Script fonts are always popular for CNC designs. The difficult part of using a script font is that you usually want the letters in the text merged into a single object rather than a separate set of characters that are next to each other, but not combined.

We’ll use Carbide Create V6, which includes new tools to make this easier.

Install script font

For this short how-to, we’ll use the Brush Script MT font that typically comes installed with Windows 10 and later. If you don’t have any script fonts available, you can download a number for free from https://www.dafont.com.

Create text

Launch Carbide Create and create a new text object. In this example, we’ll pick a height of 50mm, around 2 inches, and use the Brush Script MT font.

• Set a height of approximately 2 inches
• Enter “Carbide” as the text
• Press Apply
• The text will be shown in the drawing view.

Preview text

To merge the text into a single object, the letters must overlap. In the drawing view, zoom in to the view and inspect the areas where characters should connect and make sure that there is an overlap.

If the text does overlap properly then you can skip the next step. If not, you can change the text spacing to make adjustments.

Change text spacing

If the text doesn’t overlap then the quickest fix is to reduce the text spacing until it does.

• Change the text spacing to 99%
• Click Apply

The drawing view will update with the new spacing. If it overlaps, you’re ready to move on to the next step. If not, reduce the spacing to 98% and try again. It rarely requires more than a couple of percentage points of change to get proper overlap.

Convert to curves

Once you’re happy with the text, you’re ready to convert objects from text to curves for further modification.

• Click Convert to Curves

It’s worth noting that once you convert the text to curves, it’s no longer possible to change the text contents. If you need to change the text, wait on this step until you’re ready for toolpaths.

Combine curves with boolean union

Now that you have a series of curves, click the Boolean Union command to merge overlapping curves into combined objects.

Admire your work

You’ll now have merged text curves that you can machine with a V-carve toolpath or cutout completely with a contour toolpath.

Here’s a problem we’ve heard from some Shapeoko users:

“The Z-axis randomly plunges down at the start of the job and gouges into my stock. What’s up?”

We spoke to all of our support people to make sure we understood the problem and we can confidently say that this is a workflow problem, not a hardware or software problem.

Symptoms of this problem

How can you be sure that this is the problem you’re having?

• You have a BitSetter
• The cutter is plunging too deep at the start of the job
• The cutter is cutting the air above your stock at the start of the job

Cases where there’s no BitSetter, or the Z-axis drifts or stutters, are not related to this problem.

How to crash your Z-axis with BitSetter

Here’s what users are doing to crash their Z-axis.

1. Start the machine and hit “Initialialize”
2. Go to the Jog screen.
3. Realize that they want a different tool in the router and change cutters.
4. Set program zero
5. Run a program
6. Crash

The error above is in step 3. If you change tools unprompted, something bad is likely to happen. 

It actually took a while to figure this out because the videos that we got only showed the crash when the program ran, not the error during setup. Without seeing the setup process, it’s easy to miss the root problem.

How BitSetter works

BitSetter tracks the length of every tool inserted in Shapeoko and updates the zero position based on changes to the length of the tool. BitSetter measures the tool length in three circumstances:

• When you hit the initialize button in Carbide Motion
• When you hit the “Load Tool” button in Carbide Motion
• When your G-code program requests a tool change

If you change the tool any other time, Carbide Motion won’t measure the tool length so it won’t update the zero height.

When can you change a cutter with BitSetter?

In the three tool change scenarios above, Carbide Motion will prompt you for a tool change and then immediately measure the tool length with BitSetter.

Any time you want to change tools outside of a G-code program, be sure to click the “Load Tool” button and follow the prompts.

If you accidentally change the tool un-prompted, hit the “Load Tool” button to tell Carbide Motion to measure the tool length, then go check or reset your Z zero value.

If you have any questions at all, let us know and we’ll get it taken care of for you.

We’ve been working on Carbide Create V6 since June of this year and we’re finally ready to recommend that everyone give it a try.

We’d encourage you to grab a copy from the beta downloads page and let us know how it works for you.

Here’s a summary of what’s new:

• Everything undoable is now redoable.
• Rulers on boundary of 2D drawing window to show current zoom level and cursor position.
• Boolean union now ignores vectors that do not cross other vectors. Mathematically, this is wrong but it seems to be what users expect and it’s been great so far.
• Normal cut, copy and paste. Pasted items will also have the toolpath links that the original vector had. Pasted items will be put on the active layer. If mouse is out of drawing view, items will be pasted to the original location. If the mouse is in the drawing view then the pasted items will be centered on mouse position.
• Duplicate Selected command to make copies of an item with more options. Connected to CTRL-D.
• Toolpath tabs can now be individually removed by clicking on an existing tab in the edit window.
• Export SVG now gives the option to save all elements, visible elements, or selected elements.
• Added Design Elements library. Currently bound to “E” key and under Library menu.
• Added user SVG directory in “library” under the data directory. Any SVG added there will be added to the Design Elements library.
• Added Import from URL command to bulk-import SVG files. Documentation and file format will be forthcoming.
• Added more simulation textures.
• Baseline snaps for text.
• Spacing option for text objects.
• Option to convert text to a path.
• Font preview list box

After the better part of a year of work, we’re ready to call Carbide Create V6 “Done” and encourage everyone to give it a shot.

Get a copy from the downloads page and let us know how it works for you.

What’s new in Carbide Create V6?

In the past month we’ve added:

• Import a C2D file into another C2D file.
• Curve Trim command
• Fillets via the new Corner Tool
• Linear Arrays
• Circular Arrays
• Backup rendering system in Windows for users with very old graphics cards

These additions are on top of the changes in the first 40 builds of V6, which were substantial on their own. Here are a few of our favorites :

• Rulers in 2D view
• Font previews
• Convert text to paths
• Spacing option for text
• Tradition Cut / Copy / Paste plus a powerful Duplicate command
• Completely revamped Elements library

Some long-time users have complained about older versions of Carbide Create, and a lot of that has been fair. We made a couple of mistakes in Carbide Create V1 that haunted us for years:

We had pretty minimal goals for what we wanted CC to be. We wanted users to be able to draw simple shapes and text and cut them out. Our users became more advanced and we had to improve on CC, but the internal architecture of CC was not really built for that scale of program. We’re happy to say that V6 is now built to support where we want to go for the next 5 years.

We used Qt/QML for the user interface. This is a little in-the-weeds, but we based the user interface on a new (at the time) technology called QML. It was a nightmare and it was the single most damaging thing we did. It took years to rip it back out because it was so intertwined with the application. (We can probably share now that, early in CC, we sent out dozens of free computers to people because the QML system just wouldn’t run on their machine.)

Why are we rehashing the past? Because we want you to know that if you haven’t used CC V6, you should. Carbide Create V6 is such a break from the past versions that we’re comfortable saying it’s a whole new program.

What’s next?

We’re going to take some time to make sure there are no show-stopper bugs to fix in V6 and then move on to work on V7, which is going to have some GREAT new features that we’ve been really excited to start on.

