Craftsman CompuCarve

While surfing the net for stepper motor drive schemes for microcontrollers, saw a review of this CNC router for under $1700.00, which got me a little excited. I've been wanting one for years, but prices starting around $3,000 is a little much for a toy. Building one is beyond my skills (weak fabrication skills).

Went to the Sears website and read the advertisement, watch the video, sound like a truely awesome tool. Was tempted to buy one right then. Kind of wanted to see some customer reviews, but wasn't any, least not without doing some searching through the website. Kind killed my enthusiasm, seems like it works great for some, others had problems straight out of the box, or before their first board was finished. Think I'l wait a while and see where it goes.

Did some more searching on the web, and read some comments on the CNC forum. About the same as the customer reviews. Did learn that it's good for woodcarving, but much of the other stuff it's suppose to do is better done with other tools. One pretty cool thing, you can get a digitizing stylus, to make copies of stuff.

A CNC router would be a cool tool, but don't think this one could drill PCBs. I still like the woodcarving examples, and could definately use it for that. I do some metal casting, and wood can be used as a mold.

Anybody have one of these, or thinking about getting one? I'm still considering the purchase (tough to resist when you have the cash).

Did you contact your local Sears store? They might be able to arrange a live demo of one...
JB

My view is dated and biased.

Most any tool you can find at Sears can be found elsewhere for less money.
This is understandable since Sears does not make the tools.

I once purchased a Sears best Electronic Speed Control router. The internal cooling fan was not well designed and self destructed. The blades would shoot out of the router.

Mine was till in warrenty when I found this out. The local store said they would be happy to replace it with the same tool when it died if still in warrenty. It died a few months out of warrenty. It should have been recalled and replace.

My Sears TS top had a bad front to back curve. When new the local store came out and replaced it. The replacement was better but not good. Sort of puts a kink in making dattos. Sears said it was not a professional tool and I should live with it. This is the nice table with cast iron top and wings.

In short if you can find this tool anywhere else do not get it from sears.

Over on the CNC Zone forum there are several people building/(maybe have built) a wood cutting CNC from plans. Stop by and talk to the people there, they know CNC.

Nope, just found it this morning. Been looking at the CarveWright forum. Kind of looks like early machines had some problems. Many threads from last year, but started thinning out some toward December. Mostly just been looking through the troubleshooting posts, so of course everyone has problems.

Sears... Never been a big fan, second only to Radio Shack. Quite a few complaints from people who claim to have been sold refurbished units, by Sears. But think that might be the buyer's fault. CarveWright (manufacturer) sells them for $1899, so $200 discount from Sears, would tell me its not new.

Will keep am eye on it for a few months and see how it looks then. Got a hunch most people get good running machines, and spend their free time carving, rather than typing in forums.

I could see this thing paying for itself very quickly. Really does sound like a neat little machine, and almost worth going through some customer service hassles. Most of the problems posted didn't seem too serious, and I'd most likely have fixed them myself.

The unit Sears sells may not be as good (or exactly the same as) the original. To get the price down the products sold by Sears (and similar) are sometimes made cheaper. One less amplifer stage, smaller motor, that sort of thing.

This is not always the case.

Other threads have said that it also uses proprietary software and wasn't industry compatible, but that may have changed since then (again, old threads).
Some time back, I had wanted to get a cnc mill like the one 3v0 mentioned in another thread, but I didn't know anyone who had one and didn't want to spend that much money without first seeing how well it works. BTW, 3v0, how's that going?
Jeff

The software is definately unique, but sounds like it does a great job. Didn't see any post about problems with it. It doesn't do Gerber or DXF, but promises to add these soon. It uses True-Type Fonts, and imports most image type files. Talks about vector and rastor graphics, but no mention of imported vector file types.

Spent most of the day reading posts on the CarveWright site, still kind of wanting to buy this. A common theme from many complaints seemed to be from people that basically opened up the box, plugged it, shoved in the first piece wood handy, and go demo. Of course everyone gets eager to play with the new toy, and some just do the very minimal to get it running. I'd expect this to be the source of many out of the box problems. Need to go over everything, make sure all is connected and tight. Don't count on everything being pre-lubricated at the factory, it going to be running atleast an hour (3-5 most of the time). It's a cutting tool, read the manual, don't want it cutting through cables or belts, because it was intialized or aligned. It's 78 lbs. definately ground shipped. Expect it to get bumped an banged around in the back of a truck.

