I’m Luke, formally known as Mr Beaver, and this is a surreal moment. I’m stoked to be writing my first blog post announcing that I have joined the ranks of the Carbide 3D team!

I will be taking the role of Director of Product Development. For those who haven’t come across me or my work, I have been heavily involved in the Carbide 3D community over the past 4 years. Eventually jumping off the deep end and setting up Beaver CNC. Many people will know me for the HDZ and a range of bright blue accessories.

Whilst running Beaver CNC has been a blast, it has limitations and after talking to Rob, Jorge & Ed it was clear we have an aligned strategy. By combining our strengths we will be ensuring Carbide 3D continues to offer best packed CNC machines, software, accessories and support.

I can’t divulge the projects in the pipeline, but I can confidently say we are going to be shaking things up in a big way whilst retaining the ethos of Carbide 3D.

In addition to this Beaver CNC products will be supported by Carbide 3D from now on. All Beaver CNC users are welcome to join the Community where we have setup a group for anyone with a Beaver CNC Product.

The HDZ will be moving across to the Carbide 3D store very shortly. On-top of this we are releasing a new version of Carbide Motion, allowing for speedier setup and direct support of the HDZ.

With all that said, what does this mean for all our users? We’re going to be:

• Expanding our product offerings
• Improving our software
• Delivering new inspirational content
• Improving our ability to keep up with demand

With these changes we hope to shakeup up the CNC space in a way never seen before.

In short, we’re going to give our makers the ability to to do what they do best, Make.

-Luke

After a few weeks of testing the latest builds of Carbide Create, we’re finally ready to move 413, our latest release, from “Beta” to “Stable”.

This release includes a huge list of changes from the last stable release, 316. We considered trying to list them all out here but it’s too much for a reasonable post. If you’re interested, check out the changes from builds 400-413 on the download page.

If you’re using any Carbide Create build prior to 413, we recomend that you move over to this latest release.

Grab it at:

https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/

Here’s how it went:

Jorge says, “We need a big Black Friday sale this year.”

I said, “Free Compact Router with Shapeoko and free Threaded Table with a Nomad?”

“This is not a ‘Grey Friday Sale”. This is not a ‘Black Friday Sale’. This needs to be ‘The Blackest Friday sale.’ “

“How about:

Nomad Pro:

• Free Threaded table
• Free #111 and #112 cutters (Qty 1 each)
• Free pack of 3x5 Renshape
• Free license for Alibre Atom3D CAD Software

Shapeoko:

• Free Compact Router
• Free Precision Collet set
• Free #302 Vee cutter (Qty 1)
• Free license for Alibre Atom3D CAD Software

Plus we still have our free shipping on machines in the US?”

Jorge raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

“What if we add:

• 10% off all cutters
• $99 Shapeoko Touch Probe
• $99 Nomad Threaded Table
• $99 Nomad Flip Jig
• $99 Nomad Low Profile Vise
• $400 Shapeoko HDZ
• $10% all Shapeoko Expansion Packs“

And finally Jorge said, “That’s the Blackest Friday Sale”

So, here are the details:

Dates: The sale starts today and runs through Dec 1st at midnight PST.

Pricing Policy: If you bought in the last week and would like to have your purchases adjusted to the sale, send us an email. See our pricing policy here.

Outside of North America: If you’re buying a Shapeoko for shipment out of North America, send us an email and we’ll give you a discount instead of the 110V Router

Substitutions: There are no substitutions for the bundles above

All of the products included in our sale can be found on our Black Friday page

We’re running this sale for longer than normal but if history is any guide, we know that lead times will go up during the sale. If you know you plan to buy then it’s best to do so now, when the delivery times are shortest.

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!

We get a lot of email asking if we’ve got a new Shapeoko 4 about to come out- often enough that we decided that it’s a question that’s worth answering publicly.

For the foreseeable future, there will not be a Shapeoko 4. Instead, we’ll keep evolving the current Shapeoko and rolling out incremental improvements as fast as we can. This has a couple of benefits for you and us.

First, with iterative improvements, anytime you choose to buy you’re getting the latest Shapeoko available at that time. There’s not another machine sitting in the background that’s going to be massively better in another week. There are always going to be more improvements coming out, but the machine you can buy today will be better than the machine you could have bought a couple of months ago. If we can reasonably offer the upgrades as separate add-ons, we will.

