I am mostly interested in the CNC capabilities of the Snapmaker 2.0.
I have an LCD printer, and yes, the filament printer would be nice to have, and the laser could be handy, but mostly I am interested in doing small inlays in the wood.
The image is a print I made with my LCD printer and encased in resin. It’s small, like 60 mm x 12 mm. Do you think the CNC on the Snapmaker 2.0 would be able to do delicate inlays like this.
Thanks
This is the only inlay project I recall seeing pictures of.
I can’t think of a reason small inlays, vcarve or otherwise, would be impossible on this.
Sure, but it’ll take longer to do than it seems at first. Just be prepared for that.
Are you talking about cutting out inlays for insertion into a recess? Or cutting the recess into a surface? Or both?
Thanks, eh9
I want the capacity to do both, but certainly the recesses.
When you say, “it’ll take longer to do than it seems.” Are you talking about setting up the files or the ability of the router to cut a 4" X 1.5" inlay? Or Both? I guess the router bit would have to be very small.
That’s one of the reasons I asked the question. I have been looking around, and I haven’t seen much inlay work on the forum.
Both.
But mostly the limitations of the machine. It’s rigidity is not very good, and the CNC motor is 50W or less. Stepovers and depth of cut could be in the .1mm to .2mm range in some cases. Very slow process.
Also, Vectric makes doing v-carve inlays super simple. I use F360, and haven’t found a super straightforward way to do that. Extrude a design to thickness, chamfer all the bottom edges, and then subtract from another body? Definitely no automated way to generate the positives and negatives like Vectric can, unless there’s an add-on I haven’t found.
Yes, both of those, and probably some others you haven’t anticipated. Practice on the recesses first; they’ll be easier. With the inlays you’ll have clamping problems in addition to all the others, so work out the recesses first.
Cutting tool: These machines are not well suited for changing tools for work pieces that require multiple tools. It can work, but it’s not a time-saver. So you’ll be limited, in practice, to a single bit that’s small enough for (1) the smallest radius curvature feature and (2) the finest line in the pattern. The smaller the diameter, the longer it will take to cut. If you can cut the coarse features with a router and template, that’ll be a lot of time savings. If you’ve got sharp corners, it may well be faster overall to cut them with a chisel and use a larger diameter bit.
Software: Wrangling the software will be harder than it looks, because the basic tool paths for the recesses and the inlays won’t in general be the same. If you’ve got a detail like a cusp (plenty of those in your initial image), you have to alter the boundary by adding a circle into the tip of the cusp whose diameter is that of the cutting tool, otherwise the path planner is likely to cut past the boundary. These cusps will be different for inside and outside cuts. So you’ll have (1) a master outline (2) a positive cutting path (inlay) (3) a negative cutting path (recess). And that’s just the paths. Then you have to get cutting parameters right.
The right perspective is “how much hand work can the machine save me from?”, not “why can’t the machine leave me with no hand work?!?”.
I assume you mean actual inlay with two different materials. Not just creating the recess and filling it with epoxy.
It’s definitely possible but there isn’t an easy way to do it yet.
What you want to do is called v-carving to get the sharp points like you have on the tail and horns. Otherwise as @eh9 said you’re limited to the size of the bit. With v-carving you use a v-bit and it raises up at the narrow point to give you that fine detail. That’s easy to do using the engrave function in Fusion 360. Creating the mirror image is the tough part. I wish someone would figure out how to incorporate it into Fusion but they haven’t yet.
Easel by investables does a good inlay but not a true v-carve. Hoping they come out with something better.
The only 2 options (that i’ve found) are F-engrave and Vectric as mentioned.
I haven’t been willing to spend the money on Vectric and it’s also pc only.
F-engrave is free and works really well but it’s a program someone threw together and doesn’t have much polish or documentation. It takes some time to figure out and some text level editing of the g-code, but I got it to work:
As you can see there are still some gaps. I then tried a wider angle bit and adjusting z-origin (can’t remember which way) and it was pretty good:
I’ve been meaning to go back to it and figure it out again and see if I can improve upon my results and create a guide.
-S
