Drag Knife Gadget - Exceeds Z

[cncpadawan]

Hello,

I am playing with a 3D printed drag knife today and am having issues with the wizard. I have created the toolpath successfully, but when I try to run it, Mach3 says that I don't have enough Z travel more or less.

The tool is quite long... but I do have plenty of room to clear the material and what I'm using for holders. When I have Z zeroed in at the top of the material, I still have nearly a 1/2 inch of Z left. I'm using Aspire 9.5 now, and I can't seem to find where I can find anything that allows me to change the distance for travel, or any other setting that I can tweak that will help. Any suggestions wold be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[ger21]

What does the Mach3 error actually say?

Because afaik, Mach3 will not tell you don't have enough Z clearance, it will just happily crash into the top. Perhaps the message i s coming from somewhere else?

[garyb]

I would suspect you are getting a soft limit warning,
check your safe Z height setting (too high for your machine travel) that is most likely what is causing it if its a soft limit warning for the Z axis
Gary

[cncpadawan]

Hello ger21,

Actually, it did warn me... specifically, it said "Program exceeds machine maximum on axis Z." and if I tried to continue, it wouldn't run, produced a soft limit error. First time I've ever had a warning like that... usually as you say, it'll run and go nuts.

Hello garyb,

Yea, I figured that was what it was... but for the life of me I couldn't find it. But, now that I looked at itt again, the Z gap is set too high. So... that'll likely fix it. I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Thank you both!

[cncpadawan]

Hello all,

Well, that didn't fix the issue. Upon closer inspection, it seems that it is trying to put the toolpaths ABOVE the work envelope of my machine, not within. I'm guessing I need to play with Mach3 a bit to make that work..