and gantry uprights are sturdy machined aluminum that comes powered coated for protection.

The lead screws that are attached to each motor are precision made and they mate to the lead screw nuts that are attached to each moving part.

The Tracks are made from precision-made extruded aluminum and they provide smooth travel.

The first part you assemble is this Z-X Combination plate which supports the vertical Z-axis track and connects it to the X-axis cross track.

Here is the vertical Z-axis track and stepping motor attached to the X-axis cross track.

Spindle Choices

Shown on the Stepcraft website, there are several choices for spindles that you can ordered with the 2/420 system. For this review I chose the Kress 800W spindle. Priced at $309.00 the Kress 800 FME is a milling and grinding motor with full wave electronics providing consistent power and speed control. It has a soft start-up and start-current limitation, carbon brushes and a stainless steel motor flange with dual bearing for high speed milling performance. Other spindle choices are the Dremel 4000, Dewalt DWP611 Trim Router, and the 500 watt Stepcraft HF-500  brushless DC spindle. When you order your spindle, the kit comes with the proper tool holder bracket to fit your spindle of choice.

What to do with the Stepcraft CNC?

We will be continuing to add posts to the MAN website with additional information and photos on the assembly of the kit and the use of the CNC desktop system. I will be producing RC airplane parts from plywood, carbon fiber and G-10 filled Fiberglass Glass sheet material, including step by step details for using the required software to produce the tools paths and making the G-code to operate the system.

The post Desktop CNC — DIY System for RC Modelers appeared first on Model Airplane News.

The gear is driven with its own driver unit and everything is plug-n-play. The gear cab work with anything between 4.8V and 9V but for reliable operation you should keep the battery voltage close to the upper end of the range. For convenience, Robart also sells a voltage regulator that delivers 9V and it can take up to 25V or input power. I will be using a 11.1V 3S Lipo pack to supply power the egulator. The driver can be powered directly from the receiver or with an aux. battery pack as I am doing.

Here early in the construction of the Skyraider wing, the gear, along with a 4-inch Top Flite Corsair style wheel, is placed over the plans. This showed whether the gear would clear the main wing spar, which it does. But it also showed that the 148E set was wider than the reduced gear drawing on the wing top view. This showed that we would have to adjust the rib spacing while building the wing.

So with the ribs glued in place and adjusted for the dihedral angle, so the gear struts would end up square to the ground, I made the mounting rails by laminating three layers of 1/4 inch birch plywood. Note that the rails have to be trimmed to clear various bolt heads that protrude from the gear’s trunion frame.

Here you see the wheel well areas on the sheeted wing and the rails glued in place. Note that I have added 1/8 inch thick plywood strips to the rails so the top of the gear frames would clear the wing’s top sheeting. Also not that where the wing’s main spar has been trimmed away to clear the gear strut, I added a 1/4 inch doubler to reinforce the area.

Here the gear has been placed on the rails and the clearances have been checked. it is also important to make sure the gear frame attachment tabs lay flat on the two rails. If they do not and you screw the gear into place, you can tweak the frame and cause the mechanics to bind.

Here the gear has been installed. I marked the rails through the attachment holes and I drilled 1/8 inch holes all the way through the rails. I then used 6-32 x 1-inch-long pan head sheet metal screws to secure the gear.

Powering up the gear individually I retracted the gear and checked the clearance around every possible contact point. Gear doors will be added after the Skyraider has been test flown.

With the wing and landing gear installed, the Skyraider finally is now standing up on its feet! A milestone moment for any model.

Here you see the gear in the down position. Note that the gear struts are 90 degrees to the ground and are parallel to each other. The two black set screws on the axle support fittings are used to adjust and lock in the wheel/axle toe-in angle. This is very easy to do once the gear have been installed. Once you dial in the toe-in angle, use a drop of Zap Thread Lock to prevent the set screws from becoming loose.

So that’s it for now. Lots more to come so stayed tuned!

The post Warbird Retracts Installation appeared first on Model Airplane News.

Getting Started

After your model has been covered. Tape a sheet of paper over the area where you will apply a plywood panel. Use a pencil and lightly trace the outer edges as show above. I use tape to define edged that are not as sharp. Here’s the top aft panel that’s just aft of the cockpit opening. It was used to cover the fuel tanks in the full size aeroplane.

Here’s one of the two side panels. it is done in the same way.