The data that we’ve been able to collect from users over the past few months has made something very clear, almost all machine disconnects we see today are caused by static electricity from the vacuum hoses. I’m sure that some will find that to be a controversial statement, but it’s based on the best data we have in working through problems that real customers are having.

Figuring out anything related to static discharge is very difficult because it depends on the environment, the wiring in your shop, and the exact arrangement of the machine and everything that interacts with it electrically.

Several of us at Carbide 3D have been shocked by touching the vacuum hoses in our shops, both in California and Illinois, but we have never had a disconnect. This serves as a reminder of another fact, most users will never have a disconnect problem, even with an ungrounded hose. (Setting the potential shocks aside)

If you are having a disconnect problem, there’s no getting around the fact that step one is to ground the vacuum hose that goes into the machine. Doing so may not be the only remedy required, or the sole cause of trouble, but’s the most likely.

Diagnosing the problem

If you have a persistent disconnection problem, here are a few things to try:

1. Run the job without the router turned on, but leave the vacuum or dust collector turned off. If you get a disconnect then it could be noise coming through your AC line.
2. Run the job with the router turned off, but with the vacuum turned on. If you get a disconnect, it’s likely the static discharge from the vacuum. It’s time to ground that hose.

Option 1, The Right Way

The right way to ground your vacuum hose is to buy a conductive or anti-static hose to go from Sweepy to your vacuum or dust separator. A proper anti-static hose will usually have a wire embedded in it, and have some conductive material mixed in with whatever plastic it’s made from to allow the electrical charge to drain to the wire.

Once you have an anti-static hose, you need to either connect the embedded wire to the machine frame, or wrap some bare wire around the hose and then ground that hose to the machine frame.

We don’t have a specific model to recommend, but here are a few that look good:

1. https://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-right-2-1-2-in-anti-static-dust-hose
2. https://www.amazon.com/Cen-Tec-Systems-94434-Antistatic-Universal/dp/B07Q7SSTPX (Not 2.5”)
3. https://www.woodcraft.com/products/flexaust-2-1-2-anti-static-clear-dust-collection-hose-flexaust
4. https://biscoair.com/heavy-duty-flexible-hose-with-grounding-wire/

We’d prefer the fourth option above, because it gives you a wire that can be directly grounded to the machine frame.

Option 2, It Seems to Work

This is something we’ve seen from users who say it works well. A couple of us at Carbide are electrical engineers, so it makes us a little uneasy to recommend this approach, but there’s no denying the success that users have had.

Take a length of bare copper wire and wrap it around the spiral in your vacuum hose, from Sweepy to your vacuum or dust separator. Leave enough slack so that you can ground the wire on your machine frame. You may need to take some electrical tape to wrap around the hose every 6 inches or so to keep the wire in place.

Why does this make us uneasy? Because there’s no electrical connection from the inner section of the hose to the wire, as there would be with an anti-static hose. That said, it’s the static charge on the outside of the hose that’s more likely to cause trouble so that may not be a big deal.

We tried it on one of our hoses in the shop, just to see how easy it would be. We used some bare 20 gauge copper wire from McMaster-Carr and then spent 15 minutes wrapping it. If you choose to try this, be sure to get bare wire with no insulation at all, either plastic or enamel.

We never had a disconnect problem before, so we can’t speak to the benefits, but we haven’t been shocked by the hose after wrapping it, so that’s a win. It’s also much cheaper that a real anti-static hose.

Conclusion

We’re happy to help work through any problems that you’re having, disconnects or otherwise.

After weeks of beta testing, we’ve released Carbide Create V7 with a lot of big changes. The download can be found at: https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download for those that want to try it out. It includes lots of new features so we’d like to encourage everyone to try it out.

And now, on to the changes…

Tabs are now a part of the vectors, not contour toolpaths.

We added a new tab command to add tabs to a vector. If you copy the vector, you copy the tabs too. This should be helpful for users that are doing production work where they may want to fine-tune the machining of a single item and then copy and paste an array of them for full production.

Look for the new command here:

Text alignment

Text objects now hold an alignment value of Left/Center/Right. For a single line of text that never changes, this doesn’t matter at all. If you have one or more lines of text that will change then this will be really helpful because the text will keep its alignment on the document after the text changes.

We also added a bit of code to update the text preview automatically as the parameters change. We may have to tweak this a little if we get feedback that some machines are bogging down. (It shouldn’t, we were pretty conservative about how often we update.)

Text on an arc

Text can now be laid out on an arc, with the text on the top or bottom of the arc. In the text command, you can set the arc by dragging the center point or the reference point of the arc to get the alignment and radius that you want. If you hold shift while dragging, it’ll move both the center and the reference point at the same time.

When text is on an arc, we use the middle of the text as the baseline so that text on the top and bottom of the arc appear to line up. There’s no reliable “middle” of a font so we determine that by taking half of the height of a “T” as the midpoint. That may or may not be perfect, depending on your particular font, but it seems to get you in the ballpark with our testing.

Expressions in numerical fields

In almost every numerical field we now allow math expressions. Type in your expression and then hit “=” to evaluate it and input the answer. For instance:

• “1 in=” will change the value to 1 or 25.4, depending on the document units.
• “25.4mm=” will do the same thing, but in metric.
• “25/2=” will update to 12.5 (which is convenient for people who want to convert a diameter to a radius, or vise-versa)

These have been useful to us so far but the real win is that toolpath depths, both the start depth and the max depth, can hold an expression and update anytime the project thickness changes. For instance:

• “t” will use the project thickness and update anytime it changes.
• “t=” will immediately evaluate as the project thickness but not update on changes.
• “t/2” will cut to half of the project thickness and update anytime it changes.
• “t+.01in” will cut .01in past the bottom of the stock and update anytime it changes.

As you go through the change log, you’ll see a lot of notes about bugs in the expression code. This was a deep UI change and we think we’ve got it working well but be sure to let us know if you find anything funky.

Once we get this build tested we’re thinking about adding 3-4 other depth variables so that you can have a few intermediate depths values that can update toolpaths. We’ll see if that turns out to be a good idea.

Toolpaths can be linked to layers

Toolpaths can now link to a layer instead of individual vectors. If a toolpath is linked to a vector, it will recalculate any time the contents of that layer change.

On the surface, this seems like a convenience feature, but we think it’s much more. When combined with the depth expressions above, it allows you to make template files that contain known-good machining precesses where you only have to add vectors to the correct layer and you’re good to go. There will be no need to tweak toolpaths.

For instance, if you have a wooden sign file you might have:

• Engraving layer linked to a V-carve toolpath
• Pocket layer linked to a pocket toolpath with the depth set to “t/2”
• Outline layer linked to a contour toolpath with the depth set to “t+.01in”

All you’d need to do when starting a new job is load the file and add vectors to the correct layers. If you change the thickness of the stock, the toolpaths will update automatically.

ANGLE rendering is now the default on Windows

We’ve found the ANGLE rendering option to work well on Windows so we’re making that the default now. You should not notice any changes from this but it’s worth noting in case anything comes up. (I wish I could share some of the customer interactions that triggered this change.)

