Measuring Z depth incorrectly

Carvey
1

So, I think my smart clamp is not so smart. I typically get an extra 0.05" of depth on my carves, I noticed it particularly using the inlay generator app on 0.125" plastic for a “Happy St Patricks Day” cloverleaf token for my kindergarten son. I set the depth of cut to 50% for the fill-cut (so 0.0625) and on most of the piece, it was almost all the way through the plastic (to the extent that the center of the ‘a’ is being held on by a whisker of plastic at the bottom.

It also means the first plunge into the workpiece is significantly over-stressing the bit, so I’d like to sort it out. Is there any sort of offset you can apply to the “measured” value ? Is there a hardware fix ?

I think it’s always been like this, btw - it’s just the up until now I’ve mostly been cutting 100% cuts, and although it meant I had to have an extra-thick wasteboard to absorb the extra cut, the stress of the first cut hadn’t occurred to me until just recently…

Cheers
Simon

2

No-one ?

4

I have found that the issue is directly related to the little switch that is contained in the “Smart Clamp” going bad. As it gets worse, it takes more force to actuate, to the point where the carriage on my machine was bending by up to a quarter of an inch before it would trigger. A new switch will solve your issue. Easy, straightforward replacement if you have a miniature Philips screwdriver. However, you have to get the part from Inventables support, you can’t stock up replacements for when the next goes bad. I wish they would have them in the main store, but the don’t.