I am having some fun running V Groove paths with a 1/4 endmill bit, It gives some nifty steps, which I’m sure could be programmed in, but this is a super simple way to do it.
However, the V groove path includes some cornering ( I don’t know the proper term for it ), which I would like to eliminate.
Andrew, if I understand you correctly, you are using a end mill in a Vcarve tool path. This was designed for a pointy V-bit and the tool path is trying to make sharp corners by raising the bit in the corners.
Welcome to the forum.
While, as others have mentioned, this is not the intended usage, I can see why the effect might be desirable.
The easiest way to do this is quite simple. Just create a clearance tool path with an end mill, and run that instead of the actual carve path. The clearance tool prepares the surface for V-carving by hogging out the large areas that would take a lot of time with a V-bit. However, the cleared area will be slightly smaller than your design since you are not going back and running the finishing path the the actual V-bit.
Got it, clearance tool. I have not done that yet and will try.
Although this seems to be a perfect solution, do you happen to know of how to avoid the cornering, if it is at all possible?
I suspect the reason you are seeing the corners blown out in the original images is because you are using a different bit (an endmill) than what you assigned in the software (a v-bit) when you created the gcode. The software thinks it is operating within the bounds provided, but your unexpected bit swap causes the program to exceed the expected boundaries because an end mill has a wider tip than a V-bit.
Exactly, yes. But I am trying to remove the corner cuts manually. I suspect this is not an option, but thought I would try the forum, just in case.
There might be a way to go directly into the g-code and remove line per line but I am not yet familiar enough and it would likely defeat the purpose of this ‘Hack’.
I appreciate the responses and look forward to further explorations down Onefinity lane.
Love this machine!