[Bryan]

I was curious what right-angle corner supports/work registration were used in a few of the training videos. I’m sure there are several options, but what Andy had looked low profile and would help avoid crashes of spindle and support pieces. Plus it appears it’s mounted on t-slot nuts. If anyone knows what those are and could share, I’d be grateful! Thanks!

Bryan

[Bryan]

Thanks for the quick and thorough reply—seriously appreciated. That helped a lot and confirmed a few of my suspicions.

TwoTrees support has been a bit hard to reach (I usually have to go through my supplier, MatterHackers, to get a conversation started), but I’ll follow up with them. Like you mentioned, there may be a straightforward way to include spindle start in the gcode. If not, manually starting it isn’t a big deal and honestly fits well with doing a final check before running the job.

I also dug into another Vectric video on toolpaths and tooling, and that cleared up my bit size issue. Turns out it was user error—I hadn’t actually applied the change (the button was lower in the panel than I expected). Once I fixed that and measured my material more accurately, things improved quite a bit. I had assumed 1/2″, but it was closer to 9/16″, and updating that made everything cut correctly.

On the scaling issue, I still haven’t found the exact setting to switch between metric and imperial globally, but I agree—it definitely seems like that’s where the mismatch is happening. In the meantime, I was able to scale the vectors directly and get the state closer to the intended ~8″ size.

One thing I’ll say already—I like that the course is pushing me to explore and troubleshoot a bit. With a different machine, I’ve had to dig in more than expected, but it’s building confidence quickly.

Really glad I jumped into this course. On to the next project!

[Bryan]

Hey everyone,

I just signed up for the course and am working through the first quick-start U.S. States project (I picked Tennessee since that’s home). I was able to get a successful cut, but I ran into a few things I’m unsure about—likely tied to my specific machine setup.

For context, I’m brand new to CNC, though I do have experience with laser engraving and general woodworking. I wasn’t able to get a Shapeoko, so I’m running a TwoTrees 6050. Vectric had a machine profile for it, which helped. The manufacturer recommends Candle, but it felt pretty outdated, so I’m using Universal Gcode Sender (UGS).

A few questions:

1. Tool setup / bit size confusion

My machine came with only 1/8″ bits. I updated the tool configuration in Vectric, and it seemed to take, but the tool still shows as 1/4″ in places.

– Is that just a labeling issue, or does it affect the actual toolpath/gcode output?

– How can I verify that Vectric is truly calculating toolpaths using 1/8″ and not 1/4″?

2. Spindle control via gcode

When I load the file into UGS, I have to manually start the spindle—there’s no automatic start in the gcode.

– Is that expected with this kind of setup, or am I missing a post-processor or setting that should include spindle commands?

2a. Units behavior (metric vs imperial)

I created the file in inches, but once loaded, the controller appears to switch units—my jog increments jump from 1mm to 1″.

– Has anyone with a TwoTrees machine seen this behavior?

– Is this something controlled by the gcode header or the controller itself?

3. Material thickness / scaling issue

I tested both 1/2″ and 3/4″ stock, but the cut didn’t go all the way through. On the 1/2″ piece, I still had about ~1/16″ left.

Also, when previewing in Vectric, the design showed up much smaller (~3″ x 1″) than what was demonstrated in the video.

– This makes me suspect a metric vs imperial mismatch somewhere—either in the file or machine setup.

– Any suggestions on where to check or standardize units across Vectric, post-processor, and controller?

Overall, this was a great intro project and I’m excited to keep going—I just want to get my machine dialed in early so I don’t compound issues later.

Appreciate any insight!

Bryan