Hey Guys!
It’s Mike at The Geek Pub.
So the team over at Inventables contacted me and said “Hey!
We’d like to send you the latest version of the X-Carve with all of the upgrades including
the X-Controller; and the only thing we’d ask in return is that you give it an honest
review.”
So this is my honest review.
So I think I have been pretty honest and upfront in my original review with how I felt about
the original X-Carve.
And so many of the things (I am glad to report) that I was dissatisfied with have been corrected.
The first one was the inclusion of this little-bitty spindle that X-Carve originally included.
It was just underpowered and it just did not do the machine justice.
That was followed by this power supply and it is actually run by an Arduino with a little
G-Shield on top and that simply did not provide enough current to the stepper motors; and
so those are two problems that have been solved with the X-Controller along with the new DeWalt
611 spindle.
That has made leaps and bounds on its own.
But there are a couple of problems that I really found more irritating than those two
problems and that was the gantry arm was made from two separate pieces of aluminum which
really allowed for a lot of flex when you were trying to move through tough material
like Walnut or Aluminum or something like that.
And you would up getting this shaky pattern and sometimes stair-step patterns on the material
and it just drove me insane.
A lot of times I would have to run the X-Carve so slow that it would take two or three hours
to carve something that I think should only take 10 or 15 minutes.
And so I am glad to say that has been corrected.
With the new X-Carve it is a single piece of aluminum which is much more rigid and I
think is a major upgrade.
So the next thing the guys over at Inventables added and I think is probably one of my favorite
new features is the addition of this dust collection system.
And there is a attachment unit that goes at the bottom of the spindle and its acrylic
so you can see through it which makes a huge difference.
It connects with rare-earth magnets so you simply slide it in and it just locks into
place on its own.
It’s really simple and quick and it just works.
So bravo for this, this is a great addition.
So as you can see the X-Controller itself is much larger.
It has I believe three to four times the power that the old Arduino and G-Shield put out.
So this has made a big difference although it comes with another big downfall and I will
tell you about that in just a second.
My favorite new feature though is that the X-Controller has this big red button on top
that you can hit and it will pause the machine no matter what it is doing and it will just
stop in its tracks.
And this is fantastic because I have had several times where (in fact in just this last project
and I will get that in a minute here as well) in this last project the X-Carve will skip
and it is going to destroy the project if I don’t stop it, and in just one hit the
whole machine stops.
Thats fantastic.
You also have these buttons on the front where you can pause, start, and stop midstream if
you need to make some adjustments or vacuum up some excess dust or whatever the case may
be.
So this right here: Fantastic upgrade!
I really can’t say enough good about this new controller.
On the backside you have two Y-Axis connectors which is awesome because on the original Arduino
you only had a single connector and both stepper motors were actually sharing the same voltage
and current and so now with this setup you are actually doubling the power to the Y-Axis
servos, which is fantastic!
So another new feature that I really like about the new X-Carve is this Z-Axis probe.
So this just actually plugs in on the X-Carve itself and you clamp this little clamp to
the spindle and then you set this little piece of brass anywhere underneath the X-Carve.
When you do your setup the X-Carve will automatically figure out where the home position is for
the Z-Axis by lowering it until it touches that brass.
So there is no more guess work, or trying to slide a little shim of paper underneath
trying to figure out where the actual Z-Axis should stop.
This has made a major difference in how many times I cut too deep in the material accidentally.
No more guess work involved there.
So, another fantastic upgrade.
So to put the X-Carve through its paces I did a couple of projects.
So the first on is I built a prototype dash for a friend of mine who is building a Ford
Lightning race truck and he’s going to put a little touch screen in there and so we did
that.
The second project I did was this cool little number board for my grandson so that he can
learn numbers.
It’s just a little Walnut frame with some Birch plywood and I used the X-Carve to cut
out all of these little numbers and it turned out really well.
And the good news is he really seems to like it too.
OK!
So it sounds like everyone should just go out an buy an X-Carve.
Well not so fast.
So is this machine a major upgrade over previous versions?
Well absolutely it is!
There is no doubt.
This machine is a fantastic upgrade over the previous version or the original version of
the X-Carve.
All of these components are really well thought out and really well designed.
Except for one which drives me absolutely insane and that is belts.
I can’t believe.
I think its been two years or so since this machine came out.
I can’t believe that these belts have not been replaced with a rack and pinion system.
Every time I use the X-Carve I always struggle because something somewhere in the middle
of the project will slip and I will have to spend a little time and readjust the belts
and start my project over.
And that’s just kind of the nature of the beast when you are using something that is
made out of rubber like this that gets stretched for long periods of time in the heat sitting
out here in the garage and the shop.
It just stretches and so it just stretches and it has to be readjusted and retightened
fairly often.
And I use this machine fairly often too which probably puts additional stress on them.
In fact in this very project that I just did, I had a belt slip and so its really hard to
notice because I was really quick and hit the stop button as fast as I could but the
one is about a sixteenth of an inch too low.
That is because during the carve process when it got to the one it actually belt slipped
and started cutting in the wrong place.
Now luckily it is really hard to notice.
There is one little jab up here that you can see where the bit went into the wrong place,
but other than that I was able to save the project.
But this is something that I struggle with almost every time that I use this machine,
especially after it has been sitting for a while and I haven’t used it recently.
In my opinion that is the downfall of this machine and that is the one thing that has
to be changed.
Move it to rack and pinion Inventables and that will solve the problem and make this
a much, much higher class machine.
So what would I give this?
I would probably give this machine a 3.5 out of 5 stars based on that single flaw.
Everything else: Fantastic.
So that, is my honest review.