I don’t know what is wrong.
Material is 4mm thick machine is supposed to cut out shape with tabs. I have tried rep program and Vectric aspire with the same results.
, I zero the z on the material surface, turn on machine. All seems good but when the z cuts it goes way beyond the 4 mm cutting way too deep until the cutter jams in the spoil board.
I checked the g-code and its instructions were correct first cut 2 mm second cut 2 mm.
Anyone have any thoughts.
Cheers
Rob
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Are you sure you set the Z at zero? You can do G1 Z0 F300 and it should just kiss the surface. If that is wrong, it may crash into your work, so starting with something like G1 Z10 F300 would be a safer start, and it should be 10mm above where you set the Z.
Can you upload the gcode here so we can take a look?
Is your z microsteps set correctly? Start on the material move away (+z 10mm) and measure.
I have been putting the cutting tip just on the surface of the material and thinking this is the z zero.
Should I add the +10 mm to this and why 10 mm?
Rob
Top surface of your material should be zero…
What is being suggested is to test whether your Z axis is moving the correct distance. Try zeroing Z to the surface of something (spoil board, work piece, etc), then commanding it to raise 10cm (“G1 Z10 F300” should do that), then measure how far up your Z axis actually travelled. if not 10mm, then something is incorrect (most likely your steps/mm for the Z axis).
Good luck!
Doesn’t that depend on how you have it set for your CAM? I use the spoil board surface as my Z0 and have machine bed as Z axis origin in EstlCAM?
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True - you could (I suppose) set your Z-zero to just about any position you want to, as long as you adjust your CAM to produce g-code expecting that Z-zero position. I think that either Z-zero on the top of the work-piece (like I do) or at the top of the spoiler board (like you do) would be the only two logical places though.
I was really just trying address Robert’s specific question:
I got the impression he thought someone was suggesting setting the Z-zero to 10mm above the work top surface. In his first post he mentioned setting Z-zero to the work top surface, so I was just trying to let him know that sounded correct, in his particular case.
I’m thinking there’s not much more we can do to help until he reports back on whether his Z-axis is moving the correct distance or not…
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@robert-s, it is definitely something simple. We can figure this out.
Although I think it is more likely that the Z=0 isn’t being set before running the job, not a Z scaling issue.
Check setting in aspire in material setup and make sure it is set to zero on material surfaces not bed opps the would give air cuts
Make sure no start depth is set in aspire
If you have g92 x0 y0 z0 at the beginning of the file, it will make where ever your bit is right now the new origin, so if you set everything up, then jog upwards before starting, it will create a new origin. I’ve done that enough times. The other possibility is an uneven surface, or an even surface but the work piece is not bolted down everywhere, but I’m sure 10 mm would be visible to the eye. I always inspect the g-code by hand, for instance when creating a path in FreeCAD, if I select the top of the part vs the bottom, I am left scratching my head why it insists on different heights, even if I manually tell it how far down. I had to create my own post processor for debugging that, so I can quickly check the limits of the code.
Post G-code or it didn’t happen. 
Cheers!
EDIT: forum got me again, resurrecting a thread.
I know I’ve got to be careful looking at those “suggested topics” that the forum software assembles at the bottom of a message thread. That’s where I’ve pulled up ancient conversations before. Now I concentrate on Unread and New topics at the very bottom of the window
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Easy to do I’ve done that a couple times too