Not sure if this is the right forum, or even if I'm using the correct terminology, but all has been going well lately with my home-taught CNC experiences. I have a Taig CNC mill, Rhino, Mach 3, and I'm about to buy SheetCam. I'll likely need a 3D CAM, but for now I don't know which to buy...
Anyway, that's just the background, the real question starts now:
Okay, between creating parts in Rhino, turning them to gcode with SheetCam and then loading that gcode into Mach 3, I am having a mental block with finding the home position on my mill or maybe I should say my metal stock?
There are so many places to describe the size of the material and where it sits on the mill that I can never get the mill to start cutting where I expect it to cut. I keep cutting objects and keep trying different positions for the start of the mill, but as soon as I start, the mill repositions and cuts somewhere else - usually a small fraction of an inch (my default unit) from where I'd positioned the cutting tip. I keep going around in circles with Mach 3 and SheetCam, but haven't had a "eureka moment" yet. To make things even more embarrassing, I've been messing around with this for so long that now I've confused myself to the point that I'm not even sure where to aim the end mill to start - just touching the outside corner of a square block? Positioned over the corner on the inside? Sometimes it even seems that the software thinks that the end mill should be positioned so that it's centered over the corner.
Anyway, I know that this is a small issue for those of you who have been doing CNC for a long time, but it's making me pull my hair. There are a bazillion places to configure this, but if you were me, where would you focus your attention? Is it mostly a Mach3 thing or is it mostly a CAM thing?
Okay, time for another coffee :-)
Thanks,
Mark