My goal for this project was to cut out a miniature soccer ball and engrave it as if it were used for the Champion's League (major European soccer tournament). The cad drawing of the sphere is shown below (with the body made for the dowels hidden) and the link to the file is here.
What made this project challenging was engraving the letters into a sphere, both in Fusion and with the X-Carve. I had to hit up the ol' YouTube to figure out how to extrude the letters into the ball so that they were all the same distance. I actually found a very helpful video for this, and if you're interested for one of your own projects, this is the place to go.
Once the model was made, I had to figure out which tool path would work the best for engraving the letters. This was actually pretty difficult because the ball could only have a max diameter of 2in since the was the largest thickness of foam we could use on the X-Carve. This meant that the letters had to be pretty small on the ball to fit on one side. I initially tried out the morph tool, but for some reason the bit wouldn't raise up between letters so the simulation was a mess. I settled on the Project tool, a 3D pocket which is used for engraving letters a lot. It wasn't perfect, but with the size of the letters, it was as close as I was going to get.
Using the X-Carve is where most of my issues came. Since the probe could not be used on the 2in foam, the home position had to be manually set. I didn't think this was going to cause too much trouble, until I was ready to flip over my material. I first cut out the dowel holes, then contoured the top half of the ball, then engraved the letters on the top side. With all of those, I was able to select use last home position with no issues. I was able to do the same for the dowel holes into the stock material, but after I did this and moved the router out of the way to replace my material, I realized I had lost my home position, and I couldn't select use last home because the 'z' height was matched up for the stock, not the foam. Additionally, the heights where off from changing out the bits.The machine was also being really buggy throughout this process and randomly moved itself over a couple times or didn't return to home position after a cut and neither Jamie or I could figure out why.
So, I started again, this time with a better plan. I decided I would try and make all the cuts with the 1/4" bit first, and do the engrave with the 1/8" bit last to eliminate the issue of bit height changes. Additionally, after I cut the dowel holes into the stock this time, after it returned to its home spot there, I wrote down how far exactly I moved the bit in the x and y directions when I was moving it out of the way to replace the material, so that I could put it back to the same origin, and manually adjust the z height with the material loaded in place. Here is how the top half contour came out.
When I was about halfway through the cut of the bottom half of the sphere, I thought "oh crap" after I finish this cut, the ball probably wont be stable enough to do the engrave, cause it won't be connected to my stock piece with the dowels any more, so of course I stopped the program right then before it was too late. But then I sat there for a minute and thought, well if I stop and change out the bits now, I will have the problem with the heights not lining up again. At this point I had been in the shop for over for hours working on this thing and decided I was just going to follow through with the contour, and if I couldn't get the letters afterwards, so be it. But alas, one more issue. When I went to start the carve over, a message came up prompting to either home the device, or unlock without homing. Unlock without homing is supposed to just unlock the device and not change or move anything, while homing the device can sometimes cause it to forget its last home position. So I chose unlock without homing. The machine went haywire and tried to move itself back to the home position from where it was. Remember that it's last position was in the middle of contouring the ball, so the bit was down in the material. the router moved through the foam creating a large crack in the foam as you can see below. (this pic was taken after I put the letters on but is shown here so you can visualize what I'm talking about with the crack).
I got incredibly lucky that the bit happened to be on the side of the ball that it was before it started moving, so it didn't actually go through my model. I was still able to use this piece, thank goodness. I finished the bottom carve and then checked to see if I could do the engrave. The ball still seemed stable enough, so I went ahead and attempted the engrave, The first try didn't go deep enough on the U and the L, because my tool path was based on the stock material, and those parts of the sphere were lower. I corrected for this by slowly adjusting the starting z height of the bit and running the carve again until it cleared out enough material to be able to actually see the letters.
I then cut the ball out of the foam with an X-Acto knife and sanded down the edges and the letters for a more smooth finish. I also painted over it to make it look a bit cleaner. It came out pretty decent in the end for all of the issues I went through. Below are some pictures of the final cut out of the ball.
