Job Setup / Material Z Zero and Home / Start Position Clarif

[NewAgent45]

We are still learning and I have several question on basics. To date I’m almost always setting Z0 to the top surface of material with Z1=0.24, Z2=0.24 and Home/Start X=0.0, Y=0.0 & Z=0.78. (I think these are defaults) I usually set the zero position on the material center sometimes a corner on the material.

When starting a job I’m observing the following start sequence The tool is moves to Home if not already positioned there and then to Z0 then to the first vector. Moving to Z0 concerns me. Is this behavior different if Z0 is bottom of material? This begs the question! Why would we ever want to set Z0 at the bottom of material unless it is positioned off the material?

I’m raising the question now because I have a job that I would like to maintain and accurate material thickness of even with small variations of starting thickness.
Please share your any experiences regarding positioning Z0 at bottom of material.

Have a great day!
..... Rod

[4DThinker]

With the Shark controller you never want to set Z=0 at the bottom of the material unless your 0,0,0 position is OFF the board. The bit WILL plunge to 0 on start no matter how you've set up the drawing.

[NewAgent45]

4D:

Thanks for your prompt response. You have confirmed my observations. I just didn't know if this behavior was different when actually selecting the bottom of material setting. We will continue to avoid this.

Thanks and have a great day!

.. Rod

[Mimbler]

this was a great heads up for me. Using zero on the top of the material was always intuitive for me, but I could see in the future where I might have selected the bottom of the material if I was more concerned about the tolerance there. I need to remember that vectric is not shark specific software!

[tonydude]

Go to the vectric forum lots of info there.http://forum.vectric.com/

Tony

[JoanneH]

Hi all

This was a very useful thread for me today. I created my first set of NC code for the CNC Shark, and before I put it up to the stock material I ran it. Unfortunately in Rhino my part is sitting centered over 0,0,0; so if I had run the code on the stock part the tool would have crashed going to hit the center of the part (2" deep). Since editing the start of the NC code did not get ride of the 0,0,0 plunge I focused on the CAD side to try to move the stock in the software.

Unfortunately I have not had luck fixing the CAD. I've watched 3 RhinoCAM tutorials and followed their set up but I have been unable to move my part to have 0,0,0 above the part. Even when I physically move the part in CAD, the simulation still shows it centered about 0,0,0. I think it is inherent in the native CAD file that I imported to Rhino (which I also tried to edit via SolidWorks).

Is there anything I can do to not have the 0,0,0 plunge at the beginning of running the CNC shark? I notice the sample 1" square files do not do this plunge - but perhaps because it starts at 0,0,0?

Thanks
Joanne

[Mimbler]

Joanne
If you have the latest VCarve revision, you can export your Rhino as a .stl and do the nc work in Vcarve,
Mike