G-code is now held in the C2D file

G-code is now stored in the C2D file, not in an external G-code file. This has been a request for a while but it had to wait for a new file format to make it work and it brings a couple of benefits:

• Only one file is required for a project so the G-code and the project should not go “out of sync”.
• Because the G-code and the project are stored together, you can always load it back into CC to edit something and then run it again.

The other thing this fixes is a growing support problem. We’ve been dealing with a lot of users who buy other (non-Carbide 3D) machines and then use CC. While it’s great that people are using CC, it’s bad because they’re buying from companies that provide little-to-no support so they end up trying to get us to help them use their machines and it’s not always clear that they don’t own one of our machines until there have been a number of emails back and forth, or a phone/video call. This is now getting in the way of us providing support to Carbide 3D customers so it needs to end.

We’ll be honest here, we also deferred this change because it felt unnatural to have the toolpaths in the design file. We’re not quite sure why it was unnatural other than, “because that’s not how it’s done”. After using it for a few weeks, we’ve become big fans of having a single file for everything and we don’t think we’d ever want to go back.

When you click the “Save Toolpath” button in CC V7 you’ll get a popup to save them in the current file or create a new C2D file. The “new C2D file” option will not update the current filename for future saves, which makes it a good way to output the currently-enabled toolpaths, but keep working in the original file.

The new C2D file also compresses most of the data so there’s generally no space penalty for putting the G-code and the design in a single file.

You’ll need to download Carbide Motion 565 or later, which supports the new C2D file format. 565 also adds a button to save the G-code to an external file if you want to review or edit it outside of CM.

Carbide Create Pro still has the option to save G-code to a standard file if that’s what you’re looking for.

We’ve also been testing this web-based G-code extractor for users that need to get their G-code out without Carbide Motion: https://my.carbide3d.com/extractgcode/ . It’s not gated by a customer list yet, you only need a login for the community site, so feel free to give it a shot.

Finally, V6 will remain available at https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download6 for users that want to get a copy of it, or roll back from V7 once we release it.

Rest Machining (PRO)

V7 adds a Rest Machining option for pockets that allows you to only machine the areas left behind by another pocket operation with a larger cutter.

STL Import (PRO)

V7 adds the ability to import an STL file and then apply it to the model in Carbide Create Pro. It’s still very much a work-in-progress but it’s functional and we think it’ll add a lot of capability to the kinds of projects you can do in Pro.

Keyhole Toolpath

We also added a very basic toolpath to create Keyholes without manually editing G-code, which is what a lot of users have done up to now.

Measure Command

V7 adds a Measure command to make it easier to determine the distance and angle between two points. It’s a simple command but it’s been high on the request list for a while.

Some users wanted to use the Measure command as a way to construct geometry, which is not really the intended use. Instead, we added segment length and angle information to the Polyline command that should make it a lot easier to create construction geometry that you can snap other objects to.

Notes command

After several user requests, we’ve added a “Notes” command so that you can add notes to your future self. You might want to hold change revisions, information about the customer or workholding, or where you sourced material for the project. It’s free-form and it’s totally up to you.

Boolean command

The Boolean commands have always been confusing for new users. It’s not always clear which you’d like to use, union, subtract, or intersect, so a lot of times getting the correct version required a lot of try-undo-try-again. We’ve reworked the Boolean command to show a preview of what you’re going to get so you can try each before click “ok” to keep the results.

We’ve also made the Boolean commands work better for groups so that it’s easier to create things like stacked signs or clip textures and patterns to fill another vector.

Finally, we’ve added a “Weld” option that does a simple union of all selected vectors without any attempt to figure out if one vector is actually a hole inside of another vector.

Other changes

We’ve made a lot of other smaller changes to make the program more responsive based on test files from users. Honestly, these are some of our favorite changes to make because these test files often show errors in our thinking up to this point about how the program should be architected.

We’ve heard a number of comments like, “I don’t know what you changed here but it feels a lot faster”, which is not scientific, but it’s nice to hear.

Going forward

The changes above represent all of the deep changes we plan to make in CC7 so they were the minimum we needed to get done for the first release. The rest of the todo-list items are more user interface changes and changes to commands that don’t span the whole program. Those changes should be dripped out over the next few months.

CC V7 should not interfere with V6 on your machine so it should be safe to use both in parallel. (And again, V6 will remain available at https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download6 )

We’d love to hear how CC V7 works for you, whether the feedback is good, bad, or indifferent. Please let us know what you think.

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

Script fonts are always popular for CNC designs. The difficult part of using a script font is that you usually want the letters in the text merged into a single object rather than a separate set of characters that are next to each other, but not combined.

We’ll use Carbide Create V6, which includes new tools to make this easier.

Install script font

For this short how-to, we’ll use the Brush Script MT font that typically comes installed with Windows 10 and later. If you don’t have any script fonts available, you can download a number for free from https://www.dafont.com.

Create text

Launch Carbide Create and create a new text object. In this example, we’ll pick a height of 50mm, around 2 inches, and use the Brush Script MT font.

• Set a height of approximately 2 inches
• Enter “Carbide” as the text
• Press Apply
• The text will be shown in the drawing view.

Preview text

To merge the text into a single object, the letters must overlap. In the drawing view, zoom in to the view and inspect the areas where characters should connect and make sure that there is an overlap.

If the text does overlap properly then you can skip the next step. If not, you can change the text spacing to make adjustments.

Change text spacing

If the text doesn’t overlap then the quickest fix is to reduce the text spacing until it does.

• Change the text spacing to 99%
• Click Apply

The drawing view will update with the new spacing. If it overlaps, you’re ready to move on to the next step. If not, reduce the spacing to 98% and try again. It rarely requires more than a couple of percentage points of change to get proper overlap.

Convert to curves

Once you’re happy with the text, you’re ready to convert objects from text to curves for further modification.

• Click Convert to Curves

It’s worth noting that once you convert the text to curves, it’s no longer possible to change the text contents. If you need to change the text, wait on this step until you’re ready for toolpaths.

Combine curves with boolean union

Now that you have a series of curves, click the Boolean Union command to merge overlapping curves into combined objects.

Admire your work

You’ll now have merged text curves that you can machine with a V-carve toolpath or cutout completely with a contour toolpath.

Here’s a problem we’ve heard from some Shapeoko users:

“The Z-axis randomly plunges down at the start of the job and gouges into my stock. What’s up?”

We spoke to all of our support people to make sure we understood the problem and we can confidently say that this is a workflow problem, not a hardware or software problem.

Symptoms of this problem

How can you be sure that this is the problem you’re having?

• You have a BitSetter
• The cutter is plunging too deep at the start of the job
• The cutter is cutting the air above your stock at the start of the job

Cases where there’s no BitSetter, or the Z-axis drifts or stutters, are not related to this problem.

How to crash your Z-axis with BitSetter

Here’s what users are doing to crash their Z-axis.

