Hey yall!
Work recently gave me a carvey they had sitting around taking up space that was used maybe twice before they realized that it wouldn’t really work for what they were trying to use it for (score me!!)
I’m somewhat familiar with CNC machining having previously been throwing chips on a cheap Chinese 3018, but am by no means an expert.
SO ive been running into an intermittent problem. by way of example I go to carve a simple trey. I set up a work piece for the pocket, set to the depth I want and I offset the pocket by whatever distance I want the lip of the trey to be copy that to a new workpiece in the same X,Y position. I run the first pocket with a larger bit (1/2inch surfacing bit) to hog out the most material efficiently… everything goes swimmingly.
when i go to run the profile cut with a smaller bit to cut all the way down to the waste-board when i run the job, carvey homes, hits the z and then immediately gets confused and forgets where it is in space and begins carving where it shouldn’t. sometimes its off on the x, sometimes on the y my feeds and plunge rates are very conservative so i dont think its that I’m bogging the bit down and missing steps.
Ive had the same issue randomly pop up on 3d carves. will do the roughing pass perfectly and then when going to start the finishing path be way out of whack, sometimes even well south of the end of the table on the y access just carving air.
Some 3d carves come out fine, others come out… well they dont come out at all lol.
Also, on the 3d carve if i select a custom bit it will show up in the settings at the top of easel, but when i hit the carve button and go through all the material measurement and secure stuff, the bit defaults back to an 1/8th inch straight cut bit. is that normal? i assumed it was and just ran with it and like i said sometimes i get lucky and the carve goes well and then the next go its just hot trash.
One final question for this post.
Is there a way with the whole carvey smart clamp thing to set a work zero?
So for example I carve a pocket for a trey to a specific depth, but then want to carve a pocket into the bottom of the previous pocket for an inlay and then surface the waste off without the machine thinking the z is the original height of the workpiece and having to watch it carve air for a half hour?
Thanks in advance. this is a fun little machine and I figure it will do me well to learn all the ins and outs so ill have everything dialed in when I have the space for a bigger machine I can hit the ground running and really make some awesome stuff.