Vectric Aspire >> PP Shapeoko (inch) TOOLCHANGE >> Cutting To Deep

1

I can’t seem to figure this out, if I’m doing something wrong.

I have a piece of wood, let’s say 0.495in thick. In Vectric Aspire, I set the material thickness to 0.5" and the material surface as zero.

I use a 0.25" compression bit, Amana. The bit is in the Vectric Amana tool database and auto-selects a lot of parameters. Aspire sets 2 passes, 0.25" each pass. Great!

I save the tool path using the Shapeoko inch toolchange pp.

I open in carbide motion. I have the bit setter and the touch probe, but for this to keep it simple I only use the bit setter. I’ve had the same issue using the touch probe.

Initialize, then I jog the bit to exactly where I want the zero, and z it down until there’s no light below the bit on the surface. I zero all.

I add the tool path, start, it probes again, asks me to turn on the router, and begins.

It pushes very deep into the wood, well over 0.25", probably 80% through the material depth and moves along as the bit screeches.

Am I doing something wrong here? Very simple cuts, but wasting a lot of material.chipssides.gcode.zip (456 Bytes)

2

Well the g-code looks correct and consistent with the depths you mentioned

G17
G20 => units is inches
G90
M6 T1 => tool change pop-up + bitsetter probing
S18000M3 => spindle on pop-up
G0Z0.8000 => move to the retract height of 0.8"
G0X0.0000Y0.0000
G0X0.2836Y0.3746Z0.2000
G1Z-0.2500F20.0 => plunge to -0.25" (depth of the first pass)
G2X0.1603Y0.5201I0.0000J0.1250F40.0 => start moving in the X/Y plane
[etc…]

So probably the mechanical Z reference is wrong/lost somewhere

  • either something happens during the zeroing
    • does Z read 0.00 after you zero all & clear offsets ?
  • or the Z reference is lost after zeroing. This can happen if the Z axis reaches its top limit upon retract.
    • When you are at the point where you have jogged the bit to the surface and are setting Z0, how much travel is there left on the Z axis between the top of the Z plate and the limit switch?

Does it happen if you disable BitSetter in the settings (you don’t need it for this particular job anyway)?

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3

Zeroing in (pun intended) on what Julien says, check your retract height setting in Aspire. Its in the material setup, I think.

You could be retracting the router beyond the upper space left to move.

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4

A retract height of 0.8" is pretty high. I usually use 0.2" or 0.1".

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5

Yes, it reads 0,0,0.

There is plenty of space. Above the base is a 1” mdf spoil board and then the material at nearly .5”.

6

What kind of Z axis to you have on your machine (stock/Z-plus/HDZ) ?

I would
a) double-check that if you jog 1inch on Z, the axis actually moves by 1 inch
b) retry the cut (possibly as an air job if you don’t want to waste material) with the BitSetter disabled

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