1. Start the machine and hit “Initialialize”
2. Go to the Jog screen.
3. Realize that they want a different tool in the router and change cutters.
4. Set program zero
5. Run a program
6. Crash

The error above is in step 3. If you change tools unprompted, something bad is likely to happen. 

It actually took a while to figure this out because the videos that we got only showed the crash when the program ran, not the error during setup. Without seeing the setup process, it’s easy to miss the root problem.

How BitSetter works

BitSetter tracks the length of every tool inserted in Shapeoko and updates the zero position based on changes to the length of the tool. BitSetter measures the tool length in three circumstances:

• When you hit the initialize button in Carbide Motion
• When you hit the “Load Tool” button in Carbide Motion
• When your G-code program requests a tool change

If you change the tool any other time, Carbide Motion won’t measure the tool length so it won’t update the zero height.

When can you change a cutter with BitSetter?

In the three tool change scenarios above, Carbide Motion will prompt you for a tool change and then immediately measure the tool length with BitSetter.

Any time you want to change tools outside of a G-code program, be sure to click the “Load Tool” button and follow the prompts.

If you accidentally change the tool un-prompted, hit the “Load Tool” button to tell Carbide Motion to measure the tool length, then go check or reset your Z zero value.

If you have any questions at all, let us know and we’ll get it taken care of for you.

We’ve been working on Carbide Create V6 since June of this year and we’re finally ready to recommend that everyone give it a try.

We’d encourage you to grab a copy from the beta downloads page and let us know how it works for you.

Here’s a summary of what’s new:

• Everything undoable is now redoable.
• Rulers on boundary of 2D drawing window to show current zoom level and cursor position.
• Boolean union now ignores vectors that do not cross other vectors. Mathematically, this is wrong but it seems to be what users expect and it’s been great so far.
• Normal cut, copy and paste. Pasted items will also have the toolpath links that the original vector had. Pasted items will be put on the active layer. If mouse is out of drawing view, items will be pasted to the original location. If the mouse is in the drawing view then the pasted items will be centered on mouse position.
• Duplicate Selected command to make copies of an item with more options. Connected to CTRL-D.
• Toolpath tabs can now be individually removed by clicking on an existing tab in the edit window.
• Export SVG now gives the option to save all elements, visible elements, or selected elements.
• Added Design Elements library. Currently bound to “E” key and under Library menu.
• Added user SVG directory in “library” under the data directory. Any SVG added there will be added to the Design Elements library.
• Added Import from URL command to bulk-import SVG files. Documentation and file format will be forthcoming.
• Added more simulation textures.
• Baseline snaps for text.
• Spacing option for text objects.
• Option to convert text to a path.
• Font preview list box

After the better part of a year of work, we’re ready to call Carbide Create V6 “Done” and encourage everyone to give it a shot.

Get a copy from the downloads page and let us know how it works for you.

What’s new in Carbide Create V6?

In the past month we’ve added:

• Import a C2D file into another C2D file.
• Curve Trim command
• Fillets via the new Corner Tool
• Linear Arrays
• Circular Arrays
• Backup rendering system in Windows for users with very old graphics cards

These additions are on top of the changes in the first 40 builds of V6, which were substantial on their own. Here are a few of our favorites :

• Rulers in 2D view
• Font previews
• Convert text to paths
• Spacing option for text
• Tradition Cut / Copy / Paste plus a powerful Duplicate command
• Completely revamped Elements library

Some long-time users have complained about older versions of Carbide Create, and a lot of that has been fair. We made a couple of mistakes in Carbide Create V1 that haunted us for years:

We had pretty minimal goals for what we wanted CC to be. We wanted users to be able to draw simple shapes and text and cut them out. Our users became more advanced and we had to improve on CC, but the internal architecture of CC was not really built for that scale of program. We’re happy to say that V6 is now built to support where we want to go for the next 5 years.

We used Qt/QML for the user interface. This is a little in-the-weeds, but we based the user interface on a new (at the time) technology called QML. It was a nightmare and it was the single most damaging thing we did. It took years to rip it back out because it was so intertwined with the application. (We can probably share now that, early in CC, we sent out dozens of free computers to people because the QML system just wouldn’t run on their machine.)

Why are we rehashing the past? Because we want you to know that if you haven’t used CC V6, you should. Carbide Create V6 is such a break from the past versions that we’re comfortable saying it’s a whole new program.

What’s next?

We’re going to take some time to make sure there are no show-stopper bugs to fix in V6 and then move on to work on V7, which is going to have some GREAT new features that we’ve been really excited to start on.

The data that we’ve been able to collect from users over the past few months has made something very clear, almost all machine disconnects we see today are caused by static electricity from the vacuum hoses. I’m sure that some will find that to be a controversial statement, but it’s based on the best data we have in working through problems that real customers are having.

Figuring out anything related to static discharge is very difficult because it depends on the environment, the wiring in your shop, and the exact arrangement of the machine and everything that interacts with it electrically.

Several of us at Carbide 3D have been shocked by touching the vacuum hoses in our shops, both in California and Illinois, but we have never had a disconnect. This serves as a reminder of another fact, most users will never have a disconnect problem, even with an ungrounded hose. (Setting the potential shocks aside)

If you are having a disconnect problem, there’s no getting around the fact that step one is to ground the vacuum hose that goes into the machine. Doing so may not be the only remedy required, or the sole cause of trouble, but’s the most likely.

Diagnosing the problem

If you have a persistent disconnection problem, here are a few things to try:

1. Run the job without the router turned on, but leave the vacuum or dust collector turned off. If you get a disconnect then it could be noise coming through your AC line.
2. Run the job with the router turned off, but with the vacuum turned on. If you get a disconnect, it’s likely the static discharge from the vacuum. It’s time to ground that hose.

Option 1, The Right Way

The right way to ground your vacuum hose is to buy a conductive or anti-static hose to go from Sweepy to your vacuum or dust separator. A proper anti-static hose will usually have a wire embedded in it, and have some conductive material mixed in with whatever plastic it’s made from to allow the electrical charge to drain to the wire.

Once you have an anti-static hose, you need to either connect the embedded wire to the machine frame, or wrap some bare wire around the hose and then ground that hose to the machine frame.

We don’t have a specific model to recommend, but here are a few that look good:

1. https://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-right-2-1-2-in-anti-static-dust-hose
2. https://www.amazon.com/Cen-Tec-Systems-94434-Antistatic-Universal/dp/B07Q7SSTPX (Not 2.5”)
3. https://www.woodcraft.com/products/flexaust-2-1-2-anti-static-clear-dust-collection-hose-flexaust
4. https://biscoair.com/heavy-duty-flexible-hose-with-grounding-wire/

We’d prefer the fourth option above, because it gives you a wire that can be directly grounded to the machine frame.

Option 2, It Seems to Work

This is something we’ve seen from users who say it works well. A couple of us at Carbide are electrical engineers, so it makes us a little uneasy to recommend this approach, but there’s no denying the success that users have had.

Take a length of bare copper wire and wrap it around the spiral in your vacuum hose, from Sweepy to your vacuum or dust separator. Leave enough slack so that you can ground the wire on your machine frame. You may need to take some electrical tape to wrap around the hose every 6 inches or so to keep the wire in place.

