First cuts aren’t the deepest

New guy trying to make my first cuts. First, thank you Carbide3d for sharing CC. I’ll be upgrading to Pro as soon as I learn a bit more.
Thought it would be politic to make my first job engraving my wife’s name in a block of wood but many passes are air-paths. I’m zeroing on the material just like I do on my Bridgeport.
Reading other posts, am I understanding that this may be because the line width is very narrow and I’m using the default 12.7mm height?
Second question: “View/Fit View to Job” doesn’t resize the view on my screen. It’s hard to see what I’m being shown.
Third: I selected GRBL as my Post Processor. I’m getting a lot of spindle up/down cycles in the gcode with no real engraving. What’s with that?
Thanks for your help.

Hi @DaveFC,

Welcome to the community,

If you are using a v-carve toolpath, yes the depth of cut will be directly related to how wide the features (in this case letters) are. Still, it should not cut air. If it does, it may be that the stock thickness is uneven, and that you zeroed in a high spot.

if you are talking about the retract height, no there is no link with how deep it will cut.

Do you have a Shapeoko or another CNC ? If you have a Shapeoko (or Nomad), you should not use the “GRBL” post processor but the “Carbide3D Shapeoko” (or Nomad) one.

You could upload your .c2d project file here for review if you continue to have unsuccessful cuts (and you can also contact support@carbide3d.com)

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