The other reason for incremental updates is that it’s tough for us to work on something and not be able to share it. This is a full-time job for us and we really like what we do. To work on a machine that nobody will see for 6-12 months reminds us of our soul-crushing corporate jobs from the past. We want to work on something and show it off as soon as possible.

So, how’s it going?

This has been our strategy for a few months now and we’ve gotten through enough of these running changes to show some kind track record:

• Upgrade to steel core belts
• Upgrade to our HD eccentric nuts
• Extrusions are now machined to length on a machining center to be more square, not cut by the extruder
• Sweepy dust boot
• Leadscrew / linear rail Z axis ( Z-Plus option )
• Inductive homing switches ( Z-Plus option )

We’ve got more upgrades in the works and they’ll be rolled out as soon as possible.

When will the next update be out?

We can’t tell you because we don’t know. As soon as we give a change or upgrade the internal “OK”, we’ll release it or roll it into production. Any time before that “OK”, we don’t know when or if an upgrade will go into production. ( We’ve got boxes and boxes of cancelled products and upgrades that made it really far before we decided to pass on them )

Why is everything new “Out of Stock” for so long after launch?

When we launch a new product we’ve got two options, build inventory and then launch when we have enough to meet expected demand or launch with limited quantity to ship with new machines while we build inventory.

We choose the latter because it’s a more transparent approach. It gives customers more notice about what’s coming up in the near future so they can make better purchasing decisions. It also cuts down on the number of people who got the prior version of a machine.

For upgrades that are not going to be included with a new Shapeoko, like BitSetter, we’ll always build inventory before launching.

As always, thanks for your support. We’ll keep doing everything we can to make Carbide 3D products perform better while remaing the best value available.

We’re wanted to give everyone an update about Carbide 3D during COVID-19.

Shipping - We continue to ship daily, Monday - Friday. Depending on when your order is received and when USP/Fedex picks up, your order should ship within 24-48 hours.

Support - Our support team is now fully remote and at full strength. If you need any help, feel free to reach out and we’ll be here to help.

Phones - Phones are being picked up remotely by our support team. If you’d like to schedule a time to chat via video, just let us know.

We’ll update this post if anything changes.

As always, we thank you for supporting Carbide 3D.

Many of you have noticed that the Nomad has been out of stock for a while now and have called or emailed to see what’s going on. So, here’s the deal with the Nomad.

Late in 2019 we bought a 5-axis machining center, a Haas UMC-750 for those who are interested, to bring more Nomad production in-house instead of going to a local machine shop for 5-axis parts. That triggered a cascade of changes stemming from the thought, “Well, if we have to program these parts from scratch, we might as well fix a few things.” The problem is, once you change one part, you might as well change the rest of them, which is what we did.

The result is that we have a “New-ish Nomad” being made. It’s not a ground-breaking, all-new machine, but it is better all around.

Here’s a list of a few changes to expect:

• New spindle motor. More power, more RPM
• HG15 rails for the Z axis
• Inductive limit switches
• New lead nuts
• No more powder coating (too much money, too inconsistent, too much of a production bottleneck)
• Round belts for the spindle motor to reduce vibration

We think it’s a good all around change, with lots of little fixes and upgrades plus more of the Nomad is made in our own shop than before. Unfortunately, that’s where the problem is.

Our shop happens to be in Los Angeles, which is largely shut down right now, so all production work has has stopped for the time being. Once we’re able to bring our full staff back to work, we’ll ramp back up and try to get the new Nomad out the door as quickly as possible.

The bottom line is that it might be another month or two but the Nomad will be back and better than ever.

Today we’re happy to announced that we’re partnered with Mercury One to raise money for the people of Detroit. We’ll be matching donations dollar for dollar today, up to $25,000.

Detroit has a lot of problems in the best of times and the unemployment rate due to COVID-19 has only made the problem worse. As a manufacturing company with a facility in the Midwest, we have a connection to Detroit, which should be America’s most prominent manufacturing city.

Times are tough all around and we’ve only been able top keep all of employees at full pay (even if some need to stay at home right now) because we’ve got such a loyal group of customers. Donating to this cause is something we can do to help others that aren’t as fortunate.

If you have the means, please join us with a donation at https://mercuryone.org/donate-covid-19-detroit-carbide-match/. 100% of your contribution will go directly to people in Detroit affected by COVID, no administration fees will be held back by Mercury One.

