You’re saying you want to cut with something like a dovetail bit and control where the MPCNC does its plunge. I’m not sure how to do that in EstlCAM.
I think I could get it to do a through dovetail, exactly the size of the bit. I would set the max tool depth per pass to be the depth of the dovetail, and then set up a line that didn’t start or stop in the material, and then I would choose an engrave path. That would be a tough operation, so you’d have to get the speed just right, to not burn the material, and not get stuck in it either. Also, any variation in z is going to be a bigger mistake than on most cuts.
Having a dovetail that is larger than the bit has its own challenges, because the pocketing is done along x, and if the pocket is in a non-standard orientation, then estlcam could decide to do it in pieces, each piece requiring another plunge.
Having a blind dovetail would also be a challenge, because it would have to retract along the same path that it just cut.
Hopefully, there’s a feature I just don’t know about that would make all this easier. If I needed something like that, I would consider just making a square cut, and following it up with a handheld router with a dovetail bit in it. I wouldn’t want to do that for 100x for something, but I’ll probably only need to do that once.
