Hi. I’m a little confused about the settings in the surfacing feature of G-Sender as a regards depth. (I couldn’t find anything in the documentation referring to this)
Does the “Max Depth” means the depth of surfacing you want to do from the zero point? Is that what max depth means…“Cutting depth for surface?” or something else…if something else…is it possible to set the surfacing depth exactly…or do I have to use another program for that?
For some reason it seems to be doubling this for me. ie. I set 1.5mm and it took about 3mm.
Also in the main console it then says:
Dimensions 4.5mm on the Z
Then it has Minimum -1.5mm Z
Then it says Maximum 3.mm
What actually are these settings referring to? Is one of these the depth of surfacing?
Thanks for any clarifications! Sorry am a beginner to this…and just not sure how we should set the surfacing depth.
@Mavoz I don’t know what the minimum and maximum dimensions mean in that screen cap you posted mean.
However in the surfacing module, you have two depths to enter. One is the layer depth = the depth of each surfacing pass. The other is max depth = the total depth of all the passes. So, for example, if you want to take off a total of 1mm in two equal passes, you would enter .5 in the layer depth and 1 in the max depth. If you only want one pass, the numbers in the two boxes would be the same.
@Mavoz First, I question why you would want to take off 7mm. If that’s just example, forget I asked.
To address your question, though, you would enter 7mm in max and then choose how much you wanted to take off on each pass.
Again, though, you really do not want to take off 7mm. That is a big waste of material. The purpose of the surfacing, as you likely know, is just to ensure that your spoil board is flat and its surface is parallel to the Mill’s axes. Unless there is something very off in the way you have built your table, you should not need to remove more than a very little to get the spoil board where you want it.
@Mavoz What CAD/CAM software do you use? A more efficient way to remove the 7mm only for the material you will be making the arm from would be to do a pocket tool path.
Thanks for reply. I’m not sure this would work because I’d still have to cut out the outside too? What I found tonight is that it is very easy to break a bit when cutting through 35mm! All part of the learning curve I guess! Thanks.
@Mavoz I’m likely misunderstanding what you are trying to accomplish and if you have found a way to make it work, that’s all that matters. The only point that I was trying to make was that if you are using the gSender surfacing module to reduce the thickness of your material, you are likely either “cutting” a lot of air, or you are surfacing a greater area than necessary. You could thin only the material that you need using a pocket tool path in your CAD/CAM software. Either way, you need to cut out the actual pieces.
And, yes, it is very easy to break bits cutting that deeply. In fact, it is not easy to find bits with a flute length that long.
Thanks for post… yes I can see I’m probably pushing the router to do what it isn’t really meant to do… and their are others tools to reduce thickness
Thanks for your assistance… appreciate the suggestions etc! I’ve broken two of these long bits on the same project so certainly learning the hard way! Thanks
Matthew I’ll also add since I know this isn’t mentioned explicitly in the docs that the max depth is the deepest it’ll cut from the ‘Z zero point’ you set, the minimum is the highest the bit will go from the zero point, and the dimension value will always be the distance between the maximum and minimum locations
