I am struggling to get my Z axis to calibrate and cut to the proper depth. I set Z home where the end mill is just touching the material. Based on some advice I saw in another post I usually raise my end mill about 3mm prior to running a cut. However, when I do run a cut my cuts seem to be a couple mm too deep. When I calibrate the Z axis I have been pretty close to what I expect but when I let the machine run a job it seems to be a little deep. My X and Y are both less than 1mm to what is expected and seem to be cutting fine. It’s only the Z that is giving me some issues. No doubt the error is on my end. Any help is appreciated.
Interesting. Do you see the same error when you use the jog buttons to move the z up and down?
It doesn’t seem as bad when I jog the Z to test the calibration. I was going to try homing my Z then make sure again that I am right on the material to be cut and see what happens with my depth of cut.
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It might also be worth testing with the router on. That’s the only thing that I can think which is different between using the jog commands and when running a gcode file.
Sounds like the pid tuning is off. When you move a long way, does it overshoot and correct?
No, it seems to be okay over a long distance. I did some test cuts today and everything seemed to be better and within a depth that I can live with. However, I did notice that occasionally the whole router gantry will raise up just a little and throw the cut off.
Another issue I notice was an error on my part. I had the router set too low in the gantry which also seemed to be making my Z be off just a little.
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