The so-called Maker Revolution changed the landscape of tooling for the home hobbyist and small business. While 3D printers are one key part of the movement, but besides the alluring appeal of precision deposited plastic, a thirst for easy to build and use CNC machines also emerged. One notable name to cut its teeth in home carving machines is Inventables, and its current top-spec offering – the Inventables X-Carve.
There on the ground floor of this rise in the democratization of accessible machinery, Inventables got its start as a materials store helping to hook productive bods up with a wide range of materials for their maker needs.
Since founding in 2002, Inventables evolved to offer hardware, too — firstly by picking up the successfully crowdfunded Shapeoko open-source CNC kit, later with its own Carvey fully-assembled CNC carving machine, and then a follow-on Shapeoko 2 machine. Edward Ford, creator of the Shapeoko, would later go on to join Carbide 3D to produce the Shapeoko 3, arguably the main competitor to the Inventables X-Carve.
The current top offering of Inventables is the X-Carve, an open-source and scalable CNC kit that has skyrocketed to the forefront of makers’ minds as a go-to CNC carving machine (alongside the Shapeoko 3 and a small handful of other machines).
A popular choice for makers looking to CNC carve a wide array of materials including 6061 aluminum, the X-Carve’s party trick is in its scalability and ease of use when paired with Inventable’s Easel web app.
Read on as we take a look at the features and specs of this popular machine.
Features
The Inventables X-Carve as it stands today is much more than a simple CNC carving kit. Inventables has focused on producing an ecosystem to aid and inspire its customers, including a vast projects area on the company’s website and a large handful of accessories that allow you to configure the machine to greater levels of autonomy and capability.
In its stock configuration, the Inventables X-Carve touts a DeWalt 611 spindle – accepting 1/8″ and 1/4″ carving bits – and integrated motion controller in a housing that contains the X-Carve’s power supply, mainboard, emergency stop and the other nitty-gritty required for the sending power and signals around the machine.
Pushing the spindle along the X-, Y- and Z- axes are NEMA 23 stepper motors, which should provide adequate oomph to glide through plastic, wood, and aluminum.
Three default sizes are available: 500mm-, 750mm- and 1000mm- squared. These have cutting areas of 300 x 300 x 65mm, 500 x 500 x 65mm, 750 x 750 x 65mm, respectively. Underscoring the working areas is a wasteboard with a silkscreen grid and an array of M5 inserts for clamping materials in place.
The basic X-Carve lacks homing switches for the three axes, but such mechanical end stops are available separately or when configuring an X-Carve on the Inventables website. Similarly configurable is an electronic material surface Z-probe, which allows the machine to detect the material before cutting.
As an open-source project, the full design, BOM, and instruction documentation to build your own Instructables X-Carve are freely available online for scrutiny and modification should you so wish. The beauty here also lies in the ability to expand your machine. The Makerslide extrusions the makeup part of the X-Carve’s frame can be purchased in longer lengths, which then leaves you with sourcing the structural extrusions, waste board, belts, and wiring in the appropriate sizes.
Out of the box, Inventable’s Easel web app offers simple control of the X-Carve. A professional version costing available for $19.99 a month unlocks advanced customization options the company has developed for small enterprise users. Interestingly, non-pro Easel users get four free days of carving using Easel Pro, letting casual users get in on the fun and power users choose to maximize their time with unlimited access.
The Inventables X-Carve runs on GRBL firmware, meaning that it is also compatible with a host of other 3rd-party CNC/CAD software solutions.
Specifications
- Cutting area: 300 x 300 x 65mm (500), 500 x 500 x 65mm (750), 750 x 750 x 65mm (1,000)
- Machine footprint: 750mm x 500mm (500), 1010 x 750mm (750), 1250 x 1000mm (1,000)
- Weight: –
- Firmware: GRBL
- OS: Browser
- Features: Hackable/expandable, open-source, free design software, enclosed/protected electronics, single sheet wasteboard
Where to Buy
You can pick the Inventables X-Carve up from the retailers listed below.
License: The text of "Inventables X-Carve: Review the Specs" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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