We just posted a minor update to Carbide Create:
Grab your copy here.
We just uploaded Carbide Create 302 with a couple of fixes and a great new feature.
Here’s what we did:
Grab the latest here.
We just uploaded a new Carbide Create, build 303, that contains mostly bug fixes based on user feedback.
Here’s what we did:
We just uploaded a new Carbide Create, build 304, with a huge new feature.
Here’s what we added:
Here’s the deal though- in spite of what some guy on Facebook thinks, this is a complicated feature and it’s one of the more invasive features we’ve added. There are changes all over the code to handle the weird edge cases that come up so please let us know if you notice anything strange happening- toolpaths not updating, load/save problems, etc.
There will be a new video about tabs added to the support section later today that explains how to use tabs and what some limitations are (in particular, they don’t work on inside corners where the toolpath will be offset further from the design than the cutter radius.)
We just uploaded a bug fix release for Carbide Create, build 305. Here’s what we changed:
Two quick Carbide Create updates for the weekend:
Grabe the latest here
We just uploaded Carbide Create 307 with a small fix and a small addition.
Grab the latest here.
We just uploaded a new build of Carbide Create with the following changes:
Get it now here
We just uploaded a new version of Carbide Create, build 310, with a feature we’ve been planning for a while Texture Toolpaths.
Texture Toolpaths create textures on your parts, from simple hatching to a carved wood look. The texture is created by moving the cuter in a sweeping motion into the stock and then back out. Like V Carving, this motion gives the finished parts a 3D look without the time required for 3D machining.
To take full advantage of Textures, you’ll want to use it with a V cutter or a ball cutter.
This first release of Texture Toolpaths is best described as a “beta”. While playing with Textures, we’ve found that you end up developing a lot of design patterns, both the texture settings themselves and how they’re applied to the project, to get a unique look. We’ve got some ideas about what we’d like to add to Textures, but we’re reluctant to go any further in a vacuum. We know you’ll surprise us with new applications and ideas that we can incorporate into the tool path code. Try it out and send us your thoughts.
You can see a quick walkthrough of Textures here.
Here are a couple of quick examples that Edward worked up:
Grab the latest build here
We just posted Carbide Create build 311 with the following changes:
Edward has gone through a number of problem v-carve files from customers and all of them have been fixed with this release. Let us know what you think.
You can downlod the latest for free here
We made a mistake with the release of Carbide Create 311 last week. The Windows build didn’t actually get updated, it was just 310 with a new build number.
To make things simple, we just incremented the build number and uploaded the correct versions of both the Windows and the OSX builds.
For OSX, 312 is the same as 311. For Windows, 312 now includes everything that should have been in 311.
Sorry for the confusion.
We do a lot of personal projects on our own machines. It gives us an enjoyable way to test new software, new cutters, and really explore and experience first hand the usability of the machines we design and sell. A few months back we started sharing these projects on the docs site under the tutorials tab. Some of the projects are end to end tutorials that go through each step of the process. Others are just overviews with the files available for download so you can effectively recreate the same project.
Click the link to see all of the projects we have available at this time. We just added an endmill organizer and a simple step stool.
The project page is something we add to often, but starting today we’ll put up a new blog post each time we post a new project.
See the projects page: Click Here
If there is a specific project you’d like to see posted, let us know!
One of the most common requests from Carbide 3D customers is a place to download CNC projects. And, although we have been sharing simple projects here and there on our docs site, we wanted to do better! So, a few months ago we started down the path of creating an entirely new site, dedicated exclusively to projects made for CNC! We call this site CutRocket.com
Unlike the docs site though, we wanted anyone to be able to share and post their CNC projects! So, after a few weeks of development, a handful of beta testers were invited, and the real work to make the site useful, reliable, and easy to navigate began. Since then, we have invited even more beta users and with their feedback and our priority list, we have managed to push dozens of new features to the site.
Right now, the site supports Carbide Create, Vectric, and Fusion 360 projects. This means that any project created in those programs can be uploaded and shared through CutRocket. There is no cost to using CutRocket and anyone who is using those software packages are welcome and encouraged to begin sharing and upload their projects!
As of Today, cutrocket.com has nearly 100 projects posted by over 200 members! We would like to open the site up to more users, and invite all of you to head over today, get signed up, upload your best CNC project, and give us some feedback on using the site.
We are really excited about cutrocket.com and can’t wait to hear what you think about it too!
For the first time in the history of Carbide 3D, we will not have our own booth at Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend. Don’t worry though, you still have two ways to see our machines and talk to us.