Why does this make us uneasy? Because there’s no electrical connection from the inner section of the hose to the wire, as there would be with an anti-static hose. That said, it’s the static charge on the outside of the hose that’s more likely to cause trouble so that may not be a big deal.

We tried it on one of our hoses in the shop, just to see how easy it would be. We used some bare 20 gauge copper wire from McMaster-Carr and then spent 15 minutes wrapping it. If you choose to try this, be sure to get bare wire with no insulation at all, either plastic or enamel.

We never had a disconnect problem before, so we can’t speak to the benefits, but we haven’t been shocked by the hose after wrapping it, so that’s a win. It’s also much cheaper that a real anti-static hose.

Conclusion

We’re happy to help work through any problems that you’re having, disconnects or otherwise.

After weeks of beta testing, we’ve released Carbide Create V7 with a lot of big changes. The download can be found at: https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download for those that want to try it out. It includes lots of new features so we’d like to encourage everyone to try it out.

And now, on to the changes…

Tabs are now a part of the vectors, not contour toolpaths.

We added a new tab command to add tabs to a vector. If you copy the vector, you copy the tabs too. This should be helpful for users that are doing production work where they may want to fine-tune the machining of a single item and then copy and paste an array of them for full production.

Look for the new command here:

Text alignment

Text objects now hold an alignment value of Left/Center/Right. For a single line of text that never changes, this doesn’t matter at all. If you have one or more lines of text that will change then this will be really helpful because the text will keep its alignment on the document after the text changes.

We also added a bit of code to update the text preview automatically as the parameters change. We may have to tweak this a little if we get feedback that some machines are bogging down. (It shouldn’t, we were pretty conservative about how often we update.)

Text on an arc

Text can now be laid out on an arc, with the text on the top or bottom of the arc. In the text command, you can set the arc by dragging the center point or the reference point of the arc to get the alignment and radius that you want. If you hold shift while dragging, it’ll move both the center and the reference point at the same time.

When text is on an arc, we use the middle of the text as the baseline so that text on the top and bottom of the arc appear to line up. There’s no reliable “middle” of a font so we determine that by taking half of the height of a “T” as the midpoint. That may or may not be perfect, depending on your particular font, but it seems to get you in the ballpark with our testing.

Expressions in numerical fields

In almost every numerical field we now allow math expressions. Type in your expression and then hit “=” to evaluate it and input the answer. For instance:

• “1 in=” will change the value to 1 or 25.4, depending on the document units.
• “25.4mm=” will do the same thing, but in metric.
• “25/2=” will update to 12.5 (which is convenient for people who want to convert a diameter to a radius, or vise-versa)

These have been useful to us so far but the real win is that toolpath depths, both the start depth and the max depth, can hold an expression and update anytime the project thickness changes. For instance:

• “t” will use the project thickness and update anytime it changes.
• “t=” will immediately evaluate as the project thickness but not update on changes.
• “t/2” will cut to half of the project thickness and update anytime it changes.
• “t+.01in” will cut .01in past the bottom of the stock and update anytime it changes.

As you go through the change log, you’ll see a lot of notes about bugs in the expression code. This was a deep UI change and we think we’ve got it working well but be sure to let us know if you find anything funky.

Once we get this build tested we’re thinking about adding 3-4 other depth variables so that you can have a few intermediate depths values that can update toolpaths. We’ll see if that turns out to be a good idea.

Toolpaths can be linked to layers

Toolpaths can now link to a layer instead of individual vectors. If a toolpath is linked to a vector, it will recalculate any time the contents of that layer change.

On the surface, this seems like a convenience feature, but we think it’s much more. When combined with the depth expressions above, it allows you to make template files that contain known-good machining precesses where you only have to add vectors to the correct layer and you’re good to go. There will be no need to tweak toolpaths.

For instance, if you have a wooden sign file you might have:

• Engraving layer linked to a V-carve toolpath
• Pocket layer linked to a pocket toolpath with the depth set to “t/2”
• Outline layer linked to a contour toolpath with the depth set to “t+.01in”

All you’d need to do when starting a new job is load the file and add vectors to the correct layers. If you change the thickness of the stock, the toolpaths will update automatically.

ANGLE rendering is now the default on Windows

We’ve found the ANGLE rendering option to work well on Windows so we’re making that the default now. You should not notice any changes from this but it’s worth noting in case anything comes up. (I wish I could share some of the customer interactions that triggered this change.)

G-code is now held in the C2D file

G-code is now stored in the C2D file, not in an external G-code file. This has been a request for a while but it had to wait for a new file format to make it work and it brings a couple of benefits:

• Only one file is required for a project so the G-code and the project should not go “out of sync”.
• Because the G-code and the project are stored together, you can always load it back into CC to edit something and then run it again.

The other thing this fixes is a growing support problem. We’ve been dealing with a lot of users who buy other (non-Carbide 3D) machines and then use CC. While it’s great that people are using CC, it’s bad because they’re buying from companies that provide little-to-no support so they end up trying to get us to help them use their machines and it’s not always clear that they don’t own one of our machines until there have been a number of emails back and forth, or a phone/video call. This is now getting in the way of us providing support to Carbide 3D customers so it needs to end.

We’ll be honest here, we also deferred this change because it felt unnatural to have the toolpaths in the design file. We’re not quite sure why it was unnatural other than, “because that’s not how it’s done”. After using it for a few weeks, we’ve become big fans of having a single file for everything and we don’t think we’d ever want to go back.

When you click the “Save Toolpath” button in CC V7 you’ll get a popup to save them in the current file or create a new C2D file. The “new C2D file” option will not update the current filename for future saves, which makes it a good way to output the currently-enabled toolpaths, but keep working in the original file.

The new C2D file also compresses most of the data so there’s generally no space penalty for putting the G-code and the design in a single file.

You’ll need to download Carbide Motion 565 or later, which supports the new C2D file format. 565 also adds a button to save the G-code to an external file if you want to review or edit it outside of CM.

Carbide Create Pro still has the option to save G-code to a standard file if that’s what you’re looking for.

We’ve also been testing this web-based G-code extractor for users that need to get their G-code out without Carbide Motion: https://my.carbide3d.com/extractgcode/ . It’s not gated by a customer list yet, you only need a login for the community site, so feel free to give it a shot.

Finally, V6 will remain available at https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download6 for users that want to get a copy of it, or roll back from V7 once we release it.

Rest Machining (PRO)

V7 adds a Rest Machining option for pockets that allows you to only machine the areas left behind by another pocket operation with a larger cutter.

STL Import (PRO)

V7 adds the ability to import an STL file and then apply it to the model in Carbide Create Pro. It’s still very much a work-in-progress but it’s functional and we think it’ll add a lot of capability to the kinds of projects you can do in Pro.

Keyhole Toolpath

We also added a very basic toolpath to create Keyholes without manually editing G-code, which is what a lot of users have done up to now.

