GearBest Purchase

GearBest Purchase Part 2

Receiving

Ok so I received my shipment last week but do to some down time I was not able to post it. Package was in very good shape and all items where received. I am not going to make a video about the unboxing there are many and so whats the point. Also I do not plan to video the assembly for the same reason. Over all I was very happy with the packaging and the over all process went well. Next step is to get this thing put together and running. Now if I find anything important I will be glad to share.

Promise. 

My next post will get into the software how to flash the controller and I will try my best to give everyone a simple break down and lots of information to not only get it running but teach everyone a little about the whole system. So next post should be where we start getting into the fun stuff. In the end I hope to give everyone a great resource for how to work with these machines and the resources to complete successful projects.

GearBest Purchase

GearBest Purchase.

Wow it has been forever sense I posted to my Blog. Sorry, I have some new projects starting and plan to post them. So as of May 16th I decided to purchase a small laser etcher from a China Based Site.

I have decided to post information on the experience.

Setup and Security

Setting up the account was easy and secure. One thing I have noticed is that much of the site is not using a secure connection. However critical points of the transaction where. So I do not see that as a big issue. I have seen posts on line stating the site is not secure. For the most part this is true but where needed it is secure. Now During login you have options to use Facebook or your Google+ account. While this makes managing passwords easy I am not a fan. Each login requires a captcha, this is designed to stop robots, I am a fan of this.

Item Purchased

2500mw A5 Laser Engraving Machine. As of the date of this post at a cost of $175.41. About 5 dollars cheaper than when I made my purchase. Prices change all the time. Mark an item as a favorite and watch it.

Image courtesy of www.gearbest.com

 First question I am expecting is why not build your own? Well I thought about it but the cost of the laser by it's self was almost as much as this complete. Besides I will get to put it together and I am planning to learn something new form someone else. So all good. However I am sure I will find a way to improve it.

Payment

Site takes many forms of Payment,Credit Card, and my favorite PayPal. Soon after placing the order I got an email detailing my purchase. The email also gave me an order reference number.

Shipping

I decided to name this section as  just shipping as receiving may be a story all its own.

I decided to have it shipped "Flat Rate" $31.80, this is code for SLOW. Also so many people complained about this option I decided to check it out for everyone. I did add insurance for $4.61. The item is shipping from China so the cost seams pretty good. Now you can choose faster service but I think most people may go for the lower cost. After a couple days I checked in and found that I had been given a tracking number. Upon clicking the link I was taken to yuntrack I pasted the number clicked the search and found the package was all ready on its way. In fact in four days it was in Cincinnati, Ohio. That's when things slowed down. I impatiently watched for a change in status For Ever it seemed. 15 working days later on this very day I logged in to expect it still sitting in some dark hole. But instead I find that it is on its way here, Hurrah. I included a link to the actual tracking. This site also is not secure but you are not posting anything and in fact the information is very generic so much so I posted the actual tracking link for you to review. GearBest order tracking information. I have read a ton of posts complaining about the tracking of there order from with in your account. I noticed a long delay between the info there and the actual tracking. But when they did post the fact that it had left they also posted a picture of my package with my address label on it. It would seem they are doing all this manually so to complain about the delay is silly. Get a grip people how many orders do you think they process a day. I really liked this feature. More to follow after receiving.

Convert Images to GCODE for FREE

Ok I am currently working on a new project for my website. We are going to look at generating gcode for EMC2 using GPL and other no cost software. We are going to start in Windows then move to Linux. During this process we will also be looking at software I have not even tried yet. I know sounds like a ton of fun. http://sites.google.com/site/hobbygaragesite/Home . I am telling you this will be fun.

SUPER GEEK Contest
Also if you are local I can't fly anyone in but if you are and want to learn more and walk away with a finished project email me at darksparc@gmail.com. You must be in the Mentor, Ohio area or willing to drive here. So here are the rules and how to win. Contest will start May 1st and run through June 1st 2009.
1.) You have to first sign up as a follower of my BLOG.
2.) Who ever posts the most used comments or contributes to my content the most wins.
The winner will get to work through a project to learn more about the project and CNC. We will generate a small key holder or other small project using your design idea and will generate the CAD / CAM and machine and finish it. So when your done you will have your project and new knowledge. So get Geeked..

Autocad and Large Files

I hear all the time about large files causing issues. This leads us to a couple commands that seem to get missed. "PARTIALOPEN" and "PARTIALOAD" the combonations of these two commands can save you a lot of time. First of all to do a partial open you can get to this by starting the open command and selecting the file you want then going to the Open button select the option arrow to right of it. From here select Partial open.

Now select the layers that you want to load as well as specifing the views. Now is the time to tell you that the view is critical, if you set up views in advance you have a lot more control over the command. You see only goemetry that fall with in the view you selected. This is the most powerfull part of the command as now you can control loads by region or zones of work. Now lets talk about "PARTIALLOAD" this command allows you to load other things you think you need later. If you have any questions let me know and I will expand on this. How well does this work? Well that depends on how large your files are in the first place. The larger the files the bigger the impact. The bigger they are the harder they fall, right? One of my users was complaining about files taking 15 minutes to open. With this command we where able to get this down to 2 minutes. So if your users all can save 10 minutes a day wow. I will be looking at this in more detail later.

Autocad and Vault

A real quick note on Autocad and Vault.
I have seen a lot on the web about people having trouble with vault loading to include menus and toolbars. I will be covering this. I am getting ready to leave for a trip so will add more on this subject when I return.
Lets start with the basics and assume it is laoded and registered on the system properly.
Start Autocad and verify it is available by doing the following:
At command Prompt type: APPLOAD
After the dialog loads browse out and load the following arx files.

VaAc_addin.arx
VaAc_service.arx
VaAc_startupUI.arx

Then go to the start up button and add these to the startup list.
More detail on this as well as what to do if the Vault is not registered with Windows properly.

Visual Lisp Point Transfer

I have a project that I started for work. It was to make setting up points for a data shot and or the download of this data simple. We have sense purchased a new machine and will no longer need the code. It is not done and error checking needs compeleted but I plan to talk more about this and offer a link to the information. I will also post the code. The data is used in a Recon Data Collector and is also paired with a Total Station. We used this device to do layout and datum work.

Day One

Welcome

I have decided to start focusing more on the things I love to do.

Make things and fix things. I plan to post information on small projects and ideas I am working on.

Please feal free to post comments about these things and even ideas or questions.

More to come.