Carving Stars for flags

[RBwoodworks]

I'm having problems making the Vectric software carve the 1" stars out completely with a 90* bit. It doesn't seem to matter the path or the depth it still leaves material behind in the center of the star. If I make the same size star in Easel and cut at say .016" it will cut completely clean and leave no material in the middle and may even leave a flat spot there if I go too deep. I know I must be missing something to get the software to carve properly but haven't found it yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Adrian]

Which toolpath are you using? My guess would be the issue is with the stepover.

[jimandi5000]

I'm having problems making the Vectric software carve the 1" stars out completely with a 90* bit. It doesn't seem to matter the path or the depth it still leaves material behind in the center of the star. If I make the same size star in Easel and cut at say .016" it will cut completely clean and leave no material in the middle and may even leave a flat spot there if I go too deep. I know I must be missing something to get the software to carve properly but haven't found it yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Can you post pictures and your CRV file?

[RBwoodworks]

Some reason it won't let me add the gcode for the stars. I get an error message each time I try. If you shoot me a email I can send the stuff to you that way it that's ok. gpa612010@live.com

I went back and looked again and it's telling me that the files are invalid file extensions not proper gcodes even though I just ran them.?

[RBwoodworks]

Which toolpath are you using? My guess would be the issue is with the stepover.

I've tried all three, On is the best but still leaves material in the middle, outside looks horrible and inside almost just makes a hole. I know it's me but just can't figure out what it is I'm missing when Easel does it with no messing around. You get a perfect cut star everytime with Easel. I ran one tonight just to see how it actually carves and it starts in the middle and cuts the center out first then starts carving the points. There has to something in the gcode to make it carve that way. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the code to figure that out.

[Adrian]

I'm guessing easel does something like a v-carve toolpath. That isn't available in Cut2D. Only in VCarve and Aspire.

There may be a way of doing it with just the toolpaths that Cut2D has but I've never experimented as I have VCarve and Aspire.

[Bill_L]

Your strategy of using a profile toolpath to accomplish the desired results will require setting the depth of cut to about .22". I get the desired results with that setting. I also get the desired results with a 120 degree 1.5" V-bit set at .16". Remember, profiling is not an actual "V-carving" strategy.

Bill

[RBwoodworks]

I'm guessing easel does something like a v-carve toolpath. That isn't available in Cut2D. Only in VCarve and Aspire.

There may be a way of doing it with just the toolpaths that Cut2D has but I've never experimented as I have VCarve and Aspire.

I think you have probably hit on the problem. Not sure why the support team didn't mention this? I'm upgrading to Vcarve in a month or so, so will keep using Easel until then to do the star carvings. I appreciate all the input here. Lots of knowledge floating around here.