Lettering depth issue

[Max340]

This one has me scratching my head a bit.But I wonder if there is an easy work around.

I put a .5" high 3d image in a .75" thick material. My rough and finish cuts clear the entire material x and y dimensions, leaving the model, and a field around it at .25" thickness. On that field, I plan to lightly engrave lettering. My depth of cut from the .25" thickness would be .062-.75". If I take into account the top of the original material thickness as .75", depth of cut from that should be .562" VCarve is convinced this will be anywhere from 0.78" to 1.0"+, and leave a significant mark on the spoil board.

What am I missing?

My current thought on work around is to remove the lettering, and stick to the 3d model. Then once that is done, leave the work in place and run a new design with just the lettering on a base of .25" material thickness. But I am wondering if there is a simpler way to do it within the single design.

Thanks for your input.

[dealguy11]

It ought to work by just setting the start depth in the v-carve toolpath to 0.5". Assuming the depth of the engraving is less than 0.25", it shouldn't cut into the spoilboard.

[adze_cnc]

What am I missing?

That for 2D operations VCarve doesn't care that there is a 3D model in place (unless you use the "Project to 3D" option in some toolpaths). That VCarve doesn't care whether or not you set the Z-zero to the top of the material or the bottom of the material when calculation starts and ends of cut operations,.

VCarve always measures start depths and depths-of-cut relative to top of the material (why would it do otherwise?). So as dealguy11 says if you set the start depth for the "V-carve / Engraving" toolpath to be 0.500 inches and your maximum cut depth for the lettering is 0.062 inches (which is, I presume, why you mentioned it above) then all will be fine as it will not cut deeper than 0.562 inches. If the lettering is large enough that the v-shaped cutter with cut deeper than 0.250 inches then set a flat depth of less than 0.250 inches to prevent blowing through the material.

[Max340]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I had to figure out the order in which the software wanted the numbers, I had put them in as start depth of 0, because the original work piece started there. What it wants is to know the start height of the cut, not the height of the work.

It still seems to put the preview in very deep, but I imagine that's because its not really looking at the new work piece thickness.

Thanks again for the help!

[mtylerfl]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I had to figure out the order in which the software wanted the numbers, I had put them in as start depth of 0, because the original work piece started there. What it wants is to know the start height of the cut, not the height of the work.

It still seems to put the preview in very deep, but I imagine that's because its not really looking at the new work piece thickness.

Thanks again for the help!

Hi,

If your Preview doesn't look correct, then neither will your carve. It is important to get your Toolpath settings right, so the Preview shows your desired outcome. You probably won't want to risk carving (wasting wood) until then. If possible, you may choose to make your project file available via a free file transfer service such as DropBox so that all your Toolpaths (and material settings) can be examined for correctness.

[adze_cnc]

It still seems to put the preview in very deep, but I imagine that's because its not really looking at the new work piece thickness.

How about sharing an image of this? Right now we're trying to imagine what things look like. And even that is based on trying to decipher a description of it.