Question Suggestion: Pre-purchase beginners booklet

Like many amateurs who are considering buying a Stepcraft router, there's an awful lot to learn before one can be confident that what you have in mind to make is practical for the machine. This is particularly the case for tools, where unless one has previous experience of machining, the terminology renders the purchase/not purchase decision somewhat difficult.

It would therefore be enormously helpful to have a manual, containing a "naming of parts", naming of tools, and their specific function, with plenty of diagrams, so that a complete beginner can figure out what tools are needed, what software, (etc) he/she will need to order. Personally, provided the "Beginners Pre-Purchase Manual" was sufficiently detailed, I'd willingly pay a few Euros for it, and would feel a deal more confident in making the subsequent purchase of the machine. There's only so much information one can glean at a time from reading forum posts.

If you agree, please say so, as this does seem a glaring omission to the Stepcraft buying "experience", at least for those of us to whom "an up-cut" confers no useful information...

Your idea is great, but it would be a quite daunting task, probably not best tackled by Stepcraft themselves. Difficult to strike the right level if one knows the product inside out.

A huge amount of information can be gleaned online, so a list of informative websites might be a useful introduction to terminology, tools and techniques (hardware and software). Perhaps an additional category could be added to the forums to allow all such information to be grouped together. Ideally someone really knowledgable (Rory perhaps? - sorry to volunteer you Rory!!) could keep a watching brief on such a list and edit this where and when appropriate.

Build experiences and guidence would be a boon to the inexperienced - so often in the forums one reads of "losing steps" or "axis stalled" and so on. Trawling through the forums can often unearth an answer, but boy, is that a tedious process, especially if using the German forum and the Google "translator".

My personal take on the build process is do a complete mechanical assembly first, before attempting the wiring task. Disassembly to correct a mechanical issue after the machine is wired would be a nightmare best avoided. Being an awkward so and so, I went that route and spent several days ensuring full and free movement on all the axes, over their whole travel, before moving on to wiring.

Just my two pennyworth!!

I confess I don't see why Stepcraft can't do it, afterall, it's essentially just giving examples of what each tool is for plus a glossary of terms. Were it put out in that form, but with further contributions from users, that'd a be a supremely useful document.

For example: "practical for the machine", "sufficiently detailed" and "a few Euros" are very subjective. If there's an awful lot to learn then there's an awful lot of information to gather. Software is constantly changing and evolving etc. I like the idea but at the moment forums, youtube, Stepcraft homepage, internet etc are the places to visit.

Hi Huff,

I am looking after the cnc-wiki, which is currently available in German only. It contains mostly links to threads in this forum, but categorized and sorted. Furthermore a glossary with technical terms, milling parameters and some basic information on workflow and software.

I am a beginner in cnc myself and wouldn't trust my language skills to translate the stuff to English, especially the technical terms. But the wiki is really meant to be an community project and if anyone feels inclined to help on an English version, he's very welcome.

Speedo,

Just had a look at "cnc-wiki" - looks to be a good starting point for Huff if he can make use of the very approximate Google translation facility.

My language skills are still at schoolboy level so can't offer to help in translation, so we need a retired translator to offer his services for an English version. I'm a retired electronics engineer, so might be able to help with getting the technical side of things correct, I'm very much a beginner in the CNC world though.

Overall task is pretty daunting!!

Peter

Thanks chaps, I wasn't even aware there was a German-Language wiki. I'd certainly be most grateful, and I'm sure many others would likewise be, in the English-speaking world, if there was an English language version of the wiki for Stepcraft. (off to try and translate the German one)