I design a job to be done and make it a work area of 6x4 and a pocket cut of 5x3 choose all the settings for that and tool choice etc.
All in inches, verify and reverify.
Save it to mach3 inches text
hand it over to mach3
load
and whamo...I am watching in frustration as the mill is cutting a 1x1/2 pocket about 1/100th" deep

I checked everything I could and redrew the whole thing on different programs and I still get the same issue.  I even run the projects on mach3 and they do the same thing.
has any one else run into this problem before?

Make sure the default units in Mach3 are set to inches.
Then, make sure you're in inch mode (G20) and use MDI to move 1". Make sure it moves 1".

Thanks I havent done the MDI portion.  Still new to this.  Will give it a shot.  If it doesn't move 1" what then? lol

Well I am a blazing idiot.  I have no clue as to what to do with MDI.  I have a lot of reading to do. Hope I don't fall asleep before I can learn something as it looks more dry reading than the introductory page of Linings and Coatings for beginners.

This ....
              ... for starters.
Russ
 

well its clearly obvious I am going just less than 1/4 of travel than commanded so somewhere in my setup/config I have not done something right.  I need to scour the settings and the manual and see where I screwed up.  I select 4" of travel and it gives me just over an inch

Change your steps/unit in Motor Tuning.

up or down?  I started at 3200 steps, got all the way to 15,000 steps which gave me about a 2:1 difference instead  1:4  So I can get it to move 2" when I tell it to go 4" before it was 3/4" when told to go 4".  So I am stuck.  I go much higher that 15k and the motors freak out and stop

Ok, I have figured it out.  I tried everything I could.
It came down to scale.

I had to set it at 2.1250 to make it give me exactally 1 inch to 1 inch move.
Already had some jobs being done.

Life is now good!