What am I doing wrong

[Jeffery71]

I'm attaching a crv file. At the top where the arch is located the tool path that is generated has alot of z movements instead of one nice sweeping path. I'm not sure what I've done wrong unless my drawing has to many nodes and it is some how confusing the software. I may try redrawing it using arcs but would like to know what the problem may be.

Thanks!

Jeff T.

[Paco]

With toolpath 'V-carve 1' only one, the outermost, vector is used. This is wrong to me; I'm actually surprised it V carve like that on a single vector!??!?!? Looking at your design and both toolpaths separately, one toolpath is redundant; I would delete toolpath 'V-carve 1'.

[Jeffery71]

Thanks. I didnt' catch that other tool path. Not sure how I did that. That fixed the problem.

In the mean time I did another using arcs. and it seams to have the same problem. Am I better not using arcs?


See attached file


Thanks

Jeff T.

[Geraldw]

I exort your drawing as a dxf and opened it in Autocad. I then looked at your offset betwwen lines, everything was uniformed offset of 0.63, but in the arch. The arch varied a little, and with it cutting between 2 sets of lines it will raise and lower the z axis so not to cut outside the line. I noticed this myself while cutting lettering. Hope this helps, if need be I can post or email the dxf file for you.
Gerald

[Paco]

I think that the problem might be that the V tool bit used is 0.5" CED (diameter) and the width of the groove is 0.5" too. I tried with a 1.25" CED tool and the many retract and plunge are gone.

The facts are that a 0.5" CED V tool bit is not allowed to be set to greater stepdown than half it's diameter; in this case, 0.25. The design you made will carve down to 0.29" with a 90 deg. V tool bit. To make it so that it doesn't retract and plunge as often as you observed, you need a tool bit that can be set to stepdown to more than 0.29". If you create a 0.55" CED V tool bit or so and set it's stepdown to more than 0.29" than it's carve smoothly.

Does that make sense?

Nothing wrong with both of your designs (either bezier or segmented curves) about V carving them; the only problem I can think of is if you need to edit the vector. Bezier are way more easy to work with.

[Jeffery71]

Paco,

That makes sence about the tool diameter. I changed it to a .75 wich is what I was using on the machine anyways and it worked perfect!

Thanks!

Jeff T.