Area Clears and retracting the Z

[mrcodewiz]

When I do an area clear, it doesn't seem to consistently retract or not retract the Z. What I mean by that is that I can create an area clear (say of 1" in .1" increments for example) and uncheck the retract option. If I am lucky, at the end of each pass, the Z will just move another .1" down but sometimes it ends up retracting to the safe plane and then going back down to the work. I can even take an area clear that works and copy it and they will both behave differently. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to tell it not to retract to the safe plane between each pass.

-Kevin

[andre-dolphin]

The reason it retracts or not is due to whether there is any difference in the end (current) XY position and the start of the new path. If the X and Y is the same location it doesn't retract, if they are different, then it will retract.

This happens regardless of the "Retract at end" switch which is exatly that, retrating at the very end of the area clear operation.

What you can do to minimize any Z movement is to untick the box "Traverse at Clearplane", if there is any Z movement then it will only be to the feed change plane value and not the clear plane value.

Hope this helps.

ATB
Andre

[mrcodewiz]

Originally Posted by andre-dolphin The reason it retracts or not is due to whether there is any difference in the end (current) XY position and the start of the new path. If the X and Y is the same location it doesn't retract, if they are different, then it will retract. This happens regardless of the "Retract at end" switch which is exatly that, retrating at the very end of the area clear operation. What you can do to minimize any Z movement is to untick the box "Traverse at Clearplane", if there is any Z movement then it will only be to the feed change plane value and not the clear plane value. Hope this helps. ATB Andre

That makes sense. A lot of what I have been doing lately, the feed and clear planes are the same (basically huge pockets) so I still spend a lot of time going up and down. I think for now I will just remove the G code that takes it up.

thanks.

[andre-dolphin]

A better way would be to make the clear plane an amount that will clear any clamps or fixtures and the feed change plane to a small value - say .1" or 2.5mm.

This way the safetey feature of using the clear plane can be used and the Z movements kept to a minimum with the use of the feed change plane value.

ATB
Andre

[mrcodewiz]

Originally Posted by andre-dolphin A better way would be to make the clear plane an amount that will clear any clamps or fixtures and the feed change plane to a small value - say .1" or 2.5mm. This way the safetey feature of using the clear plane can be used and the Z movements kept to a minimum with the use of the feed change plane value. ATB Andre

A lot of what I am doing lately is milling work in the vise so I normally set the feed plane and clear plane .1". The problem is I can really only do maybe 10 or 15 IPM rapid and 2IPM feed on my Z axis (I am using a Sieg mini mill). My current work does an area clear of .9" and I do it in .05" increments so 18 cycles going up and down between passes adds up at those slow speeds.

The 2IPM feed rate is to account for plunging into work - I actually have this one starting outside of the work so I suppose I could also change the Z feed rate to its max.