ShopSabre Training

Adam trained me on the big ShopSabre CNC machine at Quelab on July 17, 2025.  My goal is to CNC cut down stiff foam sheets into Curvy Tessellation tiles to make collaborative prints, like we did for the Atomic 66 Open House:

Ultimately I cut down these two twin towers

of stiff foam tessellation tiles

File for cutting the above curvy tessellation foam tiles:

Curvy_Tess.TAP (394.29 KB)

• Sheet: Width 24", Height 12", Depth .128" 

1) WARM UP THE CNC

This takes about 10 minutes, and is important to get all the ball bearings and machinery working correctly:

Turn on the machine, wait for the "FUNK" engaging sound -- and then you can take the wooden support out from under the spindle unit.  The spindle will fall into the bed (and mess up the bit), if the machine is turned off:

Turn on SPINDLE and MOTION to turn on the CNC (Extract is to turn on the blower):

2) Zero out the ShopSabre program:

Hit "P1 Home Position" in the upper right menu to get to the absolute zero coordinates  XYZ (which would show clicking the green boxes to red).  Then adjust the gantry position to where you want to start on the CNC bed, and hit the "Home" button to get the relative XYZ coordinates:

The gantry is in the relative XYX position on the bed

3) CHANGE THE TOOL BIT

Change the tool bit with both the silver Allen wrench in the left hand, and the ER 25 wrench in the right hand.  Then pull them together to loosen the holder to take out the bit:

First take off the magnetic dust protector 

from the spindle 

ER 25 wrench fits the bolt on the bottom

(Silver Allen wrench fits the bolt on the top)

• 30 Degree bit from Amana Tool -- 45634-K 0 1/4 -- worked nicely, leaving a bevel in the stiff foam:

30 degree bit --45634-K 0 1/4

from Amana Tool

The 30 degree bit online,

where one can download the bit settings

This bit fits in the 1/4 inch collet:

1/4 inch collet

The collet pushes into

and fits nicely in  the receiving bolt

The bit goes in at an appropriate length

4) AUTO FOCUS the Z AXIS to the bed (rather than the top of the foam):

Connect the Auto Focus tool to the spindle unit, lower the spindle down manually and s l o w l y with the up and down keys in the ShopSabre software, and when close, hit the "Z Zero" button:

Auto Focus tool

5)  ENTER THE SETTINGS into the VCARVE SOFTWARE:

• Job Type:  Single Sided
• Job Size: Width of material, Height of material, Thickness of material
• Z Zero Position:  Machine Bed
• XY Datum Position:  Lower left

Dimensions of the material to cut

Import file and nest:

Nesting

Choose the first option:  Profile Toolpath

Download the tool settings from the website

When the tool settings for a particular bit

are in the correct folder,

they will show up in the menu

• Machine Vectors...: On

Preview nesting

Make path for both "Climb" and "Conventional," and combine them into one tool path later:

• Cutting Depths: 0.128 inches (a little more than the thickness of the material):

6) CUT -- PRE_FLIGHT CHECK LIST:

 7) TURNING OFF -- Choose P4 PARK FOR THE DAY:

• Make sure to put wood support under spindle, so the spindle does not fall into the bed

P4 PARK FOR THE DAY