I have recently gotten into creating topographical maps with my shapeoko pro xxl. I am using 3.6 angle ball nose 1/16”. From a far they look amazing but up close you can see the individual lines from the CNC. Does anyone have an idea of how to fix this? I’m nervous about sanding because it will ruin some of the details.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Have you tried to increase stepover?
I haven’t, how much show I increase it?
I’d decrease the stepover distance to get a lower scallop.
You can also run passes at different angles.
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I did try it on an angles. It was the same thing. I’m going to play around with the step over. I’m hoping for a suggestion as to what I should change my step over to.
I think for fine details with a 1/16 ballmill I usually use .25mm stepover and ramp up the feedrate pretty high.
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As neilferreri stated, a smaller step-over will result in a smaller scallop and a second pass in a perpendicular direction can reduce the scallops further. The percentage of step-over in relation to the size of your ball nose determines the amount of scallop left behind. Something to consider is while a smaller stepover will yield a smaller scallop and smoother detail it comes at a cost of time (requires many more passes to cover the same distance).
I found this link which does a really good job detailing how to choose stepover:
https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-stepover/
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Ha. It says that post is really from @robgrz
His original is the one I posted above.
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I find 8% stepover gives a great finish.
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Really depends on the wood type, besides stepover. I use .008" stepover for 1/16" ball.
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I’ve found that you need something like 10% step over for the final passes. You also need 2 final passes the 1st across the grain, the second with the grain.
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Thank you, I’ll try that
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