Carving regions

[Buck]

Hello all

I've had my CC for about a week now and I love it.
The question I have is about carving regions. There is no tool selection so I'm assuming it will use the default carving tool which is usually the 1/16" ballnose. If I want to have a pattern raised above the top surface, I have to remove alot of material surrounding the pattern. If I just put a rectangle surrounding the whole work piece and then create a region, I get the desired effect. But it will take forever because it uses the 1/16" carving bit to cut the whole thing. It would be more efficient to use a 1/2" end mill to cut most of the material away like what the attached pic 01 shows. Then use the 1/16" carving bit to cut the pattern so the end result is what's shown in pic 02. I've attached a .mpc file where I manually added cut paths to cut most of the material away with a 1/2" end, and then a region that just encloses the pattern. Is this the only way to do this or is there a slicker way? Am I missing something?

[Jeff_Birt]

That's the only way to do it for now. I tried something similar this past weekend; using the carving bit to carve a region out (pocket) and then doing a finish pass around the perimiter with the 1/8" cutting bit (to make nice striaght sides). It worked fine but the 1/8" bit left about 0.020" material in the bottom of the pocket (tool Z-reference/offset not right). I'm going to do a few more tests with diffrent bits to see how close it sets the Z offset when switching tools (and/or if it is repeatable).

[Buck]

I've seen that before on our 3-axis machine at work. It's an older machine where the operater manually changes tools and has to zero the z very carefully on the top surface of the material. That's why I love this machine, outside of changing the tools, it homes, measures, finds the the tip of the tool and the top surface automatically. I't's great! Thanks for your reply.

Mike

[nodwell]

You could try a series of rectangles making each one smaller by the size of your bit. Select bit to desired depth on each then do carve region around the pattern. Would take a little more time to setup but should save a lot of machine time.

Not sure it would work but looks like it will. Let us know if it does.

Don

[Buck]

That sounds like the approach I took. I attached a .mpc file on my first post.
I created a bunch of squares that were offset by .2 and used a 1/2 inch end bit. Then I created a region that just barely enclosed the pattern.
Is that what you mean?

[Dan-Woodman]

Buck
You will also need to leave about 1/2" boarder by the two fences for the rollers to ride on to move the board, and cut them off later.
When you upload to your card it will warn you of this.

[Vashon]

With 15 minutes and $100 worth of tools, you could save your $2K precision machine 2 hours of grunt work. Set your circular saw to the depth you want removed, cut a bunch of parallel kerfs 1/4" apart, chisel out the waste and smooth it out with the plane. It's fast work.

[rjp736]

So whats your point? I could also make a template and rout it out.....But I bought the machine to do the grunt work for me.

[Vashon]

Just trying to help... By all means, do it your way.

[Buck]

I just created this as an example to see what the software and machine's capabilities and limitations are. On a simple project like this, yeah Vashon's circular saw technique or rjp376's hand rout technique could work just as well.
But if I had a more complex project with multiple patterns scattered about, and I wanted them to protrude, I think the machine would be the way to go.