Michael,
Have a quick question for you. I was reading your article in the Jul 2009 T&T. You mentioned that you had a thunderstorm come through during that long carve, so you shut down the machine and then restarted it after you power came back on. Your direct quote was this:
"A side note - during the second mpc run, we had a severe thunderstorm come into our area about an hour before the mpc was finished. I stopped the machine and unplugged it. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, we lost power and it stayed off for about two hours. When the power was restored, I re-did the mpc with a “zero” carve region placed over the previously carved area and reloaded the project."
Could you go into a little more detail as to the "zero carve region". I think I know where you are going with this, but I just want to make sure I understand what you are doing completely. I have had my machine quit on my for various reasons and had to restart it, but I normally would just run it again and let it "ghost carve". I am guessing your method saves considerable time and aggravation. Thank you in advance for you time and mentorship.
Bill