I start with 1/64 inch plywood sheets from the hobby shop and I use a spray adhesive to lightly tack the paper template onto the plywood sheet. You can use a shape pair of scissors to cleanly cut the panel to size. I then rub on some MinWax stain and let it set for a few hours. My panels are stained with Red Maple stain using a cloth to rub on two coats of the stain. After the stain has dried, I spray on 2 to 3 light coats of fast drying MinWax acrylic gloss clear. I use a green Scott pad between coats to smooth the finish.

While the stain and clear coat dry, the plywood panel tend to bend in the desired direction making them easier to apply. Yes, I still have to cut the gas cap openings in this panel. I should have done that before staining.

After cutting the two 1 inch diameter openings in the gas tank panel, I applied these bits of aluminum tape to the model.

When the panel is glued into place, this is what it will look like. The caps still have to be made.

Mark off the area where the panel will be placed and apply a coat of WeldWood contact cement from DAP. Where you want a straight edge, place some tape, apply the cement and remove the tape right away.

Apply a coat to the underside of the panel and allow the cement on the model and the panel to set for 15 minutes. Then carefully align the panel edges and firmly press the panel into place. Be very careful, if you get the placement wrong, removal of the panel is almost impossible. It will be badly damaged if you try to pry it off of the model.

I start with the top aft gas panel and then I do the side panels. This way you can align the top edges of the side panels for straight tight seems. The panel around and over the cockpit, was already glued into place when I was building the cockpit hatch cover. All the other panels butt up against its edges.

Here’s the top aft gas tank panel is glued into place.

The areas forward of these plywood panels will be covered with metal, (or metal looking), panels which are next in this ongoing project. If you get any contact cement smears you can remove them easily with products like Goo Gone or Crayon remover from the hardware store.

And here is the finished top aft gas tank panel, with some details added like the cockpit combing and the petrol gas caps and decals, the finished Sopwith Camel looks great!

The decals by the way are from Cal-Grafx.com

The post Scale WW I Finishing Techniques — Applying Plywood Panels appeared first on Model Airplane News.

I use a HVLP (High Volume, Low Pressure) paint gun as it produces much less over-spray and provides a wide range of control for the amount of paint and air being mixed together and applied to the model. The best solvent to use for cleaning your equipment is Acetone. I also use chemical blocking hand cream while using the paint and solvent. And of course, you should have good ventilation in your shop and wear a replaceable filter cartridge painting mask.

The first step is to apply  the Poly Brush sealer coat to the fabric covering. You can use a brush or spray it and it takes between 2 and 4 coats to provide a smooth base for your paint job. The more coats you use, the smoother your finish will be.

Next comes the Poly Spray Silver undercoat. It is very heavily pigmented with aluminum powder and needs to be completely mixed and reduced before spraying with your gun. It is best to use a wood dowel to stir up the settled pigment from the bottom of the can.

Here’s the fuselage with two coats of silver applied. The tail surfaces and the wings are next.

Here are the tail surfaces with silver undercoat, hung up to dry between coats.

For the larger surfaces I shoot them with paint while horizontal blocked up on my work/paint table. I go over all the edges first and then apply paint to the rib tapes. I then fill in one coat with span-wise coats followed by chord-wise coats. I apply two coats of each color with about an hour drying time between each application.

Here’s the light underside buff tan color applied to the wing panels.

Same technique goes for all the other surfaces, the stabilizer and elevators, rudder, fin and all four ailerons. Also the tan color is applied to the fuselage bottom surface.

I let the first color dry over night and then I add the top surface color. In this case the vintage Sopwith brown color, which is I think more attractive than the olive green color you see so much used on Sopwith airplanes.

It is always important to have good ventilation and here’s my quicky setup. It works great in keeping the over-spray and fumes from building up in my basement!

For the fin and rudder, I used Juneau white which is a slightly darker white, or a very light shade of gray. In fact, one of the reasons I love using the Poly Tone brand of paint is that it has a fantastic shelf life, if you seal the cans properly. I bought this white paint for a Stearman project I did back in 1996! It’s still works great.

So here it is, all the cloth covered surfaces have been sealed and painted. I think the brown is a striking color for the Camel and will be very attractive when the graphics and decals are applied

Here are a could of photos of a Camel with the brown base color paint scheme.

Complete Camel ready to fly.

The post Painting Fabric Covered Models appeared first on Model Airplane News.

Scale Stits and the Poly Fiber covering system is designed to work together to produce an easy to apply and durable fabric covered finish.

The most important things for a great finish a clean work surface and sharp X-Acto blades.

See the How To videos below.

Video How To Part 1.

Video How To Part 2

Editor’s Note: MEK is no longer available so an acceptable replacement is Acetone solvent.