We’d like to announce something totally new for us, and really, new for the industry as a whole – our new 30-Day Mistakes Are On Us policy.

It can be a little scary to try something new; trust us, we’ve been there. For those of you completely unfamiliar with CNC, pulling the trigger on a CNC machine can be really daunting. The tech is new, the software is new, and investing money on something that is so unfamiliar can stop you from buying the machine that you’d really enjoy.

“What if I break my machine during assembly?”

“What if I enter the wrong feed rate?”

“What if I forget to set zero, or set it incorrectly, will I ruin my machine?”

We’re here to tell you, probably not. But we felt that saying that might not be enough. So, here’s what we can do to quell those fears:

Starting the day you get your machine, you will have 30 days where we cover any mishaps or damage to the machine due to operator error. Should anything happen, just reach out to us and we’ll help get it sorted. We’ve got you covered.

You should be excited to use your machine, not afraid.

The only things that will not be covered are:

• The MDF baseboard is a consumable item that’s meant to take a beating so don’t panic if you machine into it. That’s what it is for.
• Third-party accessories and cutters (routers, clamps, dust boots, etc. – anything not made by us)
• Project materials. If you’re learning, stick to cheaper materials like MDF and plywood.

As a reminder, connecting third party accessories (lasers, plasma cutters, etc.) still voids the warranty.

Other than that, use the machine without fear and start making chips! If you break anything, let us know and we’ll take care of it, on us.

Our lawyer wrote up the policy in more detail here. (He thinks we’re crazy for doing this)

This doesn’t happen very often. We’ve made a new accessory for the Shapeoko and we’ve decided to discontinue it.

An option to automatically turn the router on and off has been a popular request, so we said, that’s a great idea, let’s design it, and the BitRunner was born.

But, one thing led to another and we overthought it and ended up over-engineering it. The BitRunner works well, but it’s not what we had initially envisioned. For those customers who want the ease of turning the router on and off via G-Code without having to reach for the router each time, this is for you.

We weren’t sure if we were gonna make it available, but then we thought, why not? Let’s put it out there for our customers! There is only one production batch of the BitRunner, so once it’s gone, there won’t be anymore. Don’t worry, if you buy one, we will support it. It’s just going to be a limited edition item.

Get your hands on this one of a kind product while stock lasts!

https://shop.carbide3d.com/products/bitrunner

If all goes well, we’re only a couple of weeks from opening up ordering for the Nomad 3 so it’s time to share some specifics.

First, let’s talk about why we decided to make a new Nomad. Since starting the company seven years ago, we’ve depended on an outside machine shop for all of our 5 axis work, which amounted to three parts on the last Nomad. The shop we used was very capable but they never seemed to get ahead of our orders so we were perpetually fighting a backlog. It seemed like they were always on the verge of getting caught up so we stuck with them, until we got “that one delivery”.

We ended up with a batch of parts that were out of spec and when asked about it, we were curtly told that the parts were, in fact, within spec. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and we bought a 5-axis machine later that week.

So we ended up with a new 5-axis machine, three new parts to make and the arrogance to say, “Well, if we’re going to make these parts anyway, why not fix up everything we’re been wanting to fix anyway?” It was a bigger project than we thought, and it happened to coincide with Covid so it took way more time than we expected, but it’s finally done and we can share the results.

Here are the highlights for the Nomad 3:

• Cutting area remains 8” x 8” x 3”
• Homing switches are now inductive, not mechanical.
• New Carbide Motion 3.0 electronics
• New leadnuts with more thread engagement and preload.
• Aluminum parts are now tumbled, not powder coated.
• New spindle design with angular contact bearings running at 24K RPM.
• HG15-style linear bearings for the Z axis
• New 150-watt spindle motor.
• Thicker bed/table.
• Internal lighting.
• New enclosure with side windows.

Almost every part of the machine has changed in some way so there’s no upgrade path from an older model, the Nomad 3 is all-new.

If all goes well we’ll be opening up ordering for the Nomad 3 on Oct 15th with shipping beginning shortly after that. We’ll probably have at least one more upgrade to share before shipping begins.

Pricing for the Nomad 3 is $2800.

One more thing…

We also have a new Shapeoko Pro.

Shapeoko Pro raises Shapeoko 3 to a new level of performance and usability. It’s not a replacement for Shapeoko 3 (which is not going away, in case you were wondering), Shapeoko Pro is an all-new addition to our lineup.

