I am not sure how to phrase this question, so I hope spmeone understands enough to advise me. After I make my part drawing, I import it into Mach2. When I start up, the spindle picks up and goes to a "home" location. It then plunges at whatever speed I set the z-axis to whatever depth I chose to make the first pass and starts the cut. I guess my question is this. why the hell does it do this? It's getting old chasing the endmill around with dial indicators and trying to extrapolate a starting point. It would be nice to put my piece in the vise set the mill at 0-0-0 and have it plunge and start the pass. I was in the petrochem industry as a manual machinist for 22 years, but I am a complete cnc idiot. Soren's videos helped, but the Bobcad training videos were a complete waste of time and money. I have Bobcad versions 19, 20, and 21 and am ready to give up on the whole damn idea. I am running an older version of Mach2 as I am afraid to upgrade for fear of really being confused. Someone, please help me before I take a plasma cutter to a $5000 cnc conversion.
Thanks for any help,
Rick  |