problems with photovcarve since day 1

[famsearch]

tried to do some more stuff with this cursed software, with the usual results, all bad. tried a pic of the wife and i with mr peanut, and as usual with photovcarve, even though you tell it bottom left, it zooms to bottom right to start working its magic. no sooner than it had gotten to the corner, it zipped up and to the left, and started from there. since i hadn't tried it on real wood, i decided to use a scrap bit of walnut. needless to say, the results were less than spectacular (downright cruddy), the only way i could tell if anyone was in the pic, was to hold it at arms length, and tip it back some, and even then, it was touch and go. so i cancelled the run, and started a pic of our dad, figuring that that may work, on a bit of odd red oak. got my hopes up too high again. after 2 hours of it going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, it decided after making its run from lower left to upper right, to zoom straight down, then back to where it was, went down and to the left, then back up and to the right, then hammered the bit right into the wood, right up to the collet nut, after vacuuming the dust (wanted the image to be a surprise), and giving it a quick coat of amber shellac, the image was just plain awful. right now i'm just about at my wit's end with this software. first, it didn't have the post processor for grbl, then got the patch for it, and it wouldn't accept it, then put in patch mkII, sort of works with the program, now with this latest misadventure, i'm just about ready to demand a refund. if anyone has any ideas, i'm wide open to them.

[Xxray]

Had a tough time reading/focusing on the specifics of whatever you are trying to say ... No insult intended but "bad results" are almost universally due to operator error/lack of experience.
To remedy that, best to look at tutorials and browse the forum for some of the many successfully created projects. For best results asking questions, helps to be clear and specific, without the "left,right,up,down,back and forth" ect. Might be wrong but I doubt if there is a refund policy for software ,,, Take a look around, there are many people creating many very nice things, perseverance, effort and some trial and error are required.

That said, there does seem to be a much higher failure rate with wood vs corian. I for instance have done dozens if not 100's of successful corian lithos, not a single 1 in wood. As I understand it, there is far more to it than simply machining, alot of prep goes into it before even starting, and some after to get the image to pop out.
This guy did great work, unfortunately would not share much of his techniques.
http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14396

[famsearch]

i've watched the tutorials (which don't happen to show the end results) until i'm bleary eyed. the last item i tried, worked ok until it decided to go back to Y0, then back to where it started from, carved another line and a half, and promptly planted the bit right up to the collet nut. can't be any more clear and specific than that. considering that photovcarve does not have a post processor for shapeoko, the generic one does not work all that well, and the vectric people jerry-rigged the post processor for shapeoko from cut2v to work on the photovcarve, and i still wind up with either a junk image, or one that looks like a plowed field. can't get more specific than that....

[Adrian]

Converting a post processor from one Vectric product to another is hardly jerry rigging. The post processors are all the same with the Cut2D, VCarve and Aspire ones being a superset of the PhotoVCarve ones. It's just a matter of deleting a couple of sections that PhotoVCarve doesn't support/need. Arc movements aren't much use in a program that only cuts lines for instance.

I'd suggest removing as many variables from the equation as possible until you get to the bottom of what is wrong with your setup. Go back to the sample files and tutorials. Make sure your settings are the same and run those. By creating your own files you're introducing too many random elements that make tracking a problem down very difficult.

Planting the bit into the material is nearly always a sign of lost steps or other physical problem. If you could post the output file that you used for that one then it's a simple matter to check it to see if there are any instructions that would cause the machine to do that. I would suspect not.

[NormanAlbert]

One of the issues I had early in this game was the router going off on it's own at random times. The problem proved to be stray rf noise. The router was plugged into the same electric circuit as the computer and that caused the stray signals. Computer on one circuit, router on a different one and no more stray wanderings across a nearly finished project. Norm

[BArnold]

Converting a post processor from one Vectric product to another is hardly jerry rigging. ...

Even as a new user, I can attest to that. When I first got VCarve desktop, I used the basic gcode inch post processor and it worked but I modified it with some lines in the pre- and post- areas for specific commands I wanted like starting and stopping the spindle. I renamed the PP so it's easy to find. When I first tried it after getting PVC, I got a couple of errors that, on investigation, were commands that PVC will not process. Now, I have a Shapeoko-specific PP for PVC as well as one for VCarve.

[famsearch]

not sure why, since it started out ok, but it just kept getting deeper as the cutting went on (4hrs and 10 minutes of cutting), from just a shade over 1/16" to a bit over 1/4" deep, from bottom left of the pic to top left, a bit odd, since the total limit on the depth of cut was 1/10". each time it went deeper, it left a distinct diagonal line. the bit that was used was a 1/8" ball nose bit, with a 10% spacing. not sure what went wrong here....

[Mike-S]

it just kept getting deeper as the cutting went on

While it sounds counter-intuitive, I had that happen when I failed to tighten the collet securely enough.

[LittleGreyMan]

it just kept getting deeper as the cutting went on

While it sounds counter-intuitive, I had that happen when I failed to tighten the collet securely enough.

I add my vote to this hypothesis.

But it's not that counter-intutive. The material doesn't push the bit into the collet. A positive helix bit generates an upwards cutting effort. If the material is not properly tied to the machine table, it will be ripped off. If it's strongly tied, and the bit is a little loose in the collet, the cutting effort will slowly pull it out the collet.

This is particularly noticeable with abrasive materials (PU board with mineral load).

I hope my pidgin English was clear enough.

[Ms Wolffie]

Famsearch
No insult intended here either.
Your post is difficult to read because all the sentences run into each other so one gets almost breathless reading it.
If you try to make a new paragraph when you would normally take a breath, then it is easier for the reader to understand your problem.
I got lost halfway through and could not remember the beginning
When a post is difficult to read, most people just give up.

[Ms Wolffie]

Nothing at all with your Pidgin English
I understood it very well and I have never been able to make PVC work, I guess I am too impatient

[BArnold]

As a follow-up to famsearch and his issues with PVC, I had him send me his gcode file. I have an SO2 that is almost identical to his, so I wanted to help narrow down his problem. I ran his gcode today. The result is shown below. Disregard the holes you see as I used a scrap piece of MDF.

The first photo is as it came off my CNC with a little sanding. The second photo is after I had wiped it with some dark stain and rubbed it off. I had issue with the spindle or bit drifting.

[BArnold]

Correct to my last post: The final sentence should read: I had NO issue with the spindle or bit drifting.

[Ms Wolffie]

So it is not a software issue then.
It is a very dark picture though.
The monogram in the shirt sits very proud.
I think I would have worked on the picture first to lighten up all the dark but still keep the contrast.
The background blends too much with the shirt.

[BArnold]

So it is not a software issue then.
It is a very dark picture though.
The monogram in the shirt sits very proud.
I think I would have worked on the picture first to lighten up all the dark but still keep the contrast.
The background blends too much with the shirt.

I don't know what might have been done to the photo to improve contrast. I do know that the finished result would have been better had I gone through the process of sealing the material before carving, then apply the stain afterward. But, my effort was to verify his gcode would run properly, which it did.

The raw cut has some good definition in it, so I expect to see a better end product using all the right processes.