Undersized holes with EaselPro and X-Carve Pro

X-Carve Pro
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I attempted to make my own MFT style bench top and all of the supposed 20mm holes are undersized by .25 to .5 mm. The Easel Pro software project clearly shows the circles specified to be 20mm height and width. Using a 1/4" downcut bit. Thought the bit might be slightly undersized but it calipered to be exactly 1/4" diameter. Could this be a software problem converting imperial to metric measurements? What can be done to resolve this?

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Easel doesn’t actually use Arcs and Arcs are required to make a circle shape . . . Instead easel uses polygons to form a shape similar to a circle. . . BUT it makes the polygon fit INSIDE the circle, to circles will always be undersized. If you look closely at the toolpath you’ll notice that the toolpath is not a curve, its a bunch of straight lines all INSIDE the circle shape… You’d have to either use a 20mm bit an plunge drill. . .OR use a different software that actually makes arcs. OR try to account for these polygon conversions by using an oversized circle and doing some tests on scrap pieces.

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Thanks very much for the education. It’s very disappointing to learn such an expensive machine’s software is not accurate in this way. I though I was buying precision, but I guess not. What software do you suggest to get accuracy without a lot of trial and error?

4

Many of the people rave about Vectric Vcarve Desktop. I just purchased it myself and am learning it now.

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Vectric is the way to go, I had a lot of issues with Easel and moved on.
@RussBrian (It’s very disappointing to learn such an expensive machine’s)
actually, the machine is pretty cheap and Easel software is designed for the beginner CNC’er.

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for precise hole sizes I use Fusion360 for mechanical part design . . But Vetric or Carveco softwares use true arcs BUT IF you choose to use Easel as the gcode sender to control the cnc Those arcs will be converted right back to segmented polygons, making the carve undersized SO you’ll want to use a different gcode sender software to control the CNC. . .

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