POT-L tool is not clearing the media during cuts, any tips?

[fishoil_tycoon]

I'm trying to cut out foam inserts on my F1330 with the POL-L tool.

We're cutting 1.5" foam, and we have 4 bottle cutouts per insert.

It has no problem with the first cutout. The blade starts to retract back to full height after the first cutout, but it does not retract fast enough to clear the media as it heads to the 2nd cutout. So essentially the blade keeps cutting 0.75"-1" of material as it retracts and heads to the second cutout. Sometimes the blade snaps as it moves to the second cutout too.

Is there any way to tell the software to fully retract the blade before moving to the next part of the cut?

Right now as a workaround, I've put each cutout into a different layer, and programmed it to pause after each layer. This way the blade full retracts and waits for me to hit enter before starting the second cutout. But as you can imagine, this takes an extremely long time.

I've tried this with 1" foam as well and it's doing the same thing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this renders the tool pretty much useless for full scale production.

 

[JBurton]

Surely Summa has an option for 'dwell' or z retract height. I'd look through the book and reach out to them.

 

[balstestrat]

What's the up-height set to in axis control? You probably want to max it out.

 

[jerry369]

Try changing the tool Lift –up velocity in Axis Control to decrease the speed at which the module raises. Sometimes it helps to keep the material from lifting when the tool is raised

 

[JBurton]

This machine sounds frustrating from a CNC standpoint, the up-height and tool lift-up velocity are already defined parameters in CNC, Z tool height and Z travel speed. Agreed that changing both of those will help. I guess since it's a flatbed cutter it's not a true CNC machine, but it'd make more sense to adhere to CNC terminology rather than develop unique parameter names for this machine.

 

[fishoil_tycoon]

Try changing the tool Lift –up velocity in Axis Control to decrease the speed at which the module raises. Sometimes it helps to keep the material from lifting when the tool is raised

The material isn't lifting up, it stays flat with the vacuum. No issues there.

The knife of the tool drags across parts of the foam as it moves from one cut to another.

Here's a quick diagram. The solid lines are the actual cut lines, the dashed line is the knife cutting through the foam where it's not supposed to

The tool moves so quickly from 1 cut to another so it can't clear the material.

I even have the cut speed at 1 inch/second, but as soon as it finishes one cut, it quickly moves to the next cut regardless of cut speed.

 

[fishoil_tycoon]

Try changing the tool Lift –up velocity in Axis Control to decrease the speed at which the module raises. Sometimes it helps to keep the material from lifting when the tool is raised

Got it working!

It wasn't the lift up velocity, it was just plain velocity. (Just in case anyone else ever runs into this issue with their Summa.)

I lowered it from 200 mm/s to 10, so the entire tool slows down as it goes from one cut to another. It gave it just enough time to clear the media.

Thanks guys!