The post Video How To: Fabric Covering RC Planes appeared first on Model Airplane News.

Sand all the wing ribs, spars, attachment plates, wing tips etc., smooth and then clean up any dust.

All of the Stits Lite and Poly Tone paint and sealers part of the Poly Fiber system used for full-size aircraft and are formulated to work together for both a mechanical as well as a chemical bond.

The big secret for a good looking covering job is to make straight and precise seams and overlaps. To do this you need to replace your X-Acto blade often as they dull quickly while cutting through the fabric.

Start by applying a coat of Poly Tak adhesive all around the outer edges of the wing panel and let dry. Now cut the fabric to the rough size for the part. I make it about an inch oversize all the way around. Be sure to have a clean work surface. I use drafting vellum as I have a large supply of it.

Center the fabric over the wing panel and then use cloth pins to clamp it in place. This prevents the fabric from moving and exposing an edge while working the cloth into place.

To seal the fabric into place, remove a cloth pin, fold the fabric over and apply another coat of glue to the edge. Then quickly pull the fabric into place and work it into the wet adhesive while pulling it tight to remove any wrinkles. Rub it down with your fingers until the glue has dried. Here you see the wing tip. You should work about 6 inches at a time and then when the fabric is bonded and smoothed into place, move to the opposite end of the panel and repeat the process. Then glue don the fabric along the edges a section at a time, all the while pulling the fabric free of wrinkles. Work your way all around the wing panel until all the edges are glued down.

Here you see the wing panel with all the edges bonded down. For a neat appearance I apply another coat of glue to underside of the fabric along the edges and then trim the access away. I then press the fabric down while the glue is still wet to seal it down. Straight neat edges give the model a professional neat appearance.

Here is a close up of the edge along the aileron cutout area. Before covering the underside of the panel, I use the covering iron set at 225 Degrees F. to seal and press the edges down completely. Then the whole process is repeated for the second side.

Here is the hatch opening for the aileron servo. It too must be sealed down tightly before cutting the area open. A trick here is to brush MEK through the fabric (after it has been shrunk tight), to reactivate the adhesive around the opening. Then use your fingers to smooth the fabric down into place until the gue dries again.

Here is the underside of the wing tip. Note there are no wrinkles and the fabric has been sealed down and smoothed into place along the outer edge. No heat has been applied yet.

Here’s the completed wing panel. Note there are no wrinkles. You have to remove all the wrinkles before shrinking the fabric tight with your covering iron. If you try to remove wrinkles with heat, the fabric will loosen after it has been painted and finished.

That’s it. Now repeat the process for the rest of your wing panels and it will be time to add rib stitching and tapes and then sealing the fabric making it ready for paint and finish.

The post Covering Wings in Fabric appeared first on Model Airplane News.

Adverse yaw causes your model’s nose to turn in the opposite direction of your aileron input. When you move the ailerons to the left, the model’s nose will turn to the right causing your model to skid. This is caused because the drag caused by the downward moving aileron is greater than that of the upward moving aileron. Ideally you can setup aileron differential where the ailerons move more upward than they do downward, but this requires two seperate aileron servos. If your model uses a single aileron servo, you can correct for the imbalance of wing drag by mixing the ailerons and rudder together. Today, most RC radios have this function and it is very easy to do.

To activate the mix, go into your mixing program and find the your “aileron-rudder” mix and activate it. initially it will be in the inhibit configuration. The next step is to assign a switch to your mix. I use the “Mix” switch on my Spektrum DX18 but you can choose what ever switch you prefer. For your initial setting percentage, you’ll first have to fly your airplane and see how much adverse yaw you plane demonstrates. If it has a lot and the nose pins itself way out of the turn, set your mix to 40 to 50% if there is only a slight amount then start with 20 to 30%. For my Sopwith Camel, I was pleased with the results at 25%.

You want the mix response to follow the ailerons. Right aileron makes the rudder move right and left aileron moves the rudder to the left. Now go out and fly your plane with the mix switch off. Go to a safe altitude and fly the plane away from you so you can see how it reacts. Switch the mix on and move the aileron stick to the right. If the nose moves to the left you still need to increase the mix amount. Try adding left aileron and see what happens. Sometimes the amount of yaw may differ because of the engine torque. Switch the mix off and land your plane. Readjust your mix percent and try again. You are looking for the amount of aileron to rudder mix that causes your model to roll axially with little to no unwanted nose movement. Once you find this sweet spot, you will notice that your model is a lot easier to fly and control.

Have fun and if you are unsure about how to go about adjusting the mix, as an experienced RC pilot to help.

