Depth not cutting through

Hi Guys

I’m pretty new to CNC but have purchased a CNC 3018 from ebay. Seems to be working beautifully and designed / built a few little furniture parts for my girls dolls house.

I am now trying to build a Boeing 737 MCP panel but having an issue with it not cutting all the way through for some reason.

I’m using 4.8mm Plyboard, 1.0mm straight bit, and it only wants to go about 2.5 / 3mm deep, although I have set the material thickness to 6mm and set the depth setting to 6mm also, still won’ go through. I had no issue with it on the girls furniture tho, not sure if perhaps a setting somewhere has changed.

Any help on this?

make sure collect holding bit is clean or it will slide
make sure collect is tight maybe markk with shah=rpie
make sure collect top and bottom set screw is tight on z axis ’
make sure z axis is not moving male servo motprs are tiight good luck

Make sure Z is calibrated in terms of step/mm ($102 value)

If you command a 20mm jog on Z, is the actual travel 20mm too?

Thanks guys

The Z axis does jog 20mm and the confirmed measurement is also 20mm,

I did add a 12mm MDF Panel to the bed so I wouldn’t damage the metal bed. It was working perfect before I did this, Is there a G-Code setting I need to change to allow the added 12mm? Or does the z axis zero when I start a new project when I home the device?

I just had a very similar issue running a borrowed file from easel, recrafted in vcarve, and sent through USG. Turned out the file contained cut settings that I could not override in vcarve. So I resaved the file into another format (SVG), reloaded it to vcarve, and I was then able to cut it correctly. Not sure that will help, but when it is not mechanical, it must be a software issue.

Z zero has to be set each time material or bit is changed.
Assuming that you have create tool paths with Z zero being on top of material.

Hi Harry,

Did you ever resolve this? I am having exactly the same issue. Cheap 3018 from Amazon, only cuts about 2/3 of the required depth. I have tried changing $102 but doesn’t appear to have any effect.

Cheers, Matt

If you try to lift Z by hand, is there any flex?
Do you set Z-zero on top of material?

Thanks for the reply. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but the problem was that the spindle was not set deeply enough into the vice on the z-axis, so it physically could not cut any deeper than it was. I could try to blame the build instructions, but… :man_facepalming:

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Good thing its solved! :smiley:

I had the same problem. This actually helped.