I’m doing some engraving using a diamond drag bit and I want to then cut a circle out around the engraving. Since the spring in the drag bit compresses when touching off the Bit Setter, I’m concerned the the Z-zero will be off when doing the contour cut. Has anyone else tried to do this?
I’m thinking of using a drill bit collar to prevent the drag bit from compressing. I would appreciate any easier ideas.
I share your concern (but have not had a chance to actually try using my drag bit with the BitSetter yet…I probably would not even have hoped that it would work correctly).
For this specific scenario I would just go back to the old days of “one file per toolpath and redo zero manually”
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Correct me if I’m off the waggon here, but diamond drag bits are designed to be compressed. If it was the last tool change would it be a problem if it was off?
I would speculate (based on the one DDB I have had) that the spring in the DDB is much much firmer than that in the BitSetter.
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The compression is the problem. The engraving has to be done prior to cutting out the part. I tried the drill depth stop, but it scored the DDB, so I won’t be doing that again. I’m afraid I just need to do two toolpaths.
There’s an interesting solution to this on the Unofficial Facebook Group — a sleeve which allows the drag bit to depress the BitSetter.
Not sure if this is possible but could you not uninstall the bit setter and eliminate it temporarily do the DDB and then turn it back on and re-calibrate. Is this feasible. I looked at the CM and in the send configuration you could uncheck bit setter. Run the job with the paper zero method or whatever you did before bit setter.
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I think that the diamond drag engraving spring k factor is at least a magnitude greater than the bitsetter spring, so I would be surprised if the DDE compresses more than 0.01". I usually have 0.06"-0.10" compression depending on the stock I am engraving.
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That would essentially be the same as running two separate toolpaths.
Following the DDB, I’m cutting 0.060” aluminum using a 1/32” bit with 0.005” DOC. So, a 0.010” spring compression is significant. I already broke a bit experimenting with that.
I saw a chap who made a tip for his DDB - it was a block with a hole in. The top goes into the hole, keeping the actual unit sprung
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