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3. The nose cone may be damaged. Inspect for burrs or roughness. Try using an emery cloth to polish
the nose.
4. Use less spindle spring pressure. Excessive down pressure will leave a rub mark on almost any
plastic material.
Problem: You are not using a nose cone and you have uneven engraving.
Possible solutions:
1. Switch to a nose-riding method.
2. Use a different method of holding the material. If double-sided tape is being used, it may be thick
enough to change your surface flatness and the engraving depth.
3. The T-slot table may not be flat, or has been installed improperly.
4. The table the machine is sitting on may not be a level surface.
5. Make sure the spindle spring pressure knob is locked all the way down.
Hint: While it's true that you can do non-nose riding engraving, it's not easy to hold any controlled
accuracy on the depth. This takes flat material, a very flat table and some degree of skill and confidence.
It also takes an application where some amount of uneven engraving may be tolerated.
Problem: There are "tails" or "swirls" in the corners of my engraving.
Possible solutions:
1. The cutter speed is too fast relative to your X-Y speed. Slow your spindle speed down or increase
your table speed.
2. The cutter is worn or damaged. Replace it, or have it re-sharpened.
Problem: There is "fuzz", "fur" or lines in the bottom of my cut showing each cutter path. Steps are
noticeable in the bottom of the cut.
Possible solutions:
1. This can be caused by dull cutters, the wrong cutter, or not enough overlap for each cut. Try changing
cutter size slightly. You may get better clean up.
2. Try taking a second pass cut at .001-.002 deeper. This may clean up the roughness.
3. Resharpen the cutter. There are various cutter angles that can cause these kinds of problems. There
is a relief angle that if too great can cause noticeable ridges in the bottom of the cut.
4. Ensure that the spindle is square in the mount or block. An out of square spindle means the cutter is
not perpendicular to the material surface.
5. Turn the spindle RPM speed up.
Problem: Poor letter quality.
Possible solutions:
1. The engraving speed may be too fast. Engraving quality improves with the right engraving and spindle
speeds.
2. When diamond drag engraving, there may be too much down pressure. Check the grain of the
material; it should be left to right.
3. The cutter may be dull or worn.
4. The material is not securely fastened to the table.
© 2018 Vision Engraving & Routing Systems
Troubleshooting
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