I am new to CNC but have completed some projects such as signs with lettering and boarders but I am currently trying a 3D image from Vector Art 3D and I can not seem to capture the detail in the finishing path. I have worked with several settings such as Step Over, Feed Rate, Pass Depth, and bit size on my finishing path but all seem to lose more detail. So far the best detail I have been able to capture but yet it is very little is based on the screen shot settings below. The image of the work piece is with these settings.
Work Piece
Roughing tool path setup
Finishing tool path setup
Tool path preview
Does anyone have any idea on this?
Thanks in advance for all help. I have been trying to tune this for 4 days now.
I have tried all the way down too 5% step over. The pine is just for trial right now I have tried a piece of scrap poplar as we'll. The depth of the spades is next to none and the letters and numbers do not appear at all. I have used a feeler gauge to insure my z depth to the top of the material is set. Feeler gauge thickness used was 0.004 and I toggled my machine down @ 0.0001 of an inch at each step until the bit touched gauge.
Size of this is about: y= 5.25 & x= 5.72 on .75 stock
How does the preview look, if there is not enough detail in the depth of that then you will need to scale the height of the model up relative to the overall size of the job. I assume your using Vector Art 3D Machinist. If so you can do this on the second stage "Set Dimensions" by unckecking the boxes below the dimensions and then increasing the Z depth value. That way it should machine a bit deeper and give you more detail.
Yes I am sure it is a 0.125 Ball Nose I have also tried a 0.0625 Ball Nose. I am working on trying James suggestion but by increasing the Z depth to oh say 0.5 it will only leave .25 on the bottom with .75 stock.
in the preview it does not look like it changes the depth of the spades and letters/numbers but only changes the depth of the entire model.
I've tried using pine on my meteor and it comes out a bit rough. Aspen is real nice if you want a light colored wood. It is available at Lowes and Menards in dmiensional lumber (1-bys) fairly cheap. It has a tight grain and small fibers.
Thanks everyone for your help with the loss of detail issue I was having. After several conversations with the model company and Probotix it is finally working now. After making sure my set up was correct on my tool path generating we found a few things that need to be tweaked in the main system code and then the rest and now it is providing the depth on each spade and number.