Measure Command

V7 adds a Measure command to make it easier to determine the distance and angle between two points. It’s a simple command but it’s been high on the request list for a while.

Some users wanted to use the Measure command as a way to construct geometry, which is not really the intended use. Instead, we added segment length and angle information to the Polyline command that should make it a lot easier to create construction geometry that you can snap other objects to.

Notes command

After several user requests, we’ve added a “Notes” command so that you can add notes to your future self. You might want to hold change revisions, information about the customer or workholding, or where you sourced material for the project. It’s free-form and it’s totally up to you.

Boolean command

The Boolean commands have always been confusing for new users. It’s not always clear which you’d like to use, union, subtract, or intersect, so a lot of times getting the correct version required a lot of try-undo-try-again. We’ve reworked the Boolean command to show a preview of what you’re going to get so you can try each before click “ok” to keep the results.

We’ve also made the Boolean commands work better for groups so that it’s easier to create things like stacked signs or clip textures and patterns to fill another vector.

Finally, we’ve added a “Weld” option that does a simple union of all selected vectors without any attempt to figure out if one vector is actually a hole inside of another vector.

Other changes

We’ve made a lot of other smaller changes to make the program more responsive based on test files from users. Honestly, these are some of our favorite changes to make because these test files often show errors in our thinking up to this point about how the program should be architected.

We’ve heard a number of comments like, “I don’t know what you changed here but it feels a lot faster”, which is not scientific, but it’s nice to hear.

Going forward

The changes above represent all of the deep changes we plan to make in CC7 so they were the minimum we needed to get done for the first release. The rest of the todo-list items are more user interface changes and changes to commands that don’t span the whole program. Those changes should be dripped out over the next few months.

CC V7 should not interfere with V6 on your machine so it should be safe to use both in parallel. (And again, V6 will remain available at https://carbide3d.com/carbidecreate/download6 )

We’d love to hear how CC V7 works for you, whether the feedback is good, bad, or indifferent. Please let us know what you think.

We’d like to announce the latest update to the Shapeoko product line, the Shapeoko 5 Pro.

The Shapeoko 5 Pro is a massive upgrade in capability and performance. It is meant to be the last CNC router you’ll buy, not a stepping stone to something better. It is the culmination of 11 years of experience and feedback from the community.

The upgrades did not come cheap but we made every effort to reduce the parts count as much as possible and put all of the cost into items that make the machine better and add value. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the six of us that worked on the design spent hours discussing, frequently arguing about, every component of this machine. If we tried to make this machine even a few years ago, it would have been a lesser machine. We’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t, and we’ve got vendors and in-house capabilities now that we’ve never had before.

We’re ultimately a group of CNC nerds, not marketing people. We have a hard time with the hyperbolic statements made by competitors, so much so that we tend to undersell our own machines when we release them. I say that just to frame this statement, and let you know that we’re confident that we’re not being hyperbolic:

There’s no other CNC router on the market that can do what Shapeoko 5 Pro can do at the same price point. Some machines can’t touch the Shapeoko 5 Pro, even at twice the price.

With that said, let’s move on to the details.

What’s New

So, What’s new in Shapeoko 5 Pro? Everything. There’s nothing shared with the Shapeoko 3, Shapeoko 4, or Shapeoko Pro. We’ve got a new frame, new extrusions, new motion system, new electronics, new motors, new GRBL, new everything.

We considered every problem we were aware of, every user request (OK, almost every user request), and every recurring support question. We implemented every request and every fix that we could reasonably accommodate. We want this to be the flagship Shapeoko for a long time, so it has to be the best machine possible.

New, Larger Sizes

If I had to tell you why the Shapeoko 3, 4, and Pro are the sizes they are, I’m not sure I could. I’m sure we had a good reason at the time but users now want bigger and bigger machines, especially sizes that map to standard plywood dimensions. Shapeoko 5 Pro is available in three new sizes:

• Shapeoko 5 Pro 4x4 - 48” x 48”
• Shapeoko 5 Pro 4x2 - 48” x 24”
• Shapeoko 5 Pro 2x2 - 24” x 24”

Z-travel on all machines is now 6” (155mm) and clearance under the gantry is 4”.

The new Hybrid Table is pass-through capable, so you can slide a 4x8’ sheet of plywood through the machine on either the 4x2’ or the 4x4’ sizes.

These larger sizes open up a new world of opportunities for you:

• Make large items, like furniture and cabinets.
• Nest more parts on a sheet.
• Index really big parts through the machine.

Hybrid Table

I’ve said it again and again, the Hybrid Table was my favorite addition to the Shapeoko 4, Pro, and HDM. It’s a phenomenal workholding system that also lets you create a completely flat surface for precise cuts. The Hybrid Table also fully supports the Y-axis for greater rigidity.

To support the new machine sizes, we made a couple of tweaks to make the Hybrid Table even better:

The table spacing and dimensions have been tweaked so that all of the MDF is now completely machinable by the cutter. That means that you can surface the Hybrid Table without the machine leaving remnants that would make it impossible for an oversized sheet of wood to sit flat on the table.

The table T-slot spacing is now 4.04”, instead of 100mm.

Belts Are Out, Ballscrews Are In

We remain big fans of belts, for reasons that we’ve enumerated many times before, but the Internet has spoken and it doesn’t like them. We give up. Shapeoko 5 Pro uses ballscrews on every axis.

A couple of years ago, we would have had more reservations about ballscrews. We’ve shipped a lot of them in the Shapeoko HDM, and we’re confident that our vendor is reliable and that the ballscews are high quality.

Now, it wouldn’t be “The Carbide Way” if we made this easy, so we spent the time to make those ballscrews exactly what we wanted. For the X and Y, we got 16mm diameter screws with a 20mm pitch. We did this to ensure that we didn’t lose the travel speeds that we had with belts. We also made sure the X and Y ballscews have our custom wipers to keep the dust and debris out of the way.

Speaking of dust, we arranged the Y ballscrews so that they are shielded from the working area of the machine by the Y extrusions.

Dust is the mortal enemy of ballscews so we think the wipers and ballscrew positions are critical.

We also had a custom motor coupler made. This may seem like a trivial thing but we’ve found it to be deceptively important. On the Shapeoko HDM, we found a couple of cases where the coupler came a little loose and the ballscrew slipped. In our testing, this new coupler is a big improvement and it should eliminate one source of trouble.

HDZ Included

Speaking of ballscrews, the Shapeoko 5 Pro also includes the HDZ Z-axis unit, which uses a ballscrew and HG-15 Linear rails. The HDZ used here is largely the same Z-axis that we use in the Shapeoko HDM (changed slightly to accommodate different mounting holes).

The HDZ is strong enough to use with any spindle, from a trim router to a 65mm or 80mm VFD spindle. Using the Z-axis from the Shapeoko HDM means that you can also upgrade to the Sweepy Pro if you prefer a fixed dust boot.

HG-15 Linear Rails

For the X and Y axis, we’ve upgraded to HG-15 linear rails. These are the same rails we’ve been using on the HDM, and they’re a big upgrade over the V-wheels on the Shapeoko 4 and the MGN rails used on the Shapeoko Pro.

