Z Retract Question

This forum is for general discussion about Aspire
Post Reply
fredfow3
Vectric Apprentice
Posts: 57
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:40 am
Model of CNC Machine: Laguna Swift 4x4, Shapeoko S3 XL
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Z Retract Question

Post by fredfow3 »

Hi All,

I recently had to do a very deep (98mm) 3D contouring job, and the tool did a full retract and plunge after each raster pass. It did this in both the roughing and finishing toolpaths. It was a huge time sink, with eighty percent of the machining time being the retracts & plunges, even with a very fast plunge rate. All the limits were set correctly with 2mm clearance all around for rapids and safe Z.

In the future I could manually remove the Z moves in a text editor, but is there a way to keep the tool down close to the workpiece? Am I missing something? It's a pain to edit.

Thanks,

Fred
Tube bending block (98mm deep)
Tube bending block (98mm deep)

Post Reply