Come meet us at the Swinging Door at 7:30 - 9:00 on Saturday, May 19th. We’ll be there, buying drinks, with Matter Hackers, Ultimaker, and Peopoly. (It is a bar so it’s age 21 and up)
If you can’t make it on Saturday, Matter hackers has invitied us to hang out at their booth at Maker Faire with a Nomad Pro. Stop by and say hi if you can.
We just added a couple of new features to the beta version of Carbide Create 315, toolpath rendering and dragging and dropping of toolpaths.
The new toolpath rendering shows the actual toolpath in addition to the full 3D simulation, which will be helpful to make sure the toolpath is going to move the way you expect it to even if the 3D simulation is what you’re expecting.
The second change is that you can now drag and drop toolpaths to reorder them. We’re hoping to make some additional changes in this part of the program so the drag and drop is step one in a potentially long list of changes.
There is a quirk in the new drag and drop where you need to click on the toolpath and hold for about a second for it to become highlighted before you can drag it. This is part of the Qt/QML framework that we use for Carbide Create and we should be able to reduce that delay in the future to make it more natural.
Get Carbide Create 315 on the beta page at http://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/beta
We just added a another new couple of features to the beta version of Carbide Create 316, toolpath grouping, and undo for toolpath deletion.
The new toolpath groups are an answer for Shapeoko users who want to use multiple tools and want to output multiple gcode file to change tools in between. With groups, you can put all of your toolpaths with the same tool in the same group and then you can enable/disable the entire group with a single click before post processing the code.
The second change is that the undo system now allows you to replace a toolpath or a toolpath group after deleting it.
Maybe the most important change is our new icon! Jorge spent a lot of time working with a “real artist” to get it done so be sure and let him know that you like it.
Get Carbide Create 316 on the beta page at http://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/beta
We just posted our newest product, the Carbide Compact Router. This is something we’ve been working on for a while to eliminate the supply trouble we’ve had trying to get enough DeWalt and Makita routers to sell.
The Carbide Compact Router has a diameter of 65mm and a speed range of 12k-30k RPM. Right now, we only have the 110V version available but we hope to change that in the future.
In the near future (hopefully a week) we’ll have US-made precision collets available for this router as well.
Build 400 is the first in the series we’re calling Carbide Create V4. This is just the start, look for lots of changes in the near future.
Build 401 should make it to the unstable page in the next few days. (“Unstable” is where we distribute releases to test within the company so feel free to follow along there if you like)
Here are the biggest changes in 400…
The path object in Carbide Create used a very awkward format which made it difficult to use standard curve algoritms. Since this is a “big update” we decided that it’s a good time to change the internal structure to make it more “normal”. This necessitated a change to the C2D file format but we did our best to make Carbide Create load old files and convert them transparently to the new format.
In past releases of Carbide Create, we’ve only supported smooth curves which made some shapes very difficult to draw so we added support for sharp nodes.
To change the behavior of a node:
Smooth nodes will be shown in blue, sharp nodes will be shown in black
Users have been asking for a better way to manipulate objects without having to type numbers as much. They were right, we were thinking too much like a group of engineers when we wrote Carbide Create so we’ve fixed it now.
There are three “Transform” commands, Move, Scale, and Rotate
When you click on any of these commands, the transform box will appear around the selection to directly manipulate the selection.
The old text command let you set a a target height/width and then Create would scale the text to best fit that bounding box. This was confusing for new users and it made it impossible to make two different lines of text look the same height unless the text was identical. For instance, a line with “ee” would naturally be a different height than “EE” but the old Create didn’t consider that.
We’ve added a new “Font Height” setting that sets the starting height of the text you’ve entered. Note that we consider this to be a “reference height” and you may have to scale after to get the exact height you want. Without going deep into font theory for why this is the case, we’ll just say that not all fonts accurately report their height.
Using the scale command on text now allows you to stretch text in the horizontal or vertical direction without needing to maintain the aspect ratio.
This transformation, and all text transformations, are kept in the text object itself so you can change the words and the text should update in place with the existing transformations in place.
For smaller parts, the maximum simulation resolution was doubled. We’re taking a very careful approach to increasing this because it does lead to a greater calculation time and could be a problem with some older graphics cards. We’ll keep trying to push the bounds on this one.
When you try to exit the program with an unsaved file, Carbide Create will now warn you to save first.
Those “Aztec Calander” files has been really tough for Carbide Create to deal with. In 400, we’ve spent some time to optimize a lot of code to better deal with files that have thousands of vectors. It’s not perfect yet but it’s much better than before.