Also, a lot of problems after cleaning out dust and wood chips. Seems like a vaccum hose builds quite a static charge, not a friend to computers. Guessing these fry easy, likely a huge cause of eratic behavior and failure.

I know forums are problem magnets, most people who come are looking for answers. I found Electro Tech while searching for project sites, schematics. Took me a while to figure out there wasn't a project page, listing schematics. But I liked the casual atomsphere.

jbeng said:

..
Some time back, I had wanted to get a cnc mill like the one 3v0 mentioned in another thread, but I didn't know anyone who had one and didn't want to spend that much money without first seeing how well it works. BTW, 3v0, how's that going?
Jeff

Click to expand...

Success. I used PCB-GCode (generic settings) to generate GCode that mostly worked. Need to mod a few bits in a setup file to get the unit to stop to change bits. A week ago I drilled boards for 3 projects. If you (or anyone) wants more info please start a new thread and I will give details there. Do not want to poison this one.

Harvey,

You mentioned that you did not think you could drill PC boards with the word carving CNC.

If it can position the bit you should be able to make it work. It depends on the resolution.

You should be able to write a translator to convert GCode file to whatever this thing uses.

Like any drilling system, its ability to use carbide bits will depend upon the stability of its mounting. The thing may run through all 600 of the "holes" scheduled for your board but the noise level may not have allowed you to hear the bit breaking after the 15th hole!

Dean

3v0 said:

If you (or anyone) wants more info please start a new thread and I will give details there. Do not want to poison this one.

Click to expand...

Oh, I agree... I just thought to ask because the subjects are similar. I've also been in the same boat as Harvey, where I didn't want to dump a bunch of money on a toy like that when I can't (personally) see it in action beforehand.

With regard to pcb drilling, I don't know. I don't think it would be accurate enough for pcb's (but I'd sure give it a try if I had one). In the video, it shows the wood being moved thru the machine. Does it just go one way like a printer or back-and-forth like an older plotter? I would expect the latter. If the workpiece slips, does the machine know this and compensate? Milling wood doesn't (usually) require the accuracy that pcb's would so a slip of a few thousandths of an inch probably wouldn't really matter much. But on a pcb, a few thousandths can mean the difference between a good board and scrap material.
Jeff

jbeng said:

With regard to pcb drilling, I don't know. I don't think it would be accurate enough for pcb's (but I'd sure give it a try if I had one). In the video, it shows the wood being moved thru the machine. Does it just go one way like a printer or back-and-forth like an older plotter? I would expect the latter. If the workpiece slips, does the machine know this and compensate? Milling wood doesn't (usually) require the accuracy that pcb's would so a slip of a few thousandths of an inch probably wouldn't really matter much. But on a pcb, a few thousandths can mean the difference between a good board and scrap material.
Jeff

Click to expand...

I would not expect any CNC process to adjust for slip. The work needs to be firmly attached.

I use EagleCad. There is a script called drill-aid that fillis in the center of the holes, just leaves a pilot for the drill. I use the CNC to drill the holes prior to etching. The filled in holes allows the alignment to be off somwhat and still give a working board. As long as the hole is somewhere in the copper it still works. Does that make sense.

I researched the CompuCarve back when I saw the commercials that ran briefly. I was fascinated. Automated CNC router for under $2000?

However, overall, reviews of the device were decidedly sour. In particular the software was doing bizzare stuff and ruining the project! Perhaps they've fixed it? I don't recall if they were reporting serious mechanical problems, IIRC they were saying the body was a bit flimsy though.

Software problems could have been quietly fixed. I shouldn't assume that a product with a crappy initial release couldn't be a great product later. Hardware fixes are typically a lot slower in coming if that was the problem though.

Reviews on Sears' own site:
**broken link removed**

3v0 said:

I would not expect any CNC process to adjust for slip. The work needs to be firmly attached.