Here are a few specs:

• Linear bearings for all motion, no V-Wheels.
• 15mm belts.
• Integrated t-slot table.
• Fully supported Y extrusion tubes.
• All extrusions are precision machined.
• Integrated BitSetter.
• New 65mm spindle /router mount.
• New Carbide Motion 3.0 electronics.
• Motion plates are precision machined.
• New, faster assembly experience.

Let’s go through each point in a little more detail to share the reasoning behind each change.

(Quick note: the pictures below are from our final engineering prototype so the final product will be cosmetically different.)

Linear Bearings

V-Wheels are a robust and reliable motion system and we don’t have any plans to do away with them generally but linear bearings, given an equal frame to mount them on, are more rigid. In our testing we’ve seen a meaningful increase in the cutting speeds we can get before chatter becomes a problem.

15mm Belts

Shapeoko 3 uses 9mm belts, so bumping the width to 15mm means that the overall stiffness is increased by more than 60%.

Some people will question that choice of belts at all over a screw-driven system, but we remain big fans of belts.

• They’re easy to replace if they fail.
• They’re mechanically simple.
• They’re low-maintenance (just wipe them off).
• They’re low-backlash.
• They offer a good tradeoff between speed and force.

One thing to note is that we’re going back to fiberglass belts instead of steel, which is something we’ve already done in the Shapeoko 3. The steel-core belts gave us a slight increase in stiffness but we saw a much higher failure rate when moving to steel. We suspect this was due to metal fatigue as the belt went around the pulley repeatedly.

Based on our testing, the new 15mm fiberglass belts will be much more stiff than the 9mm steel-core belts while being more durable.

T-Slot Table

This is a big deal for a couple of reasons, first for the added convenience and function, and the second reason is related to the fundamental structure of the machine.

We’re calling this new table our Hybrid Table because we’ve tried to combine the elements of the existing T-Slot table and the MDF wasteboard into a best-of-both-worlds system.

T-Slots are on 100mm centers, which gives you lots of clamping options for your projects.

MDF filler strips stand above the t-slots by 3mm, so you have plenty of material to face the MDF down a couple of times to get the table totally flat without hitting the aluminum t-slots.

Normally, a t-slot extrusion is a small c-shaped aluminum extrusion and the filler slats go in between. With the Hybrid Table, we flipped that around completely. Our new t-slot extrusion is split at the t-slot and fits underneath the MDF slats to both support the MDF and to connect to the structure underneath.

And that’s the big structural change we made. There are now tubes underneath the table (running right-to-left) that fully support the table and create a grid of aluminum extrusions that are fully bolted together. By the time you assemble everything, it’s very stable and very rigid.

Fully Supported Y Tubes

Remember those horizontal tubes underneath the table? Those are also used to support the Y tubes along their length. Our Y tubes have never had a rigidity problem but this change fully ties the table into the motion structure for maximum rigidity and stability.

All extrusions are precision machined

Between the X and Y tubes, the hybrid table extrusions, and the tubes under the table, there are a lot of parts that have to mate together. All of the extrusions are machined in-house to make sure we deliver a machine that fits together well.

At the risk of overstating the point above, we don’t use any 80/20-style t-slots or t-nuts for the machine structure, it’s all machined, drilled, and tapped.

Integrated BitSetter

BitSetter is our absolute favorite accessory and it’s something we’re very proud of. We created it with the original Nomad and then eventually moved to the Shapeoko. We’ve heard from many users who have one that it’s become an indispensable part of their workflow.

If we’re going to call a machine “Pro” it’s got to come with BitSetter.

New 65mm Spindle /Router Mount

We took this opportunity to simplify and improve the router mount. Our Carbide Compact Router, the Makita alternative, and the VFD spindles that some people use, are all 65mm so we’ve decided to make that the standard for the Shapeoko Pro. This new mount is taller and beefier than the mount on the Shapeoko 3 to increase rigidity.

New Carbide Motion 3.0 Electronics

We’ve had this on the bench for a while but it’s been tough to figure out when to roll it out into production because it’s not a drop-in replacement. We’re excited to finally have a way to get it out into the world in both the Nomad 3 and Shapeoko Pro. The 3.0 board is easier to install and has better EMI performance- it’s the best board we’ve made yet.

