How to resume a 3D carve after it stops part way through
Some different methods on how to save a 3D carving if your CNC machine stopped part way through the carve. This lesson applies to Vectric VCarve and Aspire.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone, in this lesson I'm gonna show you how you can save your 3D carvings if they were to stop partway through the carving. So sometimes your power can go out or something happens with your machine where it stops partway through, and that will leave you with just a partial carving where you still need to finish the rest of the carving.
So in this video, I'm gonna show you a couple tips on how you can save that carving. So the first tip I'm gonna recommend when you're carving 3D carvings, I like to go in a raster direction. So if we open up our 3D toolpath, you'll see at the bottom here you have the option to go an offset or a raster. An offset's gonna start in the middle and spiral its way out to the outside.
And then the raster will start on one section of your model and carve to the other side. And you can specify the angle that you'd like to raster. And I find the raster direction generally leaves you with less cleanup you have to do later. Plus, it's also easier to resume your carving like I'm gonna show you in this lesson.
All right, so you can see for this example, this toolpath is going at a raster of zero degrees, which means is gonna go left to right in the X axis. So when you click calculate, and I'm gonna reset the preview and I will slow it down a little bit so we can see and click preview. And you'll see it's starting at the bottom and working its way up the model at a zero degree angle.
And if we speed that up a little bit, I'm gonna click this little red X at the bottom to stop it, and we'll just imagine something happened where our machine shut off about halfway through the model. So first things first, you wanna make sure your zero position has not changed. So I would recommend setting your zero somewhere that you can reference to later.
So for example, this project, you wouldn't want to zero off the center of the material because we are machining that away, but we have all four corners available so we can zero off of one of those corner. That's gonna be different for everybody's projects, but just try to determine an area that you can reference to later just in case you need to re zero your tools.
And with some machines, there are ways you can just resume the G code and keep on cutting away. But in this lesson, we're only going to focus on what we can do in the Vectric software to recalculate our toolpath and finish up the rest without having to re machine what we already did. So at this point, when your machine stops, you want to return back to your zero position and make sure your zero did not change.
If your zero is changed, then you're gonna have an issue when you go to resume the carving. So first, make sure your zero position is the same as it was before, and now I'm gonna show you two different methods you can do to carve that rest of the model. The first way is going to be just reversing the toolpath where we're now starting at the top and coming down the model instead of starting at the bottom.
So to do that, if we double click on the toolpath to edit it for the raster angle, whenever you add 180 degrees to whatever angle you are at, that will reverse the direction. So if we add 180 to this, which 180 plus zero equals 180. Now click calculate.
And now if I hide this toolpath for a second, you can see we still have our model carved at the bottom. So we're gonna imagine that's still there. So now if we turn on this toolpath and click preview, you'll see now it will start from the top and meet down back into the middle. And then alls you would do is once it reaches that point in the middle, you would just stop your machine and you would be done.
And it wouldn't have to remachine that entire bottom surface again. Now, sometimes when your machine stops like that, your Z zero may be slightly off, and that could happen from wood movement, your tool is a little bit off on the zero, or maybe your machine has a little bit of a play in it. So sometimes your joining line will not line up exactly perfect.
So sometimes you can sand that away. But if that's the case, then unfortunately you will have to remachine the entire thing. But you could still save the piece by just slightly lowering your zero position and then remachine the entire thing. So an easy way you can do that in the software is close this. Go to the material setup at the top, and then where it says gap above material, you would put it slightly below.
So you can enter a number here, a very small, let's say 0.02, and that will now drop the entire model 0.02 below the surface. And then you can remachine the entire thing and that would fix the joining line if there was one visible. I just wanted to point that out, but we're gonna click cancel and go back and I'll show you the other way we can fix this.
So that was the first way, and that is basically recalculating the entire toolpath and just flipping it around. So now I'm gonna show you how to make a toolpath in just the area that you want to carve. So I'm gonna undo that last toolpath, and we're gonna pretend that we only have this area carved right now.
So if you wanted a toolpath just for the top area up here, we can draw a vector around that area and then carve just what's inside of the vector. So we have to see about where it stops, and you could see right above, uh, this arm right here, is about where it stopped. So we're gonna go slightly below that because we do wanna overlap just a little bit.
So in the 2D view, we're gonna draw a line and actually looks like it's his back leg there. We're gonna draw a line about where it stopped. So you can actually just measure in your actual carving from like the bottom of your board to where it stopped. And you can get a more accurate number there, or you can just about guess where it was, but you wanna be slightly overlapping.
So we're gonna go to the draw line tool and we're gonna draw a line around that area. So I'm gonna go slightly below. I will go right here and just draw a line straight across. And then right click, and there's our line. Now we need a vector around the 3D model. So to do that, you're gonna select the 3D model, go to the modeling tab, and then click the create vector boundary around selected component.
And that will be available in Aspire or VCarve. And now we just want to join these two lines together. So I'm gonna go to the drawing tab again. I'm gonna use the scissor tool and I wanna make sure the box is checked there and I'm going to trim away what we don't want at the bottom and the overhangs. Then click close, and there we go.
