I am running into a weird problem and I am hoping if anyone has any clues or tips to solve it. Please look at image below to see how xcarve is cutting square pockets.
its kind of putting a hole in some corners. I am running 1/8 upcut mill bit. Not sure what I am doing wrong.
Confirm your bit size with a micrometer. Plunge a straight hole if you have to.
Check each of your belt tensions (search the forums). And finally check to make sure nothing is loose on your gantries, mounts or wheel pressure.
Machine deflection.
When carving and moving sideways the bit is deflected off path in the opposite direction of the cutting forces.
When plunging-retracting there are no sideway cutting force and the position is more true.
I’m guessing that your bit is entering the wood in that corner first and the z axis is deflecting. If you can enter in the middle and then clean out the rectangle, that may help. I ended up buying an aftermarket Z axis from cnc4newbies to help with that issue on my Xcarve. You can try tightening up your wheels a bit more too and slowing down the z feed to see if that helps, but I have experienced this exact issue on other machines too and it boils down to machine rigidity.
Thank you for the tips I will check tension and wheel pressure. Also, I don’t know how much control I have over the cutting path with easel but would using raster help?
I was able to resolve the issue of deflection. My belts where at 2lb of tension so I re-tightened them to about 3.5lbs. I went ahead and tightened my static v-wheel and notice my dynamic v-wheels where a bit loose. On my z-axis they where too tight on one side and loose on the other. My z-axis was also slightly out of plumb as well. The results compares to the top pictures:
