Not sure if this is where I should ask this question, but I didn't see a place for general wizard questions.
I'm trying to cut 4 slots in a piece of mild steel to make a motor mount. I ran across the slot cutting wizard in the subject of this message. I was going to set it up 4 times to get all 4 slots cut. I'm having trouble understanding the wizard.
First, I set the X and Y user coordinates to zero at the corner furthest away from me and to the right of the workpiece. It is the same corner I chose with the Set Position in the wizard.
I want the slots to be in the Y direction. I'm using a 3/8" cutter, and would like them slightly wider than 3/8"
I set the wizard up with the set position in the upper right corner of the graphic on the screen. I set the following parameters.
Tool Dia, +0.375", Feed Plunge +0.10, Rough Feed +0.30, Rapid height +0.1, X Position -0.25, Step Depth +0.1, Y Position -6.5, Length 0.38,
Width 2.0, Depth +0.3.
When I post the G-Code, the first few lines look like this:
G00 X-.44 Y-8.31
G01 Z-0.1 F0.1
Y-6.69 F0.3
X-0.5375 Y-.67875
Y-8.2125
X-0.3425
Y-6.7875
X-0.5375
G00 Z0.1
My first question is why aren't my X and Y representative of what I put into the settings. I wanted to go 6.5" in the negative Y and .25" in the negative X. The G-Code is going to .155 in the negative X when you take 1/2 the cutter with from the second pass of .5375. Total with of the cut is not correct either. It's much wider. I found also that if I increase the width number in the wizard, the cut gets narrower.
The Negative Y is going to -8.31 rather than 6.5 minus 1/2 of the cutter diameter.
I can mess with the numbers until I get what I want, but was wondering if I'm not understanding the Wizard, or if I'm doing something wrong.
Can anyone help?
TeaMan