Motion Plates Are Precision Machined

There’s very little sheet metal on this machine. All of the plates in the motion system are precision machined aluminum.

New, Faster Assembly Experience

Shapeoko Pro comes with a lot more of the assembly done in our shop. We’ll be curious to hear how quickly average people put it together (that is, people who weren’t involved in making the machine) but our best estimate is that it’ll take about half the time to assemble as Shapeoko 3.

Availability

If all goes well, we’ll be taking orders on Oct 15, the same time as the Nomad 3, with shipping to begin a little after that. We’ve got a lot of parts in production so we’re hoping we’ve got a solid head start.

We’re trying to get the Shapeoko Pro announced and out into the world as quickly as possible so the first batch is going to be called “Early Adopter” because there won’t even be an assembly manual done in time for launch. Assembly will be detailed in a video by our own Winston Moy, with the printed manual to follow.

Only the XXL size will be available at launch with the XL and Standard sizes to follow after that. We want to make sure we get one size totally dialed in before trying to ship the full product line.

Pricing

Shapeoko XXL will be priced at $2800 with free shipping within the US and Canada.

As much as we love Shapeoko 3 and the Nomad Pro, the Shapeoko Pro and Nomad 3 are exciting for us because they’re the result of seven years of experience and customer feedback, a five-person product development team, all challenging one other, and a significant production and prototyping capability. We never could have made this machine even a couple of years ago.

We can’t wait to see what you make with Nomad 3 and Shapeoko Pro.

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.

The 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/

Improvements in 416

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.

We’re getting pretty close to Nov. 15, which is the date that we expected to ship both the new Nomad 3 and the Shapeoko Pro.

The good news is that Nomads started shipping out this week and the team is rapidly knocking out the backlog. Hopefully we’ll be able to reevaluate the 30-day lead time for new orders next week.

Now, about the Shapeoko Pro…

After we opened up orders we ended up making a couple of last minute changes to the machine to improve performance, hoping that we could get it done without adding any delays. The good news is that we got the changes made and they didn’t add any delay. The bad news is that the packaging was delayed so we’re still waiting for boxes to ship the machines in.

Right now, we’re expecting the boxes to show up in Illinois late next week. We’ve been getting all of the machining done in the last few weeks so we have lots of machines ready to go out the door once we have something to put them in. Leaving a couple of days of uncertainty, we expect to ship Shapeoko Pros on Nov 25th.

That’s the best information we have right now but we’ll update this blog post if anything changes.

Last year’s Black Friday sale was good… really good. The problem was that we had to change a lot of prices in the store to get it going.

I said to Jorge, “Can you update the store with the Black Friday deals?”

“No can do hermano, we’ve got to get these Nomad 3’s out the door.”

“Hey Edward, can you update the store with the Black Friday deals?”

“I’ve got to keep shipping Shapeoko Pros. Period.”

I asked Winston for help but he just mumbled about speeds and feeds and chiploads.

I certainly didn’t want to do it again so we’re taking a different approach this year.

• 15% off everything in our store except machines (Shapeoko Pro, Shapeoko, and Nomad) and Amana cutters.
• Shapeoko Standard/XL/XXL includes a Carbide Compact Router and a BitSetter.

The Fine Print

• Offer is valid while supplies last. Once we’re out of an item, we’re out.
• The sale runs through Nov 30th at midnight.
• 15% Discounts are shown when the items are placed in your cart.
• If you just bought something before the sale began check out our pricing policy at: https://carbide3d.com/price-policy/
• We’ve got quite a backlog for the Shapeoko Pro and Nomad 3 there are no promotions for those machines.

Shipping Times

As we get deeper into the sale, expect our shipping times to go up, particularly if you buy after Nov 25th. (We can tell you for absolute certain that if you wait until Black Friday to order then your shipment will be delayed for at least a few days.)

New Products

We haven’t gone out of the way to announce these yet but, if you haven’t seen them yet, we have the following products in stock and on sale in the Black Friday sale:

• Alibre Workshop
• Super Hold
• Proximity Switch Kit for Shapeoko
• Z-Plus for Shapeoko

PS- We’re going to be including Alibre Workshop with all Nomad 3 purchases in the near future (including people who’ve already purchased) so don’t buy that if you’re buying a Nomad 3.

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:

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.

We’re getting a lot of email and calls about the status of the Shapeoko Pro. If there are that many people reaching out, then we can only imagine that there are many more who want to know, but haven’t gotten in touch.

