New 6040 owner looking for advice from others with a chinese 6040/3040

[itsmillertime]

Hi Guys,

Been a long while saving to get the money together to buy a 6040 from ebay. I know, I know lol that despite some bloody good advice from you guys I went for it and have built a worktop for it on my garage. It's now up and running! Got it up and operating using mach 3 and from some test g codes logos etc. I have ran the stepper motors and they appear to work well. Spindle and VFD look good also.

Now here is where the learning curve really gets steep. Now that I have set the machine up and got it ready I'm looking to learn the basics of operating the machine and cutting effectively.

I do have an engineering background electrics/electronics mainly but I have worked with steel on mills and lathes when I was an apprentice 25 yrs ago. (Not the same as CNC I appreciate.) I'm looking at cutting wood/ MDF to make picture frames etc for gifts.

I really need pointers and advice guys on how to start and iron out all my silly questions etc. Simple things like orientation of workpiece. Simple and best practice for setting 0,0. Looking at adding limit switches and anything else to make it easier to work with.

Guess that it's not the designing the work, it's the physical aspects of zeroing and setting the job up cutting speeds and advice etc.

Sorry if this sounds a bit lame. The reason why I went for the chinese cnc was so that I can get on with learning how to use mach3 and actually making items rather than the CNC.

Will start with work orientation the axis x and y seem the wrong way round when looking at the machine bed in a landscape orientation. I know this is the way the machine is set up. But is this normal? Is it worth trying to swap the the x and y axis?


Sorry if this sounds so stupid. But I guess I won't learn if I'm too worried asking dumb questions!

Thank you guys.