Now we have a vector around the area that we want to carve. So we can either edit our original toolpath or we can just add in a brand new toolpath by going to either both or one of the 3D toolpaths. You can do the roughing and finishing, or you can just do one of them if you wanted to. And we will use the same tool, all the same settings.
The only thing we're gonna change is the machining limit boundary. We're gonna switch it to selected vectors and we're gonna select that vector we just created. We're gonna make sure the raster is going the same way. We can even go with that zero degree angle again if we wanted to and click calculate. And now it's going to start at the bottom again.
But now you can see the toolpath is only carving in the area that we want it to. So now we can click preview and you see where we're slightly lower than we needed to be, but that's okay. And then it will go up and finish the rest of the toolpath off. And there you go, that would give you your final result and that should save your carving.
The nice thing about doing it that way is it's starting off right where it left off before, so you're gonna know right away if your Z height is exactly the same. The first way I showed you how to do it, by flipping it over to the other side, when it's carving back down, you won't know it's gonna match up until it finishes carving.
So that might waste some time carving at the top, coming back down and meeting up. So if you can, I would probably recommend doing it the second way I just showed you. That way you're gonna know right away if it's gonna work out, rather than wasting that time machining all of that area. And I do wanna just expand a little bit on what I showed you before about switching the direction of the toolpath.
If we go back to that 3D finished toolpath, the first one, and I will do a 45 degree angle for this example, and click calculate and reset the preview. And I will show you, if we preview that it's starting in the lower right corner and it's going at a 45 degree angle, all the way up. So that is a 45 degree angle.
Let me stop that and go back to that toolpath. Now, like I said, to flip that the opposite way, all you have to do is add 180 degrees. So when you have a number in here, you can click at the end of that number and click the plus sign and actually do your math equation right here. So if you do plus 180 and then hit the equal sign, that will give you the reverse direction degree angle.
So now click calculate, and now when I click preview, you see now it's starting in the upper left hand corner and it's still going at that 45 degree angle. So that's how you can flip it over really easily. And that's not just for the 3D toolpaths, you can actually use that in the pocket toolpath. When you're using the raster direction, and you can use that in all kinds of toolpaths.
Even the quick engraves, all of the toolpaths that use the raster angle, even the texturing toolpath where you have the angle down here, you can add 180 degrees to flip that over. So same thing if you're cutting a textured panel and it stopped halfway through. You can use that reverse technique like we just showed to carve it from the opposite direction.
Okay, so those are just some tips on how you can possibly save your project and be able to save your piece of material that you were cutting. So hopefully those tips helped you out, and if they did, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
So in this video, I'm gonna show you a couple tips on how you can save that carving. So the first tip I'm gonna recommend when you're carving 3D carvings, I like to go in a raster direction. So if we open up our 3D toolpath, you'll see at the bottom here you have the option to go an offset or a raster. An offset's gonna start in the middle and spiral its way out to the outside.
And then the raster will start on one section of your model and carve to the other side. And you can specify the angle that you'd like to raster. And I find the raster direction generally leaves you with less cleanup you have to do later. Plus, it's also easier to resume your carving like I'm gonna show you in this lesson.
All right, so you can see for this example, this toolpath is going at a raster of zero degrees, which means is gonna go left to right in the X axis. So when you click calculate, and I'm gonna reset the preview and I will slow it down a little bit so we can see and click preview. And you'll see it's starting at the bottom and working its way up the model at a zero degree angle.
And if we speed that up a little bit, I'm gonna click this little red X at the bottom to stop it, and we'll just imagine something happened where our machine shut off about halfway through the model. So first things first, you wanna make sure your zero position has not changed. So I would recommend setting your zero somewhere that you can reference to later.
So for example, this project, you wouldn't want to zero off the center of the material because we are machining that away, but we have all four corners available so we can zero off of one of those corner. That's gonna be different for everybody's projects, but just try to determine an area that you can reference to later just in case you need to re zero your tools.
And with some machines, there are ways you can just resume the G code and keep on cutting away. But in this lesson, we're only going to focus on what we can do in the Vectric software to recalculate our toolpath and finish up the rest without having to re machine what we already did. So at this point, when your machine stops, you want to return back to your zero position and make sure your zero did not change.
If your zero is changed, then you're gonna have an issue when you go to resume the carving. So first, make sure your zero position is the same as it was before, and now I'm gonna show you two different methods you can do to carve that rest of the model. The first way is going to be just reversing the toolpath where we're now starting at the top and coming down the model instead of starting at the bottom.
So to do that, if we double click on the toolpath to edit it for the raster angle, whenever you add 180 degrees to whatever angle you are at, that will reverse the direction. So if we add 180 to this, which 180 plus zero equals 180. Now click calculate.
