Hi all, Nosing around a bit at the moment for a new CNC and saw the LeadCNC being 4ft X 4ft as very useful, however is this not a missed opportunity in design given 8ft X 4ft sheets of MDF, plywood etc always tend to be just a bit bigger (ie 2440mm X 1220mm in metric). This means I have to trim every single board before I can put it on. If it was just a few mm bigger, I could create a table flush with the edge of the CNC and slide whole sheets on which'd be super efficient and save time. Have I misunderstood anything in the cutting size or is it the case it's just slightly too small for the standard dimension of all boards?
Yes you have (in a good way!). The bed itself is larger that the "working area" (actual cuttable dimensions) and standard sheets slide through with ease. We use the Tiling feature in Vectric to cut full sheets all the time, indexed as you slide it on through. It does not quite cut to the edge, but the sheet itself fits and the slight edge is great for clamping.
Ah perfect, was scratching my head at how/why this would have been missed! That makes it very attractive - as you say, I can envisage having sheets being fed through would save me lots of time cutting. Out of interest how do you reference the tiling of your sheets (ie after you move it how do you ensure perfect alignment with the original cuts?)
I make use of dowel pins but checkout the Vectric Youtube channel and others' Vectric Tiling tutorials - lots of cool different ideas out there
If you slide the 20x80 verticals upward 23mm to where the X-gantry clears the Y-gantry plates it will cut edge to edge. Dropping the Z-azis beam 23mm to compensate will eliminate any loss of cut depth.
