My roughing pass was just fine with 1/8" BN. Switched to 1/16 BN for finish toolpath. The finish starts out just fine from the center using offset machining strategy. Runs and carves a smooth finish even at the deepest points. Then at about 40%, is seems to not cut any deeper for the finish look and just rides above the roughing depth. Using VCarve desktop with Carbide Motion. I’ve had this Shapeoko 3 XL for 2 years with little to no problems other than my own mistakes as I move up the learning curve of the software and the cnc machine as well. There is no play in Z carriage. I’m cutting a downloaded .v3m file from Design & Make. It is a skull in a dish. I did change the shape height and put a gap above model as I’m going to fill in the recess with clear epoxy. This is going to be seat of a 3 legged stool. Of course when I need it go perfectly, I get this problem!
Like I stated before is going fine until about 40% into the finish toolpath. Any ideas???
sounds like Z axis slip… which Z axis type do you have?
the good news is you can restart the finish pass and just continue (for seamless transition you likely want to start a hair lower so that even on the previously correct part you shave off a very tiny amount)
Yeah. I don’t have the $250 upgraded Z Carriage or a SO3 Pro… I have the normal one that came with SO3XL 2 years ago. Works just great w/ the old style limit switches. The only problem I’ve had is an occasional eccentric nut coming loose over time producing slop and a ruined project. I check carriage tightness before each project now. I tried running the toolpath a second time w/o doing anything to see any new results until it got to that area and saw nothing. It was late so I turned everything off until I get to it today. I never remove project so as to not disturb x & y axis even slightly. I will power up and reinitialize and zero Z axis again and see what happens. Even though the 1/16 BN bit isn’t long I still made enough was sticking out to reach the lowest point. I wear ear protection but I’m not sure I didn’t hear a hard bump along the way that may have disturbed the bit, collet and Z axis. Stay tuned! Thx.
That hard bump that i thought I heard( had ear protection on) but didn’t witness proved I think to be the issue. It forced the bit up in the collet therefore affecting the carve. I reinitialized, set Z again. Since I had no material in the center to Z, I put a sheet of paper across center. I di go probably at little deeper than I should have but … (left a lip on the dish to sand out: no biggie). The point is that the toolpath finished correctly and all is well. Confidence restored; lesson logged. Maybe I didn’t have collet as tight as I thought.
Thanks to you for answering my call for help. Appreciate it. Good day to you!
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