And now if I hide this toolpath for a second, you can see we still have our model carved at the bottom. So we're gonna imagine that's still there. So now if we turn on this toolpath and click preview, you'll see now it will start from the top and meet down back into the middle. And then alls you would do is once it reaches that point in the middle, you would just stop your machine and you would be done.
And it wouldn't have to remachine that entire bottom surface again. Now, sometimes when your machine stops like that, your Z zero may be slightly off, and that could happen from wood movement, your tool is a little bit off on the zero, or maybe your machine has a little bit of a play in it. So sometimes your joining line will not line up exactly perfect.
So sometimes you can sand that away. But if that's the case, then unfortunately you will have to remachine the entire thing. But you could still save the piece by just slightly lowering your zero position and then remachine the entire thing. So an easy way you can do that in the software is close this. Go to the material setup at the top, and then where it says gap above material, you would put it slightly below.
So you can enter a number here, a very small, let's say 0.02, and that will now drop the entire model 0.02 below the surface. And then you can remachine the entire thing and that would fix the joining line if there was one visible. I just wanted to point that out, but we're gonna click cancel and go back and I'll show you the other way we can fix this.
So that was the first way, and that is basically recalculating the entire toolpath and just flipping it around. So now I'm gonna show you how to make a toolpath in just the area that you want to carve. So I'm gonna undo that last toolpath, and we're gonna pretend that we only have this area carved right now.
So if you wanted a toolpath just for the top area up here, we can draw a vector around that area and then carve just what's inside of the vector. So we have to see about where it stops, and you could see right above, uh, this arm right here, is about where it stopped. So we're gonna go slightly below that because we do wanna overlap just a little bit.
So in the 2D view, we're gonna draw a line and actually looks like it's his back leg there. We're gonna draw a line about where it stopped. So you can actually just measure in your actual carving from like the bottom of your board to where it stopped. And you can get a more accurate number there, or you can just about guess where it was, but you wanna be slightly overlapping.
So we're gonna go to the draw line tool and we're gonna draw a line around that area. So I'm gonna go slightly below. I will go right here and just draw a line straight across. And then right click, and there's our line. Now we need a vector around the 3D model. So to do that, you're gonna select the 3D model, go to the modeling tab, and then click the create vector boundary around selected component.
And that will be available in Aspire or VCarve. And now we just want to join these two lines together. So I'm gonna go to the drawing tab again. I'm gonna use the scissor tool and I wanna make sure the box is checked there and I'm going to trim away what we don't want at the bottom and the overhangs. Then click close, and there we go.
Now we have a vector around the area that we want to carve. So we can either edit our original toolpath or we can just add in a brand new toolpath by going to either both or one of the 3D toolpaths. You can do the roughing and finishing, or you can just do one of them if you wanted to. And we will use the same tool, all the same settings.
The only thing we're gonna change is the machining limit boundary. We're gonna switch it to selected vectors and we're gonna select that vector we just created. We're gonna make sure the raster is going the same way. We can even go with that zero degree angle again if we wanted to and click calculate. And now it's going to start at the bottom again.
But now you can see the toolpath is only carving in the area that we want it to. So now we can click preview and you see where we're slightly lower than we needed to be, but that's okay. And then it will go up and finish the rest of the toolpath off. And there you go, that would give you your final result and that should save your carving.
The nice thing about doing it that way is it's starting off right where it left off before, so you're gonna know right away if your Z height is exactly the same. The first way I showed you how to do it, by flipping it over to the other side, when it's carving back down, you won't know it's gonna match up until it finishes carving.
So that might waste some time carving at the top, coming back down and meeting up. So if you can, I would probably recommend doing it the second way I just showed you. That way you're gonna know right away if it's gonna work out, rather than wasting that time machining all of that area. And I do wanna just expand a little bit on what I showed you before about switching the direction of the toolpath.
If we go back to that 3D finished toolpath, the first one, and I will do a 45 degree angle for this example, and click calculate and reset the preview. And I will show you, if we preview that it's starting in the lower right corner and it's going at a 45 degree angle, all the way up. So that is a 45 degree angle.
Let me stop that and go back to that toolpath. Now, like I said, to flip that the opposite way, all you have to do is add 180 degrees. So when you have a number in here, you can click at the end of that number and click the plus sign and actually do your math equation right here. So if you do plus 180 and then hit the equal sign, that will give you the reverse direction degree angle.
So now click calculate, and now when I click preview, you see now it's starting in the upper left hand corner and it's still going at that 45 degree angle. So that's how you can flip it over really easily. And that's not just for the 3D toolpaths, you can actually use that in the pocket toolpath. When you're using the raster direction, and you can use that in all kinds of toolpaths.
Even the quick engraves, all of the toolpaths that use the raster angle, even the texturing toolpath where you have the angle down here, you can add 180 degrees to flip that over. So same thing if you're cutting a textured panel and it stopped halfway through. You can use that reverse technique like we just showed to carve it from the opposite direction.
Okay, so those are just some tips on how you can possibly save your project and be able to save your piece of material that you were cutting. So hopefully those tips helped you out, and if they did, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