HG-15 rails would be completely at home on a much bigger and much heavier machine but you won’t mind having them on this machine- they’ve very rigid, very smooth, and well-sealed. They’ve been trouble-free on the Shapeoko HDM.

Fully-Machined Extrusions

For the X and Y axis, we have two all-new extrusions that are machined in-house to mount both the ballscrew and the rails. We do not use T-slots or other tricks to avoid the work of putting an extrusion in a machining center to make sure the rails can be mounted and located as accurately as possible.

We’ve been doing custom extrusions for a long time and we’d like to think each one is better than the last one. These extrusions are no exception. As, always, they’re rigid and overbuilt but we’ve added a lot of little features in them to allow us to remove extra parts that cost money but added no real value to you.

Dual Y-homing

The Shapeoko 5 Pro now includes dual Y homing so that both sides of the machine are homed independently. This was kind of a toss-up, we didn’t have strong opinions on it, but people have mentioned wanting it before and we were able to include it without adding significant cost.

To make dual homing worthwhile, you must make at least one homing switch adjustable so it’s possible to square the machine up easier. We’ve done that with the Shapeoko 5 Pro by developing a new limit switch mount that includes a way to micro-adjust the location of the limit switch on the left side of the machine, and then lock it down to prevent it from changing position over time.

Shapeoko 5 Pro continues to use the same inductive limit switches that are used on the Shapeoko 4 and Pro.

Gantry Shift for Joinery

Some users like the machining area to come off the front of the machine to make edge machining, to make tenons or dovetails for example, easier. We’ve added a gantry shift option to the Shapeoko 5 Pro that allows you to move the gantry forward by 3.2”. Users that want a little overhang can get it, while the majority of users get to keep the machining area directly over the table.

New Spindle Mount

The Shapeoko 5 Pro uses a new spindle mount that includes an accessory clamp to make it easy to add and remove accessories. We’ve got a number of these accessories planned, so stay tuned for more information.

BitSetter

Shapeoko 5 Pro includes an all-new BitSetter to make tool changes easier. Here’s what we changed:

• BitSetter now uses a high-quality mechanical switch to reduce the size of the BitSetter to leave more machining area for your projects.
• It’s got a larger-diameter top to make it easier to use with larger bits.
• The top is replaceable without having to remove the BitSetter from the machine or take it apart.
• It’s got better LED indicators to check that it’s plugged in and working correctly.

We also added some internal plumbing to make an air blast possible, which will be useful for some users. The stem and fittings will be a separate low-cost purchase so that nobody will be confused that they need compressed air for their machine.

We were able to fit the BitSetter into a location that still allows you to fit a full 48” wide piece of material into the machine (for the 4x2’ and 4x4’ machines).

Dust Collection

Shapeoko 5 Pro still ships with Sweepy V2, but it’s now also compatible with the Sweepy Pro, if you prefer a fixed dust boot. We’d still recommend Sweepy for most folks, but it’s good to have options.

There are also now dedicated grounding points on the machine for dust collection to eliminate the potential for ESD-related problems due to the vacuum and hoses.

Power Pendant

In the Shapeoko Pro, we mounted the power button on the front of the machine, and a lot of people liked that. The one problem is that many users put their machines in a full enclosure so they had to open the door to kill power. Shapeoko 5 Pro includes a power pendant that can be mounted on the outside of the machine enclosure, so you can kill power without opening the door. The power pendant also includes a feedhold button if you’d like to pause the program mid-job.

The Power Pendant is on a one-meter tether so you can mount it wherever you’d like.

New Electronics

Shapeoko 5 Pro includes redesigned electronics taking everything we’ve learned from the very first Shapeoko 3 to the Shapeoko HDM.

• The electronics are now on a one-meter tether so you can mount the electronics outside your enclosure.
• The power supply is now built into the electronics box, so there’s no external power supply to deal with.
• We’ve optically isolated the USB and all inputs and outputs to prevent ESD problems.
• We’ve got expansion ports for future features. (Which should be pretty cool)
• There are only two connectors for the whole machine now, one for the limit switches and one for all of the motors, making it more difficult to wire a machine incorrectly. (We’ve all done it, so we know how easy it is to make a mistake)

The new electronics box is a sealed unit that you never have to open.

We still use drag chains for all of the wiring. There’s no good way to keep the wiring from flopping around on a machine this size without them.

Lights Under the Gantry

Shapeoko 5 Pro includes LED lighting under the gantry. Jorge pushed hard for this on the HDM and, after you’ve seen it, you can’t go back. I hate to admit it, but Jorge was right.

The lighting will be especially useful for people that put their machines into an enclosure that blocks the shop lighting.

BitZero Plug

This is another little, quality of life upgrade- there’s now a plug on the front of the machine for BitZero so you can unplug it to get it out of the way more easily.

We also added an illuminated Carbide logo since we already had a PCB in the front of the machine. Winston is proud of this, be sure and tell him you like it.

Assembly and Setup

Shapeoko 5 Pro ships more ready-to-run than ever before. The X and Y units are preassembled and pretested in our shop so they’re almost ready to go.

We’ve eliminated a lot of the custom hardware we used before and moved to hardware that is more familiar to everyone. This doesn’t make the machine inherently better, but we think it will make the machine easier to assemble and easier to maintain.

We’ll be curious to get feedback from real users but we estimate the assembly will take half the time of the Shapeoko 4 or Shapeoko Pro. You can be cutting on day one.

Replacement Parts

By the time we ship, we should have every part that could need to be replaced available online. All of those parts ship with a QR code on them that links directly to a product page where you can buy a replacement. We hope this will take us out of the position of being a bottleneck for support.

What’s (Still) Included?

While the machine has changed in a big way, the experience hasn’t. We still ship the most complete experience you can get in a CNC router:

• Carbide Create 2D CAD/CAM software
• Sweepy V2 Dust Boot
• BitSetter
• #201 1/4” End Mill
• 12 Teez-Nutz
• 6 Essential Clamps
• 30-day, “Mistakes are on Us” policy
• 5 hours of training videos at https://my.carbide3d.com
• 4, 30-minute 1-on-1 video training sessions with a Carbide 3D expert
• Unlimited US-based support
• 12-month warranty
• Carbide Motion machine control software
• Our Carbide Community Site full of other Carbide 3D users

How Good is It?

I’m an engineer so I like questions that have definitive answers, and that makes “How good?” a tough one for me. Instead, I’ll share an anecdote:

We needed to make room in the shop for the new 4x4 and we had an HDM prototype collecting dust so I went to Winston and asked him if he’d like to take it home.

He thought for a second and replied, “Honestly, I’d rather wait for a Shapeoko 5.” If you know Winston, that’s quite an endorsement. Personally, I wouldn’t call it “better” than the HDM, but it’s pretty close when you add our VFD spindle.

What Happens to Shapeoko 4, Shapeoko Pro, and Shapeoko HDM?

