“Computerised routers and digital cutters typically deal with flat sheet materials. Unfortunately, most sheet materials are anything but flat as anyone who has ever tried to make controlled depth cuts into them knows to their cost,” explains Julian Sage, managing director of Complete CNC Solutions.

He continues: “Cutting supposedly flat materials to controlled depths is a very important need. Applications like engraving and V-grooving are completely dependent upon it. When V-grooving for example, if the V cutter ventures deeper than planned, the grooved line becomes wider. The opposite applies. The line becomes narrower when the cut depth decreases.

“Those problems are solved as the TT or CNC now both come with a newly enhanced ‘flatness sensor’.”

The new system, which also compensates for swarf, works by generating depth instruction derived from the face of the material being processed and not from the distance off the bed. The system will, with touch-button simplicity, map the surface of the material being processed by looking for high and low variations from the known thickness. It then builds a map of the material prior to cutting.

Sage concludes: “During cutting, the Z-axis of the system knows where high and low spots are. It adjusts itself on-the-fly while the material is being cut so leaving accurately controlled cuts as it progresses. Engraving is also maintained to depth, and so V-grooves are of a consistent width.”


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