Last weekend I replaced my Shapeoko Pro with a Shapeoko 5 Pro as my home garage wood carving machine. Along with this upgrade, I also installed our 80mm spindle mount and ATC System. This is a really cool setup even if I do say so myself.
Aside from the front-cover circuit board failure preventing my BitZero from working properly… a quickly shipped replacement from Carbide solved that nicely.
This carving is using the following equipment in case you’re interested in recreating:
Shapeoko 5 Pro 4x2
80mm Mount and S5P Adapter plate
California Air 8gal air compressor
CW-3000 Chiller
PwnCNC’s 110v ATC System (includes 4 tool-holders and 6 bits from 3 manufacturers)
2 additional tool-holders along with 2 1/4" er20 collets
IoT power strip to trigger my Fein turbo 1 shopvac
80mm Sweepy v2
PwnCNC’s Fein to Sweepy adapter
Small dell desktop computer
I used my laptop and CarveCo to design the cut. I decided to use the included Beast bit from IDC for the roughing pass, the fine TBN bit from SkyOne, and lastly the Downtown Jenny from Cody for the final cutout.
The carving itself of the framed eagle i purchased off an Etsy designer.
The initial roughing pass took agout 5min while the TBN portion is the longest at 9hr. I’m certain there are ways I can tweak this if I were going to do this carve regularly.
Absolutely it is.
I’ve got the 80mm spindle mount video, and the Installation video already recorded. I’m half way through recording an MTC Carving video this weekend.
Jeff is working on editing them now.
That older S5P 4x4 was an earlier release compared to this S5P 4x2 i picked up beginning of year. i’m seeing no dropping at all. Not even a mm… it’s is solid.
Man that’s great. I just got my 80mm spindle in the mail today and idk if the 4 pole metalworking variant weighs more, but mine just plummets to the bottom when turned off. Is there an upgrade or something I can do to help it?
The “dropping” happened to me on my older S5P 4x4 with just a standard 80mm water-cooled spindle motor.
This was a “major” issue with Onefinity machines and their solution was to release a Z stepper motor with a built-in brake. When powered, the brake is disengaged but when power is removed, the brake engages.
I havent’ seen a similar solution for shapeoko people though. ATM the best advise is to put a small block of wood under the spindle prior to shutting down your machine. This way the spindle has less Z travel required during homing.
Ok, well thank you so much for the quick reply. I can’t wait to get it up and running! Also, I can’t wait for your Masso touch S5P. I’ll be following closely because I want the same thing for mine. Great machine but rather limited by the controller.
We’re still debating on if we’ll have various levels of the upgrade. Like Controller only, in which case i’d want it as plug-n-play with these horrible molex connectors as possible. Or if we’ll take it farther and have a closed-loop steppers and basically replace all the wiring with properly shielded cables with nice aircraft connectors everywhere.
I already have the Masso Touch controller. Trying to record as much as i can with this vanilla machine before making changes to it.
The wooden block is an idea, but not very convenient. Have you guys done anything for the S5P like Onefinity did? This happens every shutdown, and if I don’t watch it, the bit starts to turn after power is removed from the spindle as it moves down, then grinds into the spoilboard at the end.
Don Hatler
The Z-Stepper w/brake is only currently possible with the closed-loop steppers that i’ve found. I’ve started our production order for Steppers. The plan for our conversion kit is to have 3 closed loop steppers with a 4th being the Z with integrated brake.
When powered off/down… the Z brake will engage and prevent it from moving. When powered on/up… the brake will disengage allowing the machine to operate normally.
I’ve already ran many carves on our converted Shapeoko 5 Pro with the Z-Brake and it is really really nice. This is an ideal machine after the conversion.
Hello Donaldh777
Yup… the product is now available for preorder. We already have a large batch of controllers and working on wiring them up.
At this point we’re only waiting on the Steppers and cables to arrive.
Then we can start shipping the kits out to customers.
