Anyone able to explain VCarve’s ‘Machine Vectors Allowance Offset’ and ‘Do Separate Last Pass Allowance’ to me? I’m good and confused after searching.
‘Machine Vectors Allowance Offset’
Seems to me this is a Y axis offset. And you add allowance to rough cuts and 0.00 to finish cuts?
‘Do Separate Last Pass Allowance’
Is this a z axis offset? Again is it something where you add allowance to your rough cuts and 0.00 to finish cuts?
Or can you enter say -0.02 to complete a finish cut that trims 0.02 off the edge on the Y axis?
I’m cutting patterns from 5-plywood with 0.25" downcut bits and want to have a 0.125" downcut bit last pass for tighter corners and make the edge nicer by offsetting by 0.0625
Allowance offset
An Allowance can be specified to either Overcut (negative number will cut smaller) or Undercut (positive numbers will cut larger) the selected shape. If the Allowance = 0 then the toolpaths will machine to the exact size.
Last Pass Allowance
A separate allowance can be specified for the last pass. If this allowance is given then all but the last pass will be undercut by the specified allowance with the final pass being the only pass which cuts to size.
This is straight out of the user manual… basically what it is saying is that if your set an allowance your cut will be oversized or undersized by the amount you specify. SO if you make a square that is 1 inch by one inch and set an offset allowance of .125, your final product will be 1.125 inches.
Page 181 of the user guide which can be downloaded from the Vectric website and is very educational.
It sounds like what you are wanting is a two stage (two bit) operation. The allowance feature seems to be designed for use as a single bit operation…basically cutting over-sized or undersized until the final pass which is at desired dimension.
Thank you @RobertCapraun, I searched last night and didn’t find the VCarve manual. Your explanation makes sense.
Seems I want to set an Allowance offset with the 0.25" bit of say 0.0675". Than on my 0.125" bit return the Allowance offset to 0 for the final cut to exact size.
Link below is for my Dropbox copy of V-Carve PRO-9 User Manual… I’ll look to see if I can find the manual on the Vectric site and provide a link to that also…
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In The VCarve app go to the “Help” dropdown menu or hit Alt - h. Then click “Help Contents”. I believe you will find it there.
Huh, I went to “Help Contents” the other day, when I didn’t see a TOC I started searching. Based on your reply I went back and realized the images are all hop spotted to goto the area you clicked. My bad - thanks for pointing that out @RayMacke
@RobertCapraun thanks for the PDF, Now I have a copy on my hard drive and have the Help Contents in the app.