Here’s the latest information we have:

• Our aluminum extruder is late delivering the Y tubes we need for the Shapeoko Pro XXL. We have enough to fill all of the existing orders, but not enough to take any additional orders.
• We have enough material to make our first batch of Shapeoko Pro XL and the boxes should arrive in around three weeks.
• We’ve bought additional equipment to bump Shapeoko Pro production by around 50% and it should go online today.
• All exsiting XXL Pro orders should ship in the next two weeks.

Beginning next week, we’ll be making XL parts in addition to filling XXL orders. Once the XXL backlog is filled, we’ll continue making everything else to ship XXL machines when we get the Y tubes in.

We expect to put both XL and XXL machines in stock in 3 weeks but will only be making the quantity we can ship in one week available, rather than the entire quantity we can make with materials on hand. This will let us provide a more predictable shipping date once you place an order, and keep the queue from getting out of hand if anything goes wrong. Once we get the queue to near-zero, which should theoretically be weekly, we’ll make additional stock available.

We hope to begin shipping both machines the day after we restock them, with no delays.

A frequent question for the past week has been, “Can I pay now to be on the list for a machine when they ship?” That would effectively be a preorder, and we’re avoiding preorders as much as possible going forward. We’re planing to manage our backlog very carefully, and preorders make that almost impossible for the kinds of products we sell.

That’s the best information we have right now and we’ll plan to post an additional update in a week or two when we get updates from our vendors.

We just uploaded build 527 of Carbide Create and it contains a lot of changes from the last stable release (520).

We already covered the addition of layers in 521 a blog post about it so we’ll just go over the big changes since then:

• Select Circles command under Edit->Select…->Select Circles
• Select Open Vectors command under Edit->Select…->Select Open Vectors
• Optimized toolpath linking for pockets
• Advanced VCarve toolpaths output is simplified more
• Additional digit of accuracy in the post processor
• Drilling toolpath
• Engraving toolpath (Carbide Create Pro only)

Select Circles and Open Vectors

These are quick and dirty commands that are really there for the new toolpaths and the layers.

• For drilling toolpaths, it’s convenient to select all circles within a document within a certain radius.
• For imported drawings, it’s helpful to be able to select all open vectors to correct them or move them to a new layer that’s out of the way.

Optimized Toolpath Linking for Pockets

This is a scary change and it’s one of the reasons that we haven’t move any of these releases to “Stable” yet. This new code will keep the cutter down if it can move within the pocket safely. It’s computationally intensive so it might slow down calculation for very dense pocket toolpaths but the resulting gcode should run faster.

Retracts from the pocket are now at rapid speed, not at the defined feedrate.

Please simulate your code before running it just to make sure there are no gouges.

Advanced Vcarve Toolpaths Output is Reduced

In prior builds, the Advanced Vcarve toolpaths output gcode that was beyond the accuracy of most CNC routers and the tiny moves led to stuttering of the machine if the controller couldn’t keep up with the incoming gcode.

We now reduce the output more like the rest of the CC toolapths so it should be an improvement for performance and gcode file size.

Additional Digit of Accuracy in the Post Processor

If you really zoomed into gcode path in prior builds it could be bumpy at a level below the accuracy of most machines (below .001”). This would only show up in an external simulator since the simulation in CC is from the “pure” toolpath data.

The bumps may not have affected the output but it could have affected the planner in the machine controller so we added another digit to the gcode to eliminate this quirk.

Drilling Toolpath

You asked for it and we finally got it in there- drilling toolpaths for Carbide Create.

You can define the drilling style (full depth, puck, or peck with full retract) and depth so this should be a big win for a lot of projects in a variety of materials. The only thing that needs clarification is how the drill locations are defined since CC doesn’t have a “point” type.

The drilling toolpath will put a hole in the middle of any closed vector you choose, as long as the bounding box is relatively square. That means you can pick circles, squares, or anything similar and you’ll get a hole in the middle of it.

Engraving Toolpath (Pro Only)

Our new MC Etcher Drag Engraver has been very popular but we didn’t have a good toolpath option for it. The new Engraving toolpath in Carbide Create Pro is perfect for drag engravers or for regular engraving cutters that need a good fill option.

