This document serves as a comprehensive guide to setting up and using the Maslow CNC, documenting the struggles, solutions, and workflows discovered through hands-on experience. It aims to fill the knowledge gaps that exist between official documentation and forum posts, providing practical advice for those who face similar challenges with their Maslow setup.
This guide is intended for makers who are using or planning to use the Maslow CNC for cutting sheet goods like 3/4 and 1/2 inch plywood. It's particularly valuable for those working with vertical workspaces rather than horizontal ones, and for creators focusing on larger art projects rather than fine woodworking. If you're looking to avoid weeks of troubleshooting and prevent costly mistakes with expensive materials, this guide aims to help you navigate the common pitfalls of Maslow CNC setup and operation.
I’m just a software engineer with a penchant for building shit in the real world. I found that I struggled to get the maslow setup, from assembly to frame building to calibration there was struggle after struggle. Not to mention having to search the forums for everything. AI enabled forum scraping was helpful, with key prompts like asking for specific forum posts and threads when maslow made a claim that seemed off or really needed to be correct, like router speeds and bit types to use.
Steps to Getting Your First Cut
We first built the wood frame that was described in this blog post which arguably was maybe the easiest part of this. We split ours in two for storage capability and screwed it down to the side of the garage when in use to prevent flexion.
My primary focus is to cut sheet goods like 3/4 and 1/2 inch plywood to be able to
My key struggles ended up being things like calibration failures, not understanding the primary workflow on the maslow and frustrations around mounting and unmounting on a verticale workspace. I think a horizontal work space is probably the most ideal setup but not everyone (including myself) have such luxuries.
Given I’m not making fine woodworking pieces I’m doing mostly big art and the like I don’t really need any bit smaller than 1/4 inch. I’ll be focusing on those types of workflows and reasonable setting that I’ve found. Also general caveat emptor that I am by no means an expert but I spent a good two and a half weeks fighting with the maslow to get my first successful test cut and then fail on my first project cut wasting a large expensive piece of wood. Note: always do a dry run of your gcode before running your first project cut to make sure your setup doesn’t error on the out edges which is a common issue with the maslow.
Key areas for improvement would be to have a local app that can run with the API that the maslow serves to improve potential 3rd Party UIs that might be able to help the Maslow team not have to worry about that complexity as much and allow other to build full fledged solutions that includ gcode editing and maslow control in one place.
How I’m doing gcode as someone who doesn’t want to spend anymore money on this. I found the best easy free tool to use so far is KrabzCam
Others use built in CAM software in Onshape pro and Fusion 360 paid versions, but I don’t have the coin for that/don’t want to spend the coin for that.
For 1/4 inch spiral up cut router bit with our dewalt router, we typically use settings 2-3. I found that moving fast with shallower cuts is better to preserve the bit sharpness.