Third attempt at making a "perfect" cube
I was able to get a decent looking outcome, no problem the third try. However, the dimensions didn't quite line up with the actual measurements. Each side was off by about 1/32", pretty consistently which I thought would be as easy as adding that to the tool length offset. In the second image above, you can see how bad this is; the area where the bottom arrow is pointing is the before.
It would shave off that much of the face on the side operation after completing the top. It should look more like where the top arrow is pointing where it shaves next to no material off the face. I initially thought it was a stock to leave issue, but when I turned that off it still produced the same problem. I was able to get it to shave very close to the face but not entirely on it by adding 3/64" to the equation when finding the tool length offset. I then spent nearly 8 hours attempting to find the perfect offset, I finally gave up and messaged the support team at Pocket NC. They replied within an hour and gave me some new information.
Since I did not set up the PocketNC when it first arrived, there was some calibration you had to do to get it all set up. The b-table had a specific offset for this machine, meaning two of the same models may not have the same offsets. The b-table is the bed that your material stock attaches to.
I did have a little trouble in offsetting the machine properly as the model you're supposed to use to set up your CAM operations wouldn't let you edit certain aspects of it. So I manually created a sketch and offset it and just left a point in the air to set up the origin. Then I set a block of wood in the machine and set it running with a couple facing operations I could then measure to see if I had the correct TLO (tool length offset). Unfortunately, I did not and spent a few hours trying to see if I could calculate how much I was off by and then narrow it down to a specific number I could add to the equation.
The upside is I was able to fix the issue where it would shave part of the top of the cube when making its passes, however that was not the one I was looking for in this instance.
This morning I received an email from PocketNC with another possible solution to my problem which I will be trying out later this afternoon.
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Summary
I realized the last post was a spew of information and probably didn't make a lot of sense.
I was having an issue where after I machine my part and measured it, it wouldn't line up with the measurements in the design. This is related to the tool length offset or TLO. When inputting a new tool into the machine you have to measure it and put it into a basic equation to find out how far it sits from the origin. This means if you measure it slightly off, you won't get the proper dimensions.
As you can see in the image above, it measured at 1-13/128" instead of the desired 1-1/8". In the third slide, you can see me using a pair of calipers to measure each face on the cube then comparing it to another one. I was able to get reasonably close to an acceptable amount of tolerance at 1/128," but it wasn't consistent. I got in contact with @pocket_nc, and they responded within an hour with some possible solutions. I tried them but wasn't able to get anywhere. This morning I got another email from them giving me another possible solution, which is to recalibrate the machine by hand with a 123 block, which I will do this afternoon.