The engraving toolpath gives you three fill options:

• Linear (Just a bunch of lines at the defined angle)
• Crosshatch (A grid of lines at the defined angle)
• Vertical mirror (A two sets of lines, one at the defined angle and another reflected across the Y-axis)

Try it Out!

We’d like to promote this build to stable as soon as possible but we need your feedback that nothing broke compared to prior builds. Try it out on the beta page and let us know how it works for you.

Today we’re posting the first beta of Carbide Create V6. We have big plans for V6 but we needed to start with all of the changes that are likely to break compatibility or changes that are most likely to modify the user interface compared to V5. Here’s what we’ve got so far :

Rulers - We’ve got rulers on the top and side of the drawing window that give a better reference for object size and position. Right now, the divisions in the ruler track the grid spacing in the drawing. If you zoom out far enough that the labels begin to overlap then the labels will be hidden and you’ll just have the ruler lines.

Undo/Redo - All undo actions are now redoable. This was a massive internal change for the program so it’s likely that we’ve introduced a few bugs with this one. We’re pretty sure that digging this deep in the code surfaced a number of long-dormant bugs so we think we’re already net-positive on this change.

Text Changes - The whole text command is redone for V6. We now use a different text rendering system that should better integrate with the operating system than the prior versions. This means that text in old files will render differently in V6 than in V5. When you open a V5 file with text you’ll be given the option to convert the text to curves to retain the original shapes. We also added:

• Left/center/right snaps on the text baseline for more positioning control
• The font list box now shows a preview of the font
• Option to change the spacing for the text being created
• Option to convert the text to curves for more control

Boolean Union - Users have been confused by the boolean union command in the past because inner curves would be consumed by outer curves. This was the “correct” behavior since the command did a literal boolean union, but it wasn’t what users wanted. In V6 the boolean union command will not touch inner curves if they don’t directly touch another curve.

SVG Import - Some curves ended up with an extra control point that broke proper node editing. This should be fixed in V6.

We’ve got lots more planned but if you’d like to try it out now, grab the beta from https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/beta . Be sure to let us know what you think.

The Hybrid Table is our new combination machine base and workholding system used in the Shapeoko 4 and Shapeoko Pro. It’s a big enough deal that we thought it warranted its own page here and a more thorough explanation.

In a traditional CNC Router, the base of a machine is critical for accuracy and rigidity since everything is built up from there. There are lots of ways to cheat the physics involved but it’s always easier to start with a good base, which is where we started for our newest machines.

In theory, it would have been easier to start with a flat plate of aluminum and bolt the rest of the machine to that plate. In practice, it would have been really expensive to make and to ship, and it wouldn’t be that flat.

The Hybrid Table takes a different approach, it’s made of a grid of aluminum extrusions that are bolted together to make a rigid frame.

The lowest level of the Hybrid Table is a series of aluminum tubes that span left-to-right and rest on the table or workbench below. We call them the “Nomad Tubes” because it’s a custom extrusion that we originally made for the Nomad Pro. On the left and right, our Y extrusion tubes, the ones that provide the machine motion front to back, are bolted to each Nomad tube.

Our Y extrusions were initially designed to support an 8-foot span with minimal deflection during cutting so they technically don’t “need” to be fully supported, especially on a machine the size of the XXL, but the overall rigidity that is gained by tying the table and the motion hardware together is a big improvement compared to the sheet metal risers on the Shapeoko 2 and Shapeoko 3 designs.

The final part of the Hybrid Table are the front-to-back T-track extrusions that bolt onto the Nomad tubes.

The T-track extrusions add to overall rigidity of the Hybrid Table. When bolted to the Nomad tubes, the T-track extrusions keep the overall frame from shifting or “parallel-o-gramming”. (Yep, that’s now a word)

At each point that a T-track extrusion crosses a Nomad tube, there are two M6 screws connecting them.

It’s worth noting a few things about the T-track extrusion:

• They’re wide so they give good leverage to keep the table square.
• The span under the MDF slats is supported by aluminum to keep the MDF from deflecting downward when cutting.

That’s a lot of screws that have to line up for the Hybrid Table to come together and it only works because each extrusion is machined in-house on an industrial machining center (typically a Haas VF4). No hand-drilling, no drill presses, no machining on a homemade machine.

Why not t-slot 80/20-style extrusions? Those are great for one-off designs but they don’t work for our application because:

• They’re a pain for customers to assemble.
• They require couplers and angle brackets that don’t provide any inherent accuracy or squareness.

