Yet another Z zero issue

Software Carbide Motion
1

So, I’m working on a carving out a panel in 2 mm 6061 aluminum. I have a job and toolpath that mills a series of holes. After the job ran one of the holes was not quite milled through, there was just a skin of aluminum left, probably due to an uneven surface height.

I adjusted the Z zero down by 0.050 and ran the toolpath again. No additional metal appeared to be removed. I adjusted the Z zero down another 0.050, ran the toolpath, and still no additional metal appeared to be removed. I moved Z zero down a third time and still got the same results.

What could be causing this? It seems like Z zero is being set to the value when I originally ran the toolpath. I have a BitSetter. Could that be a factor?

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Are you just setting this down by .050 in CM, and then rerunning the toolpath? If so you are bumping your bit setter each time and just resetting it to your original Z set in your design software possibly.

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3

How are you setting your zero lower?

Also, I assume that those are inch measurements?

4

Yes, I’m doing that, but I don’t see why the zero would be reset by the BitSetter. The design only has relative positions.

5

I move to the current zero then lower the bit then zero the Z axis. All my work is in metric units of measure.

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Well, it turns out that I had to really crank down the Z zero to get the effect I needed. The surface height was really off by a lot.

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I usually go 0.5mm below the stock bottom when I’m making a hole. At exactly zero, I find the end mill can push an onion skin down below the hole (you can feel it bulging down, not just failed to cut deep enough). And, as you, a little stock thickness makes a big difference in that as well.

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Do you do that by increasing the stock thickness in the toolpath or by physically setting the zero lower?

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I am using fusion 360 and I assume you are using Carbide Create? I’m not very familiar with CC.

In fusion, I can specify the depth to cut a hole. Is that not an option in CC? Do you specify the hole bottom height at 0? If so, you could do a bottom of -0.5 (or whatever you think is right.for your setup).

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Yes, you can specify the depth of the cut, or just use the stock depth. It looks like a discrete definition of hole depth would be best.

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