I use EagleCad. There is a script called drill-aid that fillis in the center of the holes, just leaves a pilot for the drill. I use the CNC to drill the holes prior to etching. The filled in holes allows the alignment to be off somwhat and still give a working board. As long as the hole is somewhere in the copper it still works. Does that make sense.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I can relate. I use a bench top drill press, and not that precise with my aim... Any hole that goes through copper is a good hole, but I do get a few that barely touch. Fortunately, most leads will bend enough to fit, or bridge gaps.

I think it can be expected that the majority of posts and reviews will be about problems or limitations. Can't always count the numbers, and rely on the accuracy. I would think the majority of people that got good results from the start, wouldn't need to get online to post anything, spending their free time doing projects. This is just a guess, but don't think there were even 100 unique owners complaining, and believe there were around 4,000 units made so far.

I've decided to wait for a software update, figure by then, the more common hardware problems will have been re-engineered at the factory. Pretty sure they'll do what ever it takes to make happy customers. They are stand on the verge of a large market. Lots of people want CNC machines, but not the huge price tag just to play with light materials.

3v0 said:

I would not expect any CNC process to adjust for slip. The work needs to be firmly attached.

Click to expand...

I guess I was trying to get a feel for the mechanics involved in moving the workpiece. I seems to me that the workpiece would have to be moved back and forth by rollers of some sort and I was wondering if they might slip to some extent. At least to the extent that is isn't suitable for pcbs. Like I said, if I had one, I'd give it a go. I'm always interested in experiments like that.
Jeff

There have been a number of companies which have made PCB drilling, or even trace-milling, devices. There are individuals who have designed and built their own ones at home too.

jbeng said:

I guess I was trying to get a feel for the mechanics involved in moving the workpiece. I seems to me that the workpiece would have to be moved back and forth by rollers of some sort and I was wondering if they might slip to some extent. At least to the extent that is isn't suitable for pcbs. Like I said, if I had one, I'd give it a go. I'm always interested in experiments like that.
Jeff

Click to expand...

I just looked at the site and video and see what you mean regarding slippage. The wood feeds through the machine using rollers.

When milling in the direction of the rollers (in/out) the bit puts pressure on the rollers that would try to make the wood slip instead of move. The drive has to be good enough to overcome this pressure. If you were just drilling holes there would be no side pressure. It should not be an issue.

I am thinking that the show stopper would be resolution.

Oznog:
How do your prononuce that ohs nog, oz nog, oh zee no gee ? Some help here

I was thinking about a DIY CNC when I ran into the one at the school.

We we speculating if this wood carver could moonlight as PCB drilling machine. It would be easier to justify the cost.

Oznog said:

There have been a number of companies which have made PCB drilling, or even trace-milling, devices. There are individuals who have designed and built their own ones at home too.

Click to expand...

I've looked it building a machine, but must admit I lack the skills. No way I could expect any form of accuracy. I like the wood carving aspect of the Compucarve, as it would be great for making metal casting molds. It should also be able to drill PCBs, which a frequent task that I don't enjoy. Unfortunately, the software apparently is only setup for wood carving at this time. Likely ways to work around this, but likely more work than just doing them on the drill press.

To drill PCBs using EagleCad (most others I suspect) the machine needs to understand GCode.

I did some digging. It seems that a future release of the software will accept GCode but it may come at a price.

From the makers site.

Can the machine use G-Code programs?
The software cannot import or export in G-code presently. Advanced versions of the software will have the ability to import and export G-code.

When will the advanced software package be available?
The advanced software package is scheduled for release in 2007. The price has not been determined yet.

What is the resolution of the machine?
The core capability of the CarveWright is as a carving machine. The machine configuration and control software are quite different than a classic mill. As such the terms resolution and accuracy are hard to correlate to what you expect from a classic milling machine. Our controllable resolution is .00025" on the Y and Z-axes and .0015" on the X-axis. The accuracy of any single raster carving line is on the order of .005"-.010" in the y and Z and the step width is between .005" and .010" depending on the quality setting you choose. When you are talking accuracy of position of two elements across a 60" board the value is even higher.

Click to expand...

There's not mention of one of the more important aspects of a CNC mill as well, repeatability.