zero out spoil board

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gpeck
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Sep 06, 2013 1:35 pm

zero out spoil board

Post by gpeck »

I do not know how to ask this but hear goes. How do I zero out the spoil board and have it start cutting say at .75 on the top
of the project. Thanks for any info.. Gene

Eagle55
Posts: 788
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 8:44 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by Eagle55 »

I'm going to take a stab at answering this as best I understand the question. You spoil board I assume is on the table and your work piece on top of that. You, in effect, zero out the spoil board by jogging (and single stepping) the cutting bit to the surface of the board at the reference point that you used (whether lower left corner, or center of the project as I do) then press the XYZ 0 button on the control panel to tell the machine that the bit is at XYZ 0 point of the workpiece.

I hope I understood the question. If not, that is probably not the right answer.

Roger
CNC Shark HD ~ Control Panel 2.0 ~ Windows 7 & XP
Located in West Tennessee near the Tennessee River
http://www.eaglecarver4.com

4DThinker
Posts: 951
Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2012 9:00 am

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by 4DThinker »

You don't need to be on your material to set Z at the bottom of it. Anywhere just outside the board on the spoilboard can be used.

gpeck
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Sep 06, 2013 1:35 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by gpeck »

In the ( job set up material z thickness ) do I set the z axes at the bottom of the material, and the material is .75 thick..
When I load the file to cut the project in the the control panel do I jog the z axes to the top of the material I want to cut
and then zero the z axes?

Eagle55
Posts: 788
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 8:44 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by Eagle55 »

Ok, that makes the question a little more clear. You can call anything Z-zero that you want, you just have to follow through the whole project with the same zero point. In the Job Setup, I use the top of the material as my Z-zero and when I set up my material it knows that the top of the material is zero (because you told the program that it was) so I zero the tool bit to the top of the material then press Z-zero, or in most cases I have zeroed both my X and Y axis to the center and the z to the top of the board and I press XYZ-0, simply because I have told the V-Carve program (when designing the project) that I am using the center of the material as X & Y zero and the top of the board as my Z zero. Just keep in mind, whatever you tell the program you are "going to do", you have to follow through then and do it or all the calculations that the program makes is based on the wrong assumption.

Roger
CNC Shark HD ~ Control Panel 2.0 ~ Windows 7 & XP
Located in West Tennessee near the Tennessee River
http://www.eaglecarver4.com

pshupe
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:10 am

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by pshupe »

To that same point, Is there a way to set the 0,0,0 point and not have the bit start there? For instance if I am cutting a thin piece of plastic. Say it's a circle. I have my 0,0,0 point in the centre of the circle on top of the material. When I zero the Z, the bit is just touching the plastic, which isn't a problem because the bit is not spinning yet. When I start the program to cut the circle it goes to 0,0,0 then goes to start cutting the circle. Is there a way to set the program so that either the bit does not go to 0,0,0 and put a small mark in a spot where it will not be cutting, or have it a couple mms above when it does that?

I guess I could wait to turn the router on until it hits the 0,0,0 point but then I have to be quick to turn on the router. I generally like to setup the origin point to be the centre of the work piece. Thanks.

Regards Peter.

Eagle55
Posts: 788
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 8:44 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by Eagle55 »

That question has been posed several time and I think if you dig far enough down to find out the full answer you will find that it is "NO" you can not. It is actually related to the fact that the Shark runs the g-code that is generated by V-Carve Pro, which is a third party company and for some reason they to not do it this way. (there may be a good reason or maybe not but anyway "that's the was it is" is probably the complete answer you will get) NWA can't necessarily dictate to them and for some reason they chose the way it is. I am sure it has to do with the fact that it is part of the process of identifying that this one spot is the zero reference for the whole tool path. With that in mind its up to us to find a way to use what we have to work with and live with it. Personally when I am lowering the router bit to set my zero, I do it with a piece of paper that is about .004" thick. I will lower it by single stepping down to it til it just begins to bind the paper and make it hard to slide under the bit. That will be about .003-4" off of the project. If I am engraving (especially small letters) I will remove the paper and bring it down another .002", but if I am using an end mill type bit I may just leave it where it is at .003 or .004" off the material so I don't get the "kiss of death" as it is sometimes referred to being. If you use an automated method of setting Z0 I think you can set the amount of bias upward or downward in the preferences of the Control Panel software so that Z0 is actually .002" (or what ever amount you want to use) above the material surface. i.e. when the bit comes down and touches the block, zero is actually set at .002" above this point. So until enough noise is made that this gets into the changes of V-Carve Pro, its has to be taken care of as a "technique" of operation that you have to adopt than something that can be programmed. I don't even know if the requests have ever been made to Vectric to solve this problem or if it has, if it is even on the list of things to do or what priority it is.

Roger
CNC Shark HD ~ Control Panel 2.0 ~ Windows 7 & XP
Located in West Tennessee near the Tennessee River
http://www.eaglecarver4.com

davemartin88
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 5:18 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by davemartin88 »

pshupe wrote:To that same point, Is there a way to set the 0,0,0 point and not have the bit start there?

Regards Peter.
It might be worth a call to NextWave to confirm but I was having the same question and running the 2.0 version of the Shark Controller software. I was told that the 2.1.17 version which I believe is the most recent version of the Shark control software didn't have this move to 0,0,0 but I might have misunderstood? I downloaded the file but didn't get to try it asI sold my Shark last week (getting a larger machine, really liked my Shark!) so no way to try it for you to be sure. Maybe someone else can confirm or check this? Sorry if this is a red herring but thought it was worth mentioning.

This came up for me because I was trying to set my 0,0,0 to the top of the spoil board in the center of the material- when the file would start to run, the bit would plunge straight through the material. My workaround was to set me 0,0,0 outside the cutting area but wasn't really the way I wanted to operate. There is probably a way to modify the first move to stay at the safe Z height in the G-Code but I'm not smart enough to figure that out. Good luck.

Kevink18
Posts: 205
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 3:30 pm

Re: zero out spoil board

Post by Kevink18 »

You are fright on that version it does move up before the router starts. There is a few other thing also with that version that are better but also a few that are not working right like the % complete and time when loading tap

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