Trying to surface the spoilboard for the first time and get errors such as X showing “Under” and Y showing “no fit”. The parameters I have set in VCarve Pro are 30.125 X 31.5 plus.5 offset. My machine is the Woodworker Pro 32 X 32
Hello Stan and welcome,
Surfacing spoil boards is one of the fussiest things - you are pushing your machine to the limits (literally).
The basic things to check are where is the origin set in VCarve and where is it set on your machine.
When starting out with mine I decided that a safer way to keep inside the limits was to put my origin in the exact center of the table and make the toolpath symmetrical around the origin in the CAM software.
How I did that was - home the machine then move the machine with the joy pad until it was at it’s limit on X and Y. Just keep pushing the joypad till the machine refuses to go any further. Then look to see what the screen says your X and Y positions are. Probably something close to X32.126 Y32.126.
Divide those in half and enter them in the MDI screen like this:
G0 G90 X16.063 Y16.063
Press Play and it should go to the center of the table and screen should say it is at those numbers. Press the origin buttons on X and Y. The screen should now say X0 Y0. Now your origin is exactly centered.
Also it is important to check the actual toolpath for anyplace where it is going out of bounds - not just a simulation. Cam software sometimes adds moves (leads and links they are often called) that may take your cutter out of bounds.
I don’t know what VCarve does but if it does not show the toolpath lines and allow you to measure them then go to NCViewer.com
Drag and drop your file on that screen and it will show the toolpath.
Click on Backplotter options at the bottom of the screen and turn on “Show Toolpath Points”. Then click on “Digital Readout” on the left side of the screen.
Click on any black point of your toolpath to see what position it is. Look for any that go beyond the limits. For my case above it would be any point that went to or beyond 16.063
These will have to be fixed or you will get the errors you got.
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Thank you I will give this a try
@Natick64
One trick I use is to tell the cad-cam that I am using a smaller diameter bit. that way I flatten the spoilboard with an area defined as a little smaller than the limits and the extra diam of the bit goes out past the max defined area, that way if I have a part that needs to hang over the edge of the spoilboard it will not be resting on an unlevelled area, I do the same for flattening irregular boards as long as I miss any hold downs.
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