Trouble with pierce point location

I’m trying to cut a flag out and everytime it cuts the stars it starts on the outside of the star instead of the inside. Does anyone know how to fix this or what I need to adjust.

When you’re defining the toolpaths you click on the cuts you want & they’re added as a “chain”. Click the arrow or inside the line to switch it from cutting one side to the other.

For that design, be careful with your lead-in/lead-outs because it’s easy to have parameters for those that make it impossible to cut and it will skip them. They’re pretty tight objects without a ton of room inside for the space a long or angled lead in/out will take up.

1 Like

I’ll try that again. I feel like I have tried both ways. Should I make a separate tool path for these and what do you think the lead in and out should be set to?

You may have to eliminate the lead out. For the lead in, try a length of about 2 or 2.5 times your kerf setting. You may have to experiment with the angle but 60 or 90 degrees may be necessary to fit in because it’s got to do it in the body of the star where the arms meet.

You could create a new torch definition that you tell has a kerf half as big as it is. Then the kerf adjustment will lay the torch on top of the line vs inside it but you don’t need the stars to be precisely the size they’re drawn - and you’ll get an extra half-kerf of room for the pierce & lead in to work. You’d use that torch definition only for the stars

I will try that. Thanks for the help

I tried it all and it work. Not sure which one fixed it lol. But it worked. Thanks for the help

1 Like

Great news. Glad to help.

I teach CNC operations at my local MakerSpace and almost everyone goes through the same learning curve to figure out how to get the machine to do what they want. But once you get it, it’s great to be able to take something that’s just on a computer screen and turn it into something you can hold in your hands - and way easier & faster than ever trying to do it by hand.

2 Likes

I didn’t realize there was a way to define different tools for different toolpaths. Can I do this in Fusion 360 and have it cut everything in one step once I make the .tap for Mach 3?