Just finished reading the manual, but...

[shobley]

...I still have one unanswered question.

I'm brand new to CNC milling - I have a simple home made mill and Mach3 software. I've been very successful in drawing out designs with an attached pen, and even made some simple cuts with lightweight materials/dremel.

But...

How do you instruct Mach3 to make multiple "stacked" passes when cutting thick material? This seems to be a basic requirement of all milling, but after reading the manuals I'm left pondering 3 options...

1) Design my CAD files with multiple duplicate layers, each a little deeper than the previous.

2) Cut and paste the GCode 'n' times over, each time with the Z a little deeper.

3) Find the automagical setting in Mach3 that sets the "step" height and let the machine take care of it.

I'm hoping that it's (3), but I'm not really sure where this setting is.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thoroughly confused.
Steve

[ger21]

How are you creating your g-code? All CAM software will create the multiple passes for you.

So, your option #1 should not be needed.

If you hand write your code, then you could use option #2

As for option #3, see the multipass wizard. There is no magical button.

Mach3 does exactly what the g-code tells it to do. It can't take g-code for a single pass and make multiple passes. The multipass wizard reads your code and creates new g-code for the multiple passes.

[shobley]

Thanks for the reply.

I have been using LazyCam and/or notepad

I just took a look at the wizard - and I have a couple of questions...

Feedrate Plunge - why is this +20.00? Does the '+' mean that it's adding this on to the existing plunge rate? Or is it absolute?

Same withe the Feedrate Cut, is this an increment/decrement field or abs value?

I'm guessing Rapid Height is the surface height of the material, and depth / step depth are self-explanatory.

Steve

[ger21]

Rapid height would be how far above the surface.

The + just mean positive. Disregard it. Feedrate is feedrate. no math being done.

If you're using LazyCAM, then it'll do the multiple passes for you. Here's a manual for it.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/ind...c,12078.0.html

[shobley]

Thanks for the link.

I noticed that some of the buttons had "Pro Demo No GCode" on them - does this mean that to use the feature I have to buy LazyCam?

[ger21]

I don't use it, but I think so. My recomendation would be to look at Vectric's Cut2D. A little more money, but waaaaay easier to use. and excellent support. www.vectric.com