If you own a Shapeoko 4 or Pro, nothing changes. They’ll still be fully supported and parts will remain available. Software updates will continue to include support for the Shapeoko 3, 4, and Pro machines.

Can a previous Shapeoko be upgraded to the 5 Pro? Unfortunately, they cannot. The Shapeoko 5 Pro is a completely new machine and I don’t think there’s a single shared component between the 5 and prior machines.

We will probably eliminate either the 4 or the Pro from our store to reduce confusion but we’ll continue to have a lower-cost option available for people who don’t want to commit to the price of the Shapeoko 5 Pro.

We do plan on offering the new electronics as an upgrade for the Shapeoko 3, 4, and Pro. We’ll need to get enough inventory and then work out the wiring adapters before we’re ready for that.

The Shapeoko HDM will continue to live on. It’s fundamentally a more powerful machine, and it ships ready to run, so we think they’re appropriate for different audiences. We do think the Shapeoko 5 Pro will be great option for international customers that have wanted to buy an HDM, but haven’t been able to get one.

Will there be a Shapeoko 5 non-Pro? No, there won’t. We’ll probably use the term “Shapeoko 5” and “Shapeoko 5 Pro” interchangeably.

Will we make a 4x8 machine? It’s not on the drawing board right now.

How Will Ordering Work?

We’ll be opening up preorders in the next week or two, and we’ll be updating the store daily with the expected lead times for shipping. Here are a few things to know:

• Right now, we’re hoping that the first machines will ship a few weeks after orders open up.
• We’ll give our best estimate for shipping, but anything can happen. We’ll do our best to keep you updated on the expected shipping date.
• If you decided to change your mind, you can cancel your order at any time up to the day we ship. We’ll refund your money and you’ll be free to order again whenever it’s convenient for you.
• We don’t have a way to do partial payment for preorders. Shopify (our e-commerce platform) just added this feature but it depends on third-party apps, and we don’t feel comfortable using an untested feature/app on a big launch.
• Once you order, we’ll give you an order batch number and periodically email you the expected shipping date of each batch. Dates may change, but we’ll do our best to keep you updated.
• We have a lot of parts on hand to build the Shapeoko 5 Pro, and more parts and materials are on the way. If delays happen, they will likely be due to production growing pains, or shipping delays for the next rounds of production materials.
• Now that everything is public, look for more information to trickle into the product page on the store and the documents at https://my.carbide3d.com.

Why Now?

Finally, the evergreen question, “Why did you announce this today and not months ago?” Because we’re finally sure that the risk of delay is acceptably low. We’d hoped to be shipping these six weeks ago but parts and materials were delayed. For all we knew, the parts could have been delayed another month or two so today is the day.

That said, the risk of delay is not zero, so the best we can say is that we’ll try to keep everyone up to date as we get closer to shipping.

Conclusion

We’re excited to get these machines out to you, we know you’ll love them. We’ll be here to answer any questions you have in the meantime.

We’ll get some videos posted in the next week or so to show a Shapeoko 5 Pro in action.

Until then, check out the Shapeoko 5 Pro here: https://shop.carbide3d.com/products/shapeoko5

Now that Shapeoko 5 Pro is public, the clock is ticking for us and we’ll be at an all-out sprint. We’ve got work to do!

The initial feedback on the new Shapeoko 5 Pro has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re excited to open up ordering so we can gather a little more information about what sizes are going to be most popular.

Here’s what we can tell you about the timing of the initial batch of Shapeoko 5 Pros:

What we’re waiting for

As we mentioned in the initial announcement, we have almost everything in-house to build complete machines. We’re currently waiting on:

• Electronics
• Electronics Enclosure
• Packaging

These are all reliable vendors so we think the risk of a big delay is low. All of the machined parts are in production right now.

Shipping estimates

We ended up writing a mini inventory system to pull all of the orders for the Shapeoko 5 Pro from Shopify every 5 minutes and then project when a new order will ship. When you go to the product page, that’s the date given in the little red box under the “Add to Cart” button.

Here’s what could go wrong with that estimate:

• We get a big batch of orders in between the update period. That could push your order back a few days from the initial estimate.
• There’s a bug in the code since we cannot fully test it until we have a lot of orders.

As we do more testing before making the Shapeoko 5 Pro available for purchase, you might see the delivery dates bounce around as we fine tune the estimates.

Shipping updates

We’re going to try and write a little code in that new inventory tracker to send out periodic emails with your estimated shipping date. I suspect we’d shoot for every two weeks or so, or if we have a big change up or down in the estimates.

If you’re not happy with the shipping estimate, you can always cancel your order and we’ll refund you in full. You’ll be free to purchase when the delivery times are more predictable.

What if we’re wrong?

Well, first, there’s no nefarious plan involved, we just made bad projections. With every new product launch we do, we bounce back and forth between too optimistic and too pessimistic. We think we’re being appropriately conservative this time, but we’ll only know for sure in the next month.

I’m not sure how we got here so fast, but it’s time for our annual Black Friday sale. We’ve been so hard at work on the Shapeoko 5 Pro that, if not for all of the messages coming in asking about Black Friday, we would have forgotten about Black Friday completely.

Before we get into the specifics, we want to ask that you buy early if you plan to take advantage of our sale. If you wait until later, it will delay your shipment by at least a few days, and it could be longer. Please buy early!

Here’s the deal:

• 15% off everything in our store except machines (Shapeoko HDM, Shapeoko 5, Shapeoko Pro, Shapeoko 4, and Nomad) and Amana cutters.
• Shapeoko 4 includes a Carbide Compact Router, BitSetter, Get a Grip Workholding Kit, and a #301 V-cutter.
• Shapeoko Pro includes a Carbide Compact Router, Get a Grip Workholding Kit, and a #301 V-cutter.
• Nomad 3 includes a Threaded Table and our Get a Grip Workholding Kit.
• Carbide Create Pro is also discounted by 15%, whether you buy a subscription or a perpetual license.

The Fine Print

• Offer is valid while supplies last. Once we’re out of an item, we’re out.
• There are no substitutions on items bundled for the promotion.
• The sale runs through Monday, Nov 28th at noon PST.
• The 15% Discount will be shown when items are added to your cart.
• Bundled items will be shipped with your machine automatically. There is no need to add them to your cart.
• If you bought something in the past few days before the sale began, check out our pricing policy.
• We’ve got quite a backlog for the Shapeoko HDM and Shapeoko 5 Pro, so there are no promotions for those machines.
• As we get questions, we’ll update this blog post to include additional information.

Shipping Times

As we get deeper into the sale, expect our shipping times to go up, especially if you buy during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Speaking of Shipping…

During the sale, we’ll still have free shipping for orders over $50 going to the US or Canada.

New Products

We haven’t gone out of the way to announce this beyond social media, but you might want to check out our newest machine, the Shapeoko 5 Pro. We’re still working on getting the first units ready to ship but we’re really proud of how it’s turned out so far. Look for us to post more video content around the Shapeoko 5 Pro in the coming weeks. For those that will surely ask, there’s no Black Friday promotion on the Shapeoko 5 Pro this year.

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.