I am new to CNC and I'm looking for some answers to some questions regarding Lazy Cam.  I am using a router to mill Plexiglas on 5" X 10" table.  I have been trying to cut out a 7" X 8" rectangular pattern that is repeated to fill an entire 4' X 8' sheet of plexi.  The first time I ran the program it cut perfectly.  The second time I ran it, it got about half way though and then started leaving extra space between cuts and chose an odd random pattern.

I did try and Clean and Optimize but this did not seem to cure the problem. 

- Does it matter in which order you Clean and Optimize?
- What happens if I move chains around, do you then stay away from Clean and/or Optimize?
- Does it matter if this is done before choosing a tool and setting layers?

As you can tell I am a newbie and will be posting more questions as I go.  I have read numerous posts that have helped me out a lot so I thank you all in advance.

Kevin

Hi,

I'm a newbie as well, but i may be able to help. Not sure why it went a bit random on you, but if you only have trial versions of the software, you will have limitations of gcode etc.  this goes for lazy cam also, if you have the trial version, you can't specify offsets to choose which side to cut for instance.

 in response to your questions-

It only matters as to which is better for the job

Each time you click optimise, it changes the route

It doesn't seem to matter when you do the layering.

hope this helps, let me know if i can be of more assistance.

aaron.

Hi Aaron, thanks for the response.  You did answer part of my question so that is a start.  We do have the pro versions for Lazy Can and Mach3.  We'll just keep picking away and by trial and error we'll get there.

Thanks
Kevin

Kevin,

Perhap it's worth looking into the speed and set up of your motors.  When i set my machine up initially, i had the speed of the motors too fast, this made the controller miss out steps and gave weird results.  maybe this could be part of the problem.  also noise may be getting into the controller, try moving it away from sources of rf like the pc or power plugs.

aaron.

Thanks Aaron, I'll give it a try.