At Start, move bit from XY0 to start position, then lower bit

gSender šŸ’” Suggestion
1

I have a design where the XY0 is at the center of the material.
When I press Start, the router lowers to the Z1 (Clearance) , the Auto Spin turns on, pauses for a couple seconds, the moves over to the start position.

It doesnā€™t cut, but it gives me the willies to watch it barely clear the material surface.

Can the order of startup events be modified to ā€¦

  1. Raise router to Z1 plus 1 inch.
  2. Move to start XY
  3. Start Auto Spin
  4. Pause for spinup
  5. Lower to cut depth.
  6. Go!
2

Check the gSender docs but I believe there is a setting you can change for the z safe height.

3

@R.Portman What do you have your safe heights set to in your CAM application?

4

VCarve Pro: Safe Z = 0.2 inches

gSender 1.4.12
Settings:Safety:Movement:Safe Height = 0

I need to update my postā€¦

I was surfacing with gSender.
XY0 at center of material.
After setting Z0 (paper method),
I raised the bit to ~1" to install dust boot.
When I ā€œStart Jobā€, the bit lowered just above the material surface, started the AutoSpin, paused two (2) seconds (as defined in Settings), and then moved to the upper left corner to start surfacing.

I flinched thinking it was about to cut a diagonal line across the material.

The pop-up for Safe Height states ā€œAmount Z-axis will move before making any X/Y-axis movements.ā€

Am I correct a positive number will ā€˜raiseā€™ the router? Above what height?

It was at 1ā€. Surfacing does not have a Safe Z setting. What height above Z0 did it move to?

5

@R.Portman

Since you are using the gSender surfacing module, my question is irrelevant. Sorry about that.

You may want to read this to see if it addresses your issue. It appears that the way in which movement safe height works depends on whether you have limit switches.

ā€œIf you have ā€˜homingā€™ enabled a value of 5mm will make the CNC move to 5mm offset from the max Z-axis travel, make the goto movement, and then return back to where the bit started, whereas if homing is disabled it will move 5mm upwards from the current position and then move 5mm back down at the end. This flip in behaviour is because ideal safe height movements should be as high up as possible to avoid bit collision which is only possible with a homed machine, otherwise safe height movements need to be kept to a minimum to avoid situations where gotos are used on taller material and the Z-axis moves past its maximum point.ā€

If this does nothing for you, search on ā€œsafe Zā€. There has been a lot of discussion on this issue, which may help you.

6

We could probably swap the order of actions for this in the gSender surfacing tools @R.Portman :+1:

Otherwise if youā€™re going through another program then @gwilki is right that you need to fix this on the CAM side of things