Hi Guys,

I am new to CNCs, Mach3, and Lazycam. I've been fooling around with Lazycam and a DXF, but after getting my code in Mach3 and running it on the mill, my dimension seem to be slightly off. It seems that Lazycam has not compensated for the size of my endmill even though I have created a tool and set that to my layers. Is this something that Lazycam does, or am I doing something wrong?

Not that i am aware of, but will say this,look at the code and if it is correct then the problem is somewhere else.IE; steps per unit, your machines basic accuracy or how you are maching the piece. LC does look at the profile and will modify the pathing if the cutter is too large to do the cut. An example would be trying to cut a 1/2" radius with a 1 1/8" diameter mill.

What or how much is slightly off?

RICH

Hi Rich,

If I remember right it was off by about 5 hundredths of an inch, I'll have to check the measurement when I'm back at work tomorrow. For now I am just clamping down a piece of abs plastic to test my code and see that the dimensions are right, later I will be milling into a small project enclosure.

I've attached a .pdf of what I am trying to mill using a 1/16" end mill. I'm not concerned with the circle cutouts, they will just be drilled, and they turned out exact. It was just the rectangular cut outs that ended out a bit larger then they should have been.

When I code by hand my dimensions are nearly perfect, so I don't suspect it is my machine, but again I'm a noob at all of this and don't have any real machining/cad/cam skills.

If you can attach the dxf drawing.
RICH

Hey Rich,

Sorry it took so long to reply. I'm attaching my Lazycam project.

Also here is the .DXF

I will take a look at it when i get a chance.
I take it your just trying to cut out the rectangles using a 1/16" dia end mill. To do that you would create an offset
to the inside based on your tool. You need a license to do generate code for an offset or pocket.
Do you have a license?

RICH

Yes, I do have a licensed copy. I just am not sure how to go about creating an offset.

Now, that I'm looking at it, I think I might have an Idea how to do it. Time to experiment.

Now that I put in a offset and set a depth for it, I am not sure sure what to do next. Nothing is showing up in the tool path window of Mach3 anymore after generating the code. It seems that I could just delete the original entity and leave the offset, but I am not sure.

I attached my LC file.