What did I do wrong?

Cutting a few holiday things for the house. Started with roughly 1/2in plywood. Used a 1-1/8in surfacing bit to thin out the stock .3 in from zero (top). Used a 1/8in bit to cutout the stock.

I thought I’d select the “start depth” at .3 in from zero (wood top). Then cut to a depth of .47in (about perfect for this example of ply.)

Machine proceeds to cut way deep into my once untouched bed/surface.

File 1 just takes off .3in with surface bit.
File 2 cuts from .3 to .47in some script text.

Is this not a good way to run a file on surfaced wood? Is there a need to rezero even if the zero is already set with the new bit.

Second thing I noticed is once I paused the cut the bit retracted. Waited… waited. Just me figuring out if I continue or not. Somewhere from hitting pause and cancel it plunges a single dot straight down. Retracts and moves back to home. Is there a keyboard shortcut I could have hit to cause this?

20210906_120519|243x500

Post the .c2d file, generated G-Code, step-by-step notes on how you are securing your stock and setting zero relative to it, and a photo showing the difficulty you are having and we will do our best to sort this out with you.

You want your second cut to start at .3" and your cut depth to be .17" for a total depth of .47"

I’ve messed up a lot of parts doing what you did.

image

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Yeah, that’s a notable feature difference for Carbide Create:

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Thanks for the feedback.

Carbide Create 520
This file just thins out the material. Really its only goal.
Spooky2Surface.nc (967 Bytes)

This is the file that failed but I’ve seemed to run the program successfully subsequent times. Actually needing to increase the cut depth on the particular piece of wood to get through it.
Spooky2SurfacedWood.nc (306.8 KB)

3rd Revision of the file. Only adjusts the cut depth for the particular piece I was cutting.
Spooky2SurfacedWood3.nc (306.8 KB)
Revision 1, 2, 3 are cut depth .47 / .48 / .49 – I don’t have a caliper so its a bit of a guessing game.

2 Flute 1/8 in up cut bit.

My usual setup is something like this.

  1. Carbide Create / Motion. Usually import images via the tracing tool in Carbide Create. Edit speeds, feeds, depths in CC, hit save and create the NC files.
  2. Scrap plywood if I can get it held down by the plastic clamps that come with the pro.
    Few sheets of poster board paper under wood to help give a tiny bit of grace area for the table. The stuff I’ve been cutting isn’t that big. Yet.
  3. Zero the machine off the top of the material manually. I have the touch probe etc but usually I just get it touching the wood and hit zero all.
  4. Run the file

The two successful runs of the file I did.

2x sheets of Scrap plywood stack on top of each other. Really making sure I don’t Oops again.
Cut Revision 3 file.

Right now my only guess is a random bug or I hit a button on the keyboard. Maybe I zeroed the machine wrong. I guess I got to learn how to make new slats eventually. Just happy it wasn’t the metal part of the table.

What you did is exactly what I was looking to do. Pocket out material, then cut within the pocket text. The idea is the resulting text is thinner for artsy stuff.

Just some general shots of what im attemping to do. I think i got it figured out just a rough start. When I read Zombies comment i ran back to look at the file. Mine shows Max cut depth though.


This looks okay. Is there still an issue?

I think for diagnosing any issues, the Carbide Create file (.c2d) helps more than the gcode file (.nc).

Also, since the pro has a bitsetter, you can run both toolpaths - the surface and the pattern - in one file and one operation, if you like.

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I think I fixed the issue. Can you run two different bits without the bitsetter? In one file thats is. Just thinking my surfacing bit is pretty wide for the bitsetter. It has a 1/2in hole about in the center. Whiteside version.

You can’t run two bits without the bitsetter since it won’t know the difference in the height of the two bits and will cut the non-first bit at the wrong depth.

For the surfacing bit, you can put a metal plate or something on top of the bitsetter’s button so it can push it down… it think yours is magnetic, but if not double-sided tape?

Note you’d need to keep that on the bitsetter from the time you turn the machine on to the time you turn the machine off.

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Just a note on clamping:

In general you want the clamp to be flat / slightly down sloping on the workpiece side. The length of the bolt aside, I would want put the “lip” of the clamp on the piece and the “toe” of the clamp on the wasteboard. And if possible, place the bolt as close to the workpiece as opposed to the “toe”. You want that side of the lever to be short to maximize the downward force rather than trying to bend the clamp itself. I’m guessing you did it your way because you don’t have longer bolts?

Of course some jobs are so tolerant that it doesn’t matter (you can hold down with a coffee mug and get away with it, or on a large heavy piece no hold down at all). But it is still good to be aware of the best practice and use it as often as possible to develop good habits. Better to do things the right way and minimize the discovery of failure points rather than the other way around (discover all the possible failure points and improve things incrementally).

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