Just got my OF the other day (yay!) and have been busy making all the things you need before you can start making things (mainly RedDogWoodCraft spoilboard system).
One of the things I’ve noticed is that sometimes when running a gcode file that I’ve created is that the tool will retract (lift away from) the workpiece with each depth change.
I’m using Carbide Create (free) and I’m not sure what setting is causing this. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Under the ‘Job Setup’, you should set your ‘retract height’ to something quite low unless you need to clear clamps etc. It should only raise the bit above the workpiece when it starts a new section of the design. For instance, if you were making dog holes in your spoilboard.
I’ll play around with it some more, but I don’t think that’s it. It’s not that the tool is retracting between cutting one one and going to the next, it is retracting after EVERY depth change.
On the spoilboard for instance, there are through holes for screw inserts as well as the dog holes.
When cutting each of the holes, it will drop the bit .050 (default depth), cut the toolpath for that hole, retract completely out of the cutting area, and then drop another .050" to make the next toolpath pass in the hole. It does this for every hole at every depth change. Not just when going from one hole to the next, which is what I thought the ‘retract height’ setting was for.
It is free-to-use software and unfortunately, it is very limited in what it can do, same with something like Easel. Most go with something like V-Carve Pro or Carveco Maker which give you a lot more control over the process.
I’ve been looking at VCarve Desktop, other than Pro being able to do projects bigger than 24"x24" is anything that a hobbyist would need in Pro?
Not really, I think VCarve Desktop would certainly be a better option than Carbide Create or Easel and you would only pay the difference between VCarve Desktop & VCarve Pro should you wish to upgrade (not sure if there is a time limit involved).
Having worked with 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5-axis programming and machines since 1986 (back in the DOS days), CAD/CAM software has advanced beyond what we hoped for in the early days. I recall my first exposure was 7-spindle routers programming on a proprietary software package running on a PDP-11 using dual 8-inch floppy disks. We used graph paper and had to trig out every point, intersection, arc center, spline node, etc. and manually input the data, then create the G-code on a punch tape and load the punch tape into the routers.
Enter the DOS realm and we finally got computers to start doing a lot of that with a very early version of BobCAD, but we still had this limitation of Z-axis retracting for every cut.
Enter a different company with CADKey and MasterCAM, still under DOS, wireframe only, no surfaces, solids were still only in government labs. MasterCAM gave us the ability to control the Z-axis retraction from the software. But there were also ways to edit the post processor to keep the Z-axis from retracting fully, but usually we kept it 0.050" - 0.100" above the work piece.
We still had to advance a few more years before full control of the Z-axis retraction (plus helical entry, ramp entry) became the norm.
When I was heavy into all that, MasterCAM was still king, but SurfCAM, CATIA and others I used, all allowed full control of Z-axis retraction.
MasterCAM x11 was the last CAM program I used on a full-time basis, so I’m a bit rusty on where things have advanced, nor do I have the personal budget to keep a license of MasterCAM, even though I would LOVE to still have it available. I do keep a license of SolidWorks Professional up to date and have used it since 1994 for plastic injection mold design, vacuum and thermoform mold design and spent 8 years designing industrial and municipal water treatment plants. Now I just design things I want to build like kitchen and bath cabinets.
Most low-end CAM products will have limitations on features and sadly, Z-axis retraction seems to be one.