Hello, everybody!

I am a bit puzzled by the behavior of my machine, or maybe it should be attributed to the Designer 3.x software, I really do not know.

Right now building a doll-size bookshelf for a kid, which means I use a few different bits to carve ornnamental patterns into sides as well as to remove excessive material from shelves and sides. (The board I am using is 0.7" thick and I want to reduce the thickness to around 0.25-0.3", otherwise the small bookshelf would be a small monstrosity.) I use 3/8" for removing excess material, the 1/8" for cutting as well as carving recesses for shelves and drilling 4 holes for screws holding the "thing" together. Plus a V-formed bit for an aestehtic line in the lowermost shelf.

The thing is, the patterns on the sides were supposed to be carved by a standard 1/16" bit with quality setup to Normal. I uploaded the project to the card, started setting up the machine and it prompted me to mount the 1/16 bit with "(Qual draft)". I aborted the project, went back to computer and nope, the quality was "Normal" in Designer. Changed the quality to Best and saved again and uploaded a new version. Going back to machine, still get "(Qual draft)" for the 1/16" bit. Oh, well - now I was sure the quality chosen was not "draft", so I decided to carve anyway. I observed the machine while carving with the 1/16 bit and see, it did actually draft the pattern.

Right now I am not sure what is going on. I just recently switched away from Designer 1.x to 3.x (I bought 3.x years ago, but still did most projects in 1.x anyway). So is it the Designed 3.x that's playing around with quality option? All of my machines are registered with LHR (checked a few minutes ago), so it should not be caused by using a machine that is unknown to the software. I had my piece riggged up in UCB, but I answered "no" when the machine asked me whether the piece is in a rig. That is because I have done some carvings in UCB before and it worked quite OK in Designer 1.x without telling the machine I have a rig. With Designer 1.x the machine determined the thickness of the piece by toughing one of the screws in UCB; with Designer 3.x I get a warning that the machine will not be able to cut through the piece as it is too thick.

So, my question is: does anybody know why the machine could ignore my quality settings and go to draft event though I specify normal or best? Could it be:
  1. the version of Designer?
  2. could it be something weird with machine registration? (Triple-checked this one.)
  3. could it be because of the warning for the piece being too thick? (But that should reflect on my cut-htrough and not carving ornament with th 1&16" bit.)
  4. could it be because of me answering "negatively" to the question whether I have a rig? (The machine should not be aware of it, it measures the length and width absolutely correctly, you just have to know when to apply symbolic pressure on the head and when to crank it down all the way.)
  5. problems with the machine? I happened to burn my CPU on my workhorse (upgraded A model with Carvetight), so now it runs with the "brain" from another A model model. I understand that this should not be an issue. Firmware upgraded to the one that came with Designer 3.x.
  6. any other reason that I do not grasp?


Thanks in advance for any input in this matter.