I am attempting to cut some Sintra (PVC). The material is .25" thick. I’ve tried with both Motion and CNCjs with the same result. After Z Probing X-Y-Z with Luke’s probe, the first pass starts at like 1/8" above the material… so what should be a fully cut out letter on the second pass, only goes a little bit into the material. I tried redoing the file settings and saving new G Code…and tried using both senders (Motion and CNCjs) with the same result. Everything has been working great until I changed endmills to a .125" single flute. Is it because I am choosing the standard square .125 endmill in Create (I just thought of that as I typed this out)? Is that the issue gurus? Thanks for any advice. Chip
Did you double check that your Z0 is on the material? In CM, jog to the place you want to verify the Z then go to Rapid Position press Z+6 then return to jog and set speed to 1mm then press Z- 6 times and if you are not just resting on the material, the Z is not set properly. There is something about your workflow with the CM probe if you want just Z, you put it on top of the completely material not over the side.
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You don’t say what tool you’re using to generate toolpaths - be sure that the material thickness and zero is set properly there as well - ie. the material is .25", the zero is set to the surface, etc.
Did you re-zero after changing the tool?
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When you probed XYZ did you have the probe hanging over the corner of the stock?
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Yessir, i did. I also tried the “manual” method with a piece of paper instead of the probe… same result.
Thanks Luke, I’ll give this a go. Yes, doing X-Y-Z was hanging over the material, doing just Z was on top of the material.
My apologies, I used Carbide Create to set the toolpaths. I just invested in VCarve, but I haven’t had the opportunity to play with that one yet. 
Can you share your gcode?
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@neilferreri It looks like the file is too long to share here…is there a specific section you want to see (or I can email it to you).
Can you zip it? The forum won’t let you upload certain file types.
@neilferreri OK, here goes…
BlandRED-New.nc.zip (26.2 KB)
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There’s your problem.
The deepest you cut is .015". First cutting pass is at about 3mm above zero, just as you’re seeing.
At least you know the machine is doing what it’s supposed to!
Most of the cutting happens above Z-zero.
Zero indicated by purplely arrow:
I bet you set the zero at the bottom of the stock…not sure why it cuts past that though. Maybe a CC user can chime in.
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So to be clear, in my screenshot below… i should always be setting my Stock Thickness to TOP of stock? Is that what you mean?
Unless you want to set your Z-zero at the wasteboard, yes.
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Wow… thank, you SOOOO much sir. I am not sure how I have been able to cut anything up to this point…I never paid attention to that setting. THANK YOU THANK YOU!
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with V carve, carbide create does look at stock depth and depending on geometry, will cut deeper than your stock.
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In general, do you guys cut past the bottom of the stock to make sure it actually cuts all the way through? Is that best practice?
@fenrus It’s not a v-carve toolpath though.
@chiprender On through cuts in something like what you’re cutting (PVC), I set my zero based on the wasteboard so it doesn’t gouge the board for no reason. You can finish that off with a knife if it leaves a little skin.
Great, thanks again… you certainly have alleviated some serious “noob” head scratching!
No problem…glad it wasn’t mechanical.
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