Cheers

GY.

Featured as a construction article in the December 2015 issue of MAN, you can download the Sopwith Camel construction article at: www.modelairplanenews.com/plans

The post Aileron to Rudder Mixing — Eliminating Adverse Yaw appeared first on Model Airplane News.

In a nutshell, you have to tell your CNC how thick the material is so you can enter the data for the proper depth of cut. After you “Home” all three axis, you bring the spindle to the desired job start position, but before you hit the “Zero All” button, you’ll need to bring the tool bit down until it just barely touches the top of your job material. Typically you do this manually by lowering the Z-axis and placing a piece of paper on top of the material. The paper acts as a gauge so as you lower the tool, (after selecting a very slow plunge feed rate), you move the paper back and forth until you can feel the tool bit just contacting the paper. This is very time consuming and really isn’t the best for accuracy.

Tool Length Sensor to the Rescue

Stepcraft offers a Tool Length Sensor which you can order from their website. It greatly improves the whole tool depth setup process. Also, instructions are available for installing the sensor and to make the required wiring connections, of which there are only two!

Installation

Start by placing the CNC on its side then remove the bottom cover plate to expose the control board. The sensor cable is inserted into a hole in the rear end plate and you bring the two wire ends around to top of the board.

(Above) Here the sensor cord has been inserted through the hole in CNC’s the back plate.

All the various stepping motor power wires and the wires for the limit stop switches are installed in the power bus on the right side of the board. There are only two open connectors left and the two wires from the sensor cable go there. (See at the right that the black and white wires are secured to the power bus connectors). Since the sensor is basically another limit stop switch, it doesn’t matter which wire goes into which connector. Just make sure they are snug and tightly inserted.

The next thing to do is to secure the cord with a couple of cable ties so the wire connections are free of any stress. I secured the cord to the the board’s standoffs and snipped the tails off. I also added another cable tie to the cord right where it exits the back plate. This helps prevent it from being pulled out. Once this is all done, just reinstall the cover plate and the hardware part of the installation is done.

Programming

The next part is to download the new program needed to control the operation of the tool length sensor. Go to the stepcraft.us website and then, under the Support tab, click on the FAQs.

Here you will find a list of several Q&As including one that is for Installing and Setting up the Tool Length Sensor. This page has all the information needed to install the sensor and spells out the procedure. It also has a link for the new Macro (M31) that needs to be downloaded and copied into your CNC’s program folder, (in your PC’s operating system). The instructions are very clear and guides you step by step from start to finish.

Shown here is the PC’s macro folder with the required .txt file (highlighted), that needs to be replaced.  Depending on when you purchased your Stepcraft CNC, some of the files may be outdated and so, you can now download a newer CNC operating program that includes all of the needed files for your CNC system to work properly without having to do any of the Macro file downloading and replacement. This was the case for my system, so all I had to do was call Customer Service and they quickly had me downloading the new operating program and guided me during the installation. Very cool!

How it works

So to use to the tool depth sensor, all you have to do is install the tool bit you are going to use, and  “Home” all the axis using the Red “Home All” button. Load your work tool path file then move the tool bit to the required job start position. Place the job material on the work space and secure it in place with the clamp bars.

Once this has been done, hit the Blue “Zero All” button then place the sensor under the tool bit. Now press  the tool length sensor icon button which is shown in the yellow highlighted box. (See at left).

Shown here is the sensor placed directly under the tool bit, on the work space for the test. Once your hit the tool sensor icon button, the Z-Axis will lower the tool until it comes in contact with the sensor’s top button. The tool will then retract upward slightly and will lower again at a much slower rate until it contacts the sensor button once again. Once this is done, the tool bracket retracts so the tool bit and spindle are at the idle position. Now hit the “Go to Zero” button to the right of the tool sensor icon button. The spindle with then lower the bit until it is just above the work piece. Hit the “Z Zero” button. The CNC system now know exactly where the tool bit is relative to the top of your job material, and you can now start up the spindle motor and run your tool path file.

Compare to the feeler gauge paper routine, using the tool length sensor is much more accurate and a whole lot quicker when it comes to setting up the Z-axis tool starting point. If you buy nothing else for your CNC system, this accessory is an absolute must-have investment. I highly recommend it.

Other operations

The tool length sensor is also a required item should you want to install a multiple tool holder / automatic tool changer to your system. Since each of the various tools will have different tool depths, the sensor is indispensable for proper tool setup.

Stepcraft.us

The post Must-Have CNC Accessory — Stepcraft’s Tool Length Sensor appeared first on Model Airplane News.