Users have asked where to find the local data saved by Carbide Create to help them migrate their existing data to a new machine. In the about menu we’ve added an “Open Data Directory” that will open this folder in Finder (OSX) or Explorer (Windows).
To get to the about window, just click on the Build information in the bottom left part of the screen.
As we’ve added this, Carbide Create will no longer save settings in the registry on Windows so this directory will have all of that information. Unfortunately, this means that build 400 will load without any of your saved settings from any of the 300-series builds.
For small objects, it was possible in prior versions to for the stock to be sized wrong, in most cases ending up huge.
There was a bug where deleting an object didn’t properly mark the document as needing a save. That’s now fixed.
There was a case where SVG files made of paths with fewer than 3 points could be imported wrong. Got it fixed in 400, thanks for the test files.
We’re based on the Qt framework and we’ve been on the same version for a while, and that version predates dark mode on OSX by quite a bit. Eventually, we’ll upgrade to the newest version of Qt that better handles dark mode but until then, we’ve disabled it in Carbide Create to make sure that text entry boxes remain readable.
We just released Carbide Motion 416 at:
https://carbide3d.com/carbidemotion/download/
This release (when combined with 415) has a number of small changes, a couple of significant improvements, and one big change.
First, for those running a Stepoko board from Sparkfun, this release will not be supported. For Stepoko users, release 414 will be the last version that you can use. Activation information and download links will remain at:
https://docs.carbide3d.com/software-faq/sparkfun-stepoko-activation/
Improved probing accuracy - Version 416 makes probing on the Shapeoko and Nomad more accurate. There was a bug in prior versions that led to probing being wrong by a couple of thousandths of an inch but we found it and got it fixed in this version.
Active Inputs Debigging - The “Settings” pane in Carbide Motion now shows all of the active inputs reported by GRBL so if you need to check that your probe or any limit switch is working, go to “Settings” and trigger the switch you’d like to test. It should appear in the “Active Inputs” section when pressed.
Load time shown for gcode files - When a gcode file is loaded, the timestamp is now shown below the file name. Some users reload the same file with changes made and this is a good way to know that the file did indeed update in Carbide Motion.
This is a tough post to write. In fact, we’ve been putting off writing this post for quite a while; putting it off for longer than we should have to be honest.
We are raising our prices. There, we said it.
Material costs have been steadily on the rise over the last 4 years. Even with all of our manufacturing work being done domestically, the cost for raw materials has been going up. A portion of the increase is competition for materials in a good economy and part of it (a growing part) tariff-related. Parts that we source from foreign vendors (because they have no domestic alternative) have been hit by tariffs in a big way. The result has been a cost increase on nearly every part of our machines, whether we source it or make it ourselves.
We have been combating these cost increases through a variety of tactics. Mainly, due to our growth, we have been able to increase our order volumes, gaining enough discounts to help offset the cost increases. That growth in order size, in addition to running a very lean organization, has helped us keep retail prices flat.
Note we said ‘offset’ and not ‘eliminate’. The fact is that we have been absorbing all the costs that we couldn’t mitigate, and those costs continue to grow.
We simply can’t continue to absorb costs increases at the rate we have been. From the beginning, we’ve tried to build an honest, sustainable company that will be around for the long haul. In order to do that, without compromising our services and products, prices have to go up.
We have done a LOT of data crunching and this is what we’ve come up with:
| Machine | Old Price | New Price | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shapeoko 3 | $1099 | $1170 | $70 |
| Shapeok XL | $1499 | $1600 | $100 |
| Shapeoko XXL | $1699 | $1820 | $120 |
This price increase is 6-7%, depending on the model, and that does not cover the cost increases we’ve seen. We are committed to offering a great value so this is the smallest increase that we felt comfortable with. (Competitors who do not manufacture domestically have announced increases of about 15%.)
We know this price change will be a disappointment to some people who’ve been on the fence for a while so we’re going to offer free shipping in the US to offset part of the price increase. Shipping rates are the one thing we’ve been able to conisistently and significantly reduce over the past few years and we’re betting that our growth will make this trend continue.
In short, we can’t promise that free shipping will stick around forever, but for the time being we’re going to run with it.
If you would like to read the specifics of the free US shipping offer, please head over to our docs page for all the details: https://docs.carbide3d.com/how-does-free-shipping-work/
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email to discuss this further.
PS- With that unpleasentness out of the way, expect some big announcements in the near future.