I’m using a 1/4” bit to cut a square down 1/2”. I wanted the corners to be rounded off on the bottom so I’m also going to use a round bowl bit to get that nice round curves on the bottom. My question is, do I rezero the z axis on the bottom or the original size of the material?
IG @Htx_custom_woodworking
In whatever software you are using did you set a starting depth for that particular toolpath or is it meant to start from original material surface?
I’m using vcarve. I believe it was meant to start at the material surface. Bottom right corner.
I’m making a catch all so after the initial 1/4 end Mill cut was done, there is about only 1/2” thick of the original material surface on the wall. Any advice. I was thinking of using a larger material so that I can just cut the excess off but I wasn’t sure how that would work if I was using a probe to get the exact xyz axis. I guess I could just not use the probe.
So if your first cut starts at Z-zero and cuts down say .250 then with your next bit you need to set you Z-height at a start depth of .250 and cut to your finished depth. You should only need to set X & Y at the start of the job and then Z at each tool change.
After making my cut at let’s say .25 (this is the final depth I want it to be) with my 1/4” end mill, I switched to my 1/8” em to finish up the areas my 1/4” couldn’t reach. I zeroed the Z at the .25” depth.
When I ran my 1/8” tool path. It went straight down another .25 inches. The total depth is now .5”.
Is it because on vcarve I told it to have a start depth of .25” and cut depth of .03 that my 1/8” went down an additional .25”?
I ended up trying to zero out my Z on the original height of my material. That seemed to work.
But my question now is, if I no longer have my original material height because I cut it. How do I zero it out?
If you created all your paths from the same material description, the machine will assume that the Z axis is always probed from the original height of the material.
Consider that neither the material nor the machine has changed in X/Y position so those remain unchanged and are not probed again. The second bit height is very unlikely to match the first one so you want to probe the Z axis again to account for that difference.
But if you probe at a different height… you’re changing two parameters.