I’ve brought this up on here before but I didn’t get a solid answer. I’ve been doing some testing and I found out something interesting.
I’ve got a Shapeoko XXL, I’m using vcarve pro to make my files and save them using the shapeoko post processor.
My issue is when I cut lets say a rectangle, I cut it on the outside. Then I cut another rectangle but this time on the inside. I can’t get the the first rectangle to fit into the opening of the smaller rectangle. It’s close but it just won’t fit. I remembered tonight that when I first got my machine in 2017 that I was able to do this. I made some files using carbide create and saved the files as .egc files, cut them and it works!!
So any ideas on what the issue when I try to do this out of Vcarve?
are you using the metric or imperial post processor?
2 digits of precision is quite different in millimetres than it is in inches !
(usually the units in which you design, and the units in which the gcode is written out don’t have to be the same, at least for carbide create they are fully independent)
I initially thought that was issue, I was designing in imperial then saving in mm. I tried designing and saving in imperial, all my tooling is set up in imperial. Still doesn’t work from Vcarve.
(the obvious is that the pocket side needs a bit of tricks to make the corners actually fit a perfect square… I assume that’s not what you mean here but really just fitting the long stretch part of a rectangle)
can you post your gcode for the squares? quite possible we can see this easier by poking into that
Carbide Create has a nifty facility where when one offsets paths the radius is taken into account — that may have been why things worked.
It may also help to calibrate for belt stretch:
I’ve taken into account the radius of the bits. It doesn’t make sense that it would be the belts as the files are perfect when I use carbide create.
The width of the sample rectangle ends up being .02 inches bigger than the width of the other hole.
Here are the files Gcode Files.zip (764 Bytes)
THANKS!
In that case, it’s most likely a matter of climb vs. conventional milling — the Vectric toolpaths presumably use one, CC the other which causes the cuts to be different.
ok 4 digits of precision, that should be enough 
looking further
Thanks Will, so right now my files out of Vcarve are climb, if I switch it to conventional you think this might have an effect?
That was it Will!! I was running the files on climb, just redid them as conventional and problem solved!!
Thanks Will and thanks Fenrus for your fast responses!
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