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surface finish different between Mach 3 and UCCNC

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 3:56 am
by dannytso
Hi I just switched from Mach 3 to UCCNC and I noticed that UCCNC cuts out the same file differently than Mach 3. Most notably, the surface finish is completely off. The overall shape and position/accuracy is all ok, however the surface finish looks more "scratched up" whereas when Mach 3 cuts the same file, it is completely smooth, as desired.

I feel I cannot be the only person to experience this so I searched the forums with the exact keywords as this topic but didn't show any useful results.

I was wondering if any of you have had the same experience or came across another thread of issue that someone else may have had that is similar. Could it be the motor tuning? I did not modifications to the settings as I just directly imported my mach3 .xml file over.

Also I am cutting 3D objects, notable positive moulds of patients feet for manufacture of custom foot orthotics. Please let me know if there is any other info I can provide that may help with a solution to getting my files cut as it would look if I were to be running it in Mach 3.

And by the way, I switched to UCCNC because for some reason Mach 3 keeps crashing all the 32 bit windows 7 computers that I have. I got fed up with trying to find as solution to that so i just switched my workflow to UCCNC. Otherwise I would just stick to Mach 3 to get my desired results.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

Re: surface finish different between Mach 3 and UCCNC

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 11:58 am
by ger21
It's all about your CV settings.
A friend of mine has a business cutting small 3D parts. For him, UCCNC is more accurate, with a better finish, and 30% faster than Mach3.

Re: surface finish different between Mach 3 and UCCNC

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2023 5:19 pm
by cncdrive
Make sure to tune your Constant Velocity settings in the general settings page properly to fit your requirements.
In MAch3 there are no such settings, but in UCCNC you can control the tolerances properly using the CV settings.
But with too high CV values you get low tolerance which usually also gives bad surface finishes. (Depending on the job)
However if you setting the CV values high means that you do not need good tolerances and do not need good surface finishes.
If you need good surface finish then set the tolerances to low enough values which fits your job.

Also try to set the axes acceleration parameters higher, usually UCCNC runs the machine without loosing steps on much