When you put the Hybrid Table together we think it’s the best machine frame that can be made for a small CNC router but the rigidity is only half of the benefit.

Workholding

If you asked us to list the top things that trip up people who are new to CNC, work holding would absolutely make it in the top three. We’ve put a lot of effort into our workholding collection to try and help simplify work holding in general but you also need something to bolt those accessories onto. The Hybrid Table t-slots end up being a great place to start.

The area between t-slots is filled with MDF slats, which is what your project would generally rest on. We use 3/4” MDF so it will stand proud of the t-slots by approximately 3mm. That gives you plenty of margin to take a skim cut across the table to make it totally flat and still have a little extra to cut into the MDF without hitting any aluminum.

That skim pass is totally optional, and won’t matter at all for most users but we want to make sure it’s an option for those who need it.

The MDF slats are easy to make on a table saw when you need to replace them.

Now that you’ve got a flat table with t-slots, you have a lot of work holding options:

• Use double-side tape to hold stock down to the MDF
• Use tape and super glue to hold down to the MDF
• Use the included Essential Clamps
• Create an additional waste board with threaded inserts
• Tiger Claw clamps
• Attach a vise to the t-slot
• Add a threaded table to the t-slot

The Hybrid Table is the kind of thing that makes us wish we had a time machine to go back and use from the very start of Carbide 3D. We’ll have to settle to making it the core of our current machine lineup and seeing where we can take it from here.

Today we’re opening preorders on our newest CNC router, the Shapeoko HDM, our most capable machine and a machine with a long R&D history at Carbide 3D.

A few years ago we bought a Protomax water jet to help prototype the sheet metal parts for Shapeoko. Overall, it was a different purchasing experience than the Haas and Brother machines we’d been buying- we rolled the machine off the pallet, spent half a day putting it together, and then we got to work.

At the same time, everyone on Instagram was fawning over the Datron Neo, which was a small, fast CNC machine that was the size of a large refrigerator. (We own one of those too and let me tell you, it’s definitely NOT a ready-to-run machine)

We had a thought- could we deliver a high-performance CNC router that could be delivered on a pallet ready-to-run?

Here’s what we wanted:

• The most accurate machine possible without adding massive cost.
• A machine that would run for extended periods of time, either for big prototyping jobs or for production.
• A machine capable of cutting wood, aluminum, plastic, brass, maybe even a little steel.

It also had to cost a fraction of either the Protomax or Neo.

Edward and I traded ideas about how we’d make it for a couple of months. Once we liked the overall structure, we ran it by the pickiest guy we knew, Winston. I don’t know what we expected, but we certainly didn’t expect him to say, “I like it” so readily. We accepted the “win”, handed it over to Luke to fully design, and got to work making prototypes.

There were new extrusions to make, which took a couple of revisions, and custom ball screws and linear rails to get made. We needed new electronics to drive bigger motors and a VFD spindle. It took two years- way too long- but the result is the Shapeoko HDM and it’s great (Luke clearly got naming rights on this one).

You can see more about it on the product page but these are the highlights:

• 80mm VFD Spindle with water cooling
• HG-15 linear rails and ball screws on every axis
• Hybrid Table for the base and work holding.
• BitSetter for easy tool changes
• LED Lighting for better visibility

It’s the most capable machine we’ve ever made and it comes almost ready-to-run.

The Preorder

We said we’d never do another preorder but this is a case where we didn’t really know what else to do. We have no idea how popular Shapeoko HDM will be. Should we order enough to make thousands? Hundreds? Two? We have no idea how to forecast this one so we took a guess and we’re putting the first batch up for sale with a healthy lead time.

The first batch will ship within four months. It should be quicker but we’ve been bitten by optimism before so we’re adding an “optimism correction factor” to get to four months.

Here are our plans:

• Shapeoko HDM will only ship via freight. Eventually, we’ll charge for shipping but we’ll ship the first batch for free.
• Until we learn more about how the freight shipping will work, we’re only going to ship these machines within the US.
• If you purchase one, we’ll give you a call to answer any questions and make sure expectations are correct. We’re happy to have that conversation before you buy but we want to make sure we talk to you before the machine ships.

We’re really excited to get these out into the world and see what you make with them. Got any questions? Get in touch and we’d be happy to talk through your application.

Otherwise, go check out the Shapeoko HDM in more detail in our store