Need Help!- Cutting Air ?

[SPEEDRE]

Well, I pressed the button, and here's what happened. My machine ran smooth and where I wanted it, position wise, but. The Z axis went too far, right into the table, it's MDF, ramped up and proceeded to cut air, and only half of the part was cut, according to the little screen that shows where and what is cutting on the Mach 3 screen. Can anybody venture a guess as to what I've done wrong !!!!!! Why would it ramp up when I did not add a ramping function to my toolpath save?. Here's the toolpath code as an attachment.

[neilw20]

When where and how did you set Z0 before running program.
Set Z inhibit to level of table. At least you can't go too low. Maybe you can also make the soft limit for Z work.
At first glance your program looks OK.
Why are there 2 G20's on line N020? Metric a few times NO !??
In line N050 I see you have tool length offset used. Does table H1 have some whacky values. I believe this is where the problem is.
Try commenting line 20 and see what happens.
If you Z zero is set correctly you should not hit the table with this program, provided the tool length table has sane values.

[ger21]

You probably need to remove line N50 as well.

[HuFlungDung]

What is that expression I heard? "Information wants to be free, and code wants to be wrong". And we might add, "tools want to enter tabletops"

[neilw20]

Originally Posted by ger21 You probably need to remove line N50 as well.

I really meant N50 not N20. With no spaces in the file I went cross-eyed.

[SPEEDRE]

I did not program any of what you've mentioned. I did the toolpaths in V Carve 4.6. I do not know why this got messed up!!!!

[ger21]

I just looked, and it's in the Post processor your using, looks like "Mach_2_3_Arcs_inch". If taking that line out works, I can modify the post for you to remove it.

[ger21]

And btw, Neil was incorrect about the G20. It's for inch, not metric. I posted a note on the Vectric forum about fixing the two G20's in their pp.

[neilw20]

Oops. I am in metric land, and got my wires crossed.

[SPEEDRE]

Originally Posted by ger21 I just looked, and it's in the Post processor your using, looks like "Mach_2_3_Arcs_inch". If taking that line out works, I can modify the post for you to remove it.

OK that sounds plausible. I was wondering which PP to chose there are so many in the V Carve PP list. Nielw20 I wish I could read and edit G code even a little but up until now have'nt had an interest in learning it. I guess I must to at least get this thing going. Thanks guys.