dovetails keep freezing

Mark Hesketh · Post by **Mark Hesketh** » Fri, Aug 17 2007, 8:48AM

on our brand new machine, whenever i run dovetail drawers i am running into problems when it gets to cutting the male dovetails. some will cut fine, but then the machine will just pause wile cutting an end, and i have to hit \"block step +\" and the start button to get it to continue with the next line of code. it is entirely inconsistent as to when it does this pause, or how many times per drawer part it does it. the only consistent part is that it is always when cutting the male dovetail ends. i am running the latest version of cn.

Pete Riddle · Post by **Pete Riddle** » Fri, Aug 17 2007, 3:30PM

Mark,

I have seen this caused by the diameter of the rough out bit being exactly .25\" The radius for the inside of the male tenon is .125, some time you will even get a \"3442 or 3444 radius compensation\" error.

Try reducing your your cutter diameter to .249, then re-nest and run again.

Thanks,

Mark Hesketh · Post by **Mark Hesketh** » Mon, Aug 20 2007, 5:04AM

thanks. i will give that a shot

Mark Hesketh · Post by **Mark Hesketh** » Mon, Aug 20 2007, 5:36AM

alright Pete, you were right!

But here is the funny part... i changed the tool diameter right away so that i wouldn't forget before nesting the next batch... but i didn't re-nest the batch i was in the middle of... but the rest of that batch ran without a single pause! now how does a change in tool diameter affect the running of the program without re-nesting the job? or do dovetails access tool diameter the same way the machines access tool length?

Pete Riddle · Post by **Pete Riddle** » Mon, Aug 20 2007, 9:30AM

If you look at the code you will see a G41 or G42, depending on the cut direction selected. Those codes comp the diameter currently set in the Tool Manager. That's why you saw the problem disappear without re-nesting.

If you had re-nested you would have gotten a message saying that the diameter of T#(?) has changed. That is because CN is referring to the Tool Manager for it's information. In that event the Drawer box still would have run correctly, but the diameter in the Tooling area of CN would have been updated as well.

Mark Hesketh · Post by **Mark Hesketh** » Tue, Aug 21 2007, 7:09AM

Pete, you are my new favourite person!

I am running a job that has almost 500 dovetail drawers, and it is going so much faster now that I do not have to stand there and jog the machine through a few dozen times on every sheet while it cuts the male dovetail ends (500 drawers... that's 2000 ends where it was \"pausing\" up to 3 or 4 times each).

Thanks a bunch!