Cutting in the air

Easel
1

Hi! Brand new to CNC, but have some 3D knowledge. Tried the first project in Easel, worked great, but now I want to carve something I drew in Fusion 360. Watched different guides, managed to make the paths, export and import back into easel.
It looks fine when I simulate in Fusion, to the eye it looks fine in Easel, but when I go to cut it’s cutting in the air. Looks like it might be cutting the thickness of my material. In the air.
Maybe, while writing this, I just gave myself the answer…should I not set a thickness in Easel perhaps? Is that the extra height? Should I set material height to 0?

2

In Fusion360 your work zero must be the same as your Easel Home Position (Easel Work zero)

  • This is defined in Fusion360->Manufacture->Setup->Edit-StockPoint and click on your work zero, for simplicity let it be lower left and top of material. (Right-click your toolpath Setup folder and choose Edit)
  • Also under Fusion360->Manufacture->Setup->Edit->Stock set Top and Side offset = 0, they default to 1mm. Otherwise the carve will start 1mm above your work zero. (You can skip this step, now knowing that the first 1mm will be in the air)

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Thank you! Currently my Stock Point was the lower corner, like in this picture. So moving this up should do the trick? Do I have to redo all my paths?

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4

Nope. Same thing. Scary thing is that when it goes from Home to start of milling it’s pretty low. About 5 mm off the material maybe. Then it gets to the starting point, goes up ~30 mm, comes down to maybe 5 mm, then back up about 25 mm then it starts cutting air.

So if I would just somehow bring the whole operation down 12 mm it would make a big cut in the beginning, going from home to start of milling.

5

That stock point is good provided you zero of the spoil board, and if you zero Z on top of the material you will be air carving.

When initiating the carve the Xcarve will lower itself to its safety height (3.8mm by default) then traverse over to the X/Y start point.

Yes you need to redo the tool paths when anything within the tool references are changed.

6

I got it working somehow. I started over. I must’ve done something wrong with my tool paths! :smiley: Thanks for your help.

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