Rapid to Height

[Dougal]

How in CAMBAM do I rapid down from a safe height to a level before I start cutting?

At present I'm using the "clearance plane" to set a safe height, but it results in the tool being driven at the plunge feedrate all the way down. This takes a lot of time when you have 10 parts to cut.
I'd like to rapid within 1-2mm of the surface, then swap to plunge feedrate but I can't figure out how to do this.

*EDIT*

Okay, after digging back through the help files, it appears I did have it setup right, but it doesn't appear to be behaving as expected with Mach3. I will try again and see what happens.

[blowlamp]

If I understand the problem, then you could try setting the FastPlungeHeight to something like 0.1mm and it will rapid down to 0.1mm above the next cut, rather than doing a plunge feed from 1-2mm above the surface, as I think you have at the moment.

FastPlungeHeight can be found in the Machining folder of the drawing tree.

Martin.

[Dougal]

So after some more editing and cutting, I think this is what I've found.
The fast plunge now works on all cuts, but not on drilling. I had to manually edit the drilling cycle to get rapid to the desired height and then back up to the clearance height after drilling.

I was using a clearance plane height of 18mm, so it was painfully obvious when it was plunging down at 100mm/min instead of rapiding at 750mm/min.

But this was only one program, I'll see what I find next time.

[blowlamp]

It sounds like you need to download and try CamBam 0.9.8, which has been improved in this area.
Take a look at the What's New? section under Help -> Contents, for more info.

Martin.