What made this project challenging was engraving the letters into a sphere, both in Fusion and with the X-Carve. I had to hit up the ol' YouTube to figure out how to extrude the letters into the ball so that they were all the same distance. I actually found a very helpful video for this, and if you're interested for one of your own projects, this is the place to go.
Once the model was made, I had to figure out which tool path would work the best for engraving the letters. This was actually pretty difficult because the ball could only have a max diameter of 2in since the was the largest thickness of foam we could use on the X-Carve. This meant that the letters had to be pretty small on the ball to fit on one side. I initially tried out the morph tool, but for some reason the bit wouldn't raise up between letters so the simulation was a mess. I settled on the Project tool, a 3D pocket which is used for engraving letters a lot. It wasn't perfect, but with the size of the letters, it was as close as I was going to get.
Using the X-Carve is where most of my issues came. Since the probe could not be used on the 2in foam, the home position had to be manually set. I didn't think this was going to cause too much trouble, until I was ready to flip over my material. I first cut out the dowel holes, then contoured the top half of the ball, then engraved the letters on the top side. With all of those, I was able to select use last home position with no issues. I was able to do the same for the dowel holes into the stock material, but after I did this and moved the router out of the way to replace my material, I realized I had lost my home position, and I couldn't select use last home because the 'z' height was matched up for the stock, not the foam. Additionally, the heights where off from changing out the bits.The machine was also being really buggy throughout this process and randomly moved itself over a couple times or didn't return to home position after a cut and neither Jamie or I could figure out why.
So, I started again, this time with a better plan. I decided I would try and make all the cuts with the 1/4" bit first, and do the engrave with the 1/8" bit last to eliminate the issue of bit height changes. Additionally, after I cut the dowel holes into the stock this time, after it returned to its home spot there, I wrote down how far exactly I moved the bit in the x and y directions when I was moving it out of the way to replace the material, so that I could put it back to the same origin, and manually adjust the z height with the material loaded in place. Here is how the top half contour came out.
When I was about halfway through the cut of the bottom half of the sphere, I thought "oh crap" after I finish this cut, the ball probably wont be stable enough to do the engrave, cause it won't be connected to my stock piece with the dowels any more, so of course I stopped the program right then before it was too late. But then I sat there for a minute and thought, well if I stop and change out the bits now, I will have the problem with the heights not lining up again. At this point I had been in the shop for over for hours working on this thing and decided I was just going to follow through with the contour, and if I couldn't get the letters afterwards, so be it. But alas, one more issue. When I went to start the carve over, a message came up prompting to either home the device, or unlock without homing. Unlock without homing is supposed to just unlock the device and not change or move anything, while homing the device can sometimes cause it to forget its last home position. So I chose unlock without homing. The machine went haywire and tried to move itself back to the home position from where it was. Remember that it's last position was in the middle of contouring the ball, so the bit was down in the material. the router moved through the foam creating a large crack in the foam as you can see below. (this pic was taken after I put the letters on but is shown here so you can visualize what I'm talking about with the crack).
I got incredibly lucky that the bit happened to be on the side of the ball that it was before it started moving, so it didn't actually go through my model. I was still able to use this piece, thank goodness. I finished the bottom carve and then checked to see if I could do the engrave. The ball still seemed stable enough, so I went ahead and attempted the engrave, The first try didn't go deep enough on the U and the L, because my tool path was based on the stock material, and those parts of the sphere were lower. I corrected for this by slowly adjusting the starting z height of the bit and running the carve again until it cleared out enough material to be able to actually see the letters.
I then cut the ball out of the foam with an X-Acto knife and sanded down the edges and the letters for a more smooth finish. I also painted over it to make it look a bit cleaner. It came out pretty decent in the end for all of the issues I went through. Below are some pictures of the final cut out of the ball.
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