Hi. Easel is simply great. Easy, fast and extremely convenient, and it generates great expectations. Clearly it’s not a professional tool, yet it can generate excellent results. It’s a pity, though, that it selects in an apparently arbitrary way whether to cut conventional or climb cuts. Sometimes the same cut starts conventional then it reverts to climb at the end. As the conventional cut tends to deflect the bit towards the cut, and the climb one tends to deflect it away (as explained here: CNC Routing Basics: Toolpaths and Feeds 'n Speeds - Make:), the dimensions of objects cut with conventional or climb cuts are slightly different if the bit is not very rigid (like for example a 3 mm bit). Professional CAMs automatically compensate the toolpath to account for this and obtain always the same size. I would not expect easel to compensate automatically, but I found out that it is very easy to compensate manually just by specifying a tool size a little bigger than nominal size for conventional cuts and a little smaller for climb ones. So Easel will be tricked to keep the bit closer to the line if climbing, further away in conventional cuts. I was able to obtain cuts perfectly sized with this trick. The problem is: how do we know what type of cut will easel do next? Usually it is conventional for external cuts, climbing for internal ones, if I’m not mistaken. But sometimes things change. So, why not giving the user the ability to control the type of cut and also explain the problem of bit deflection (I found it out myself by trial, error, and internet navigation), so as to be able to obtain repeatable, very precise dimensions from this great tool?
Thanks
Really, Easel should always do conventional cuts. Climb cuts are almost always more aggressive and more demanding on the machine. The xCarve just isn’t rigid enough to do nice climb milling.
However, sometimes it’s nice to have the choice to do one type of milling over the other. Some projects are different and require a certain approach, so I would like to see this choice made available in Easel.
I think Easel cuts both ways without discretion.
You’re right. Nevertheless, the first time you bite into the material for a cut, the bit is engaged on both sides, therefore it performs a conventional cut on its left, and a climb cut on its right side, at the same time. Also in this case, the force of the bit digging into the material on the right side (the climb side) tends to deflect the bit away from this side and into the conventional one. At the end, with thin bits, it is like having a tool with two different diameters, larger on the conventional side and smaller on the carve one. You can easily correct this by specifying a larger or smaller diameter than the actual one of the bit, but you must be sure on the direction in which the entire cut will take place, otherwise the dimensional error will be even larger.
I completely agree. I’ve had a bunch of projects taking light passes with small bits that are always coming out great with nice clean cut edges until the machine decides to go in the other direction for the climb cuts. Then the cuts come out offset and fuzzy and end up requiring to be sanded way too much. Climb cuts and changing directions should just go away.
+1 This is a significant problem!
+100
+1. This would benefit a lot of my work.
Is this being considered
I’ve been testing Easel for cutting Plastozote foam and Easel’s inability to specify the toolpath is a showstopper. Conventional cuts on external profiles are clean, but tear out on cutouts are a mess as Easel obliges a counter clockwise cut. I appreciate that timber is forgiving but I have to find other software for foam.