Hey Team - trying to understand how to control v-carbe depth.
I’ve got a Carbide 3D #302 bit.
I’m trying to do the inlay (female part), file attached.
When I ran this, the actual cut into the material was VERY shallow. So shallow I didn’t feel I could actually put a plug in, cut it away, sand it and feel confident the detail would remain.
I’ve been fiddling with how to make the carve go deeper, but I’m having zero luck.
I don’t know if I’m missing a setting or if I’m coming about this all wrong and expecting something unrealistic.
I suspect the deeper I go the more change I will detail of the drawing as som coners and line merges loose clarity. Not sure I’m describing the correct.
Here is the file I’m working with: sample.c2d (172 KB)
The simulation also shows the carve is very shallow:
The ‘Max Depth’ is not how deep it will carve. Instead, it is an upper bound on how deep it will carve.
The other bound on depth is ‘does the tool fit?’. Once the tool you have chosen has gone deep enough that it is touching the design on both sides (a simplification, but ‘true enough’ here), it won’t go any deeper, no matter what the ‘Max Depth’ is.
To go deeper you need to either:
Change the geometry so there is more room, thus the tool will go deeper, OR
Change the tool to be narrower, so it goes deeper before it hits the design.
Usually on a simple vcarve you use “t” or the maximum depth of material. The vee bit will go down until it touches both sides of the lines if you use the “t”. If you limit depth on a vcarve it usually is barely visible with a 45 degree vee bit. If you have fine lines that are close together a 15/20 or 30 degree vee bit would be better. If you only have a 45/90 degree vee bit you have have wider space between the two lines to get a visible carve. An Advanced Vcarve using a flat end mill and a vee bit are different from a simple vcarve. The end mill will remove material in larger flat areas and then the vee bit goes around the outline.
Thanks Michael. I think that is starting to make sense for me. So that may just be as deep as the 60 degree 302 will go unless I make the “lines” wider?
If you need to cut wider than a particular V tool either a more obtuse one, or a larger tool will need to be used, or one will need to depth limit and use Pocket Clearing.
