Hi Everyone:

I have seen that many of you are using Vcarve. I downloaded the Demo and have been playing with it.

I'm confused about the need to use "Stepover" when programming a "Profile" tool path. In my current CAM program it's called "Contour" and all I do is plunge 50% of my Cutter Diameter until I'm through the material. Like 4 cuts of .125 for a .5 piece of "Baltic Birch". All the tool does is descend .125 for 4 consecutive passes. With VCarve I have to enter a "Stepover" value for the same operation. Now if I were to do a "Pocket" I would need "Stepover".

I think that this means that the 2nd pass moves in the "XY" plane by the "Stepover" amount as well as plunging the programmed "Z", and so on. Since I can program this "Stepover" to .0001, I suppose it's Academic, but the question is "Why" is this necessary??

Any imput on this subject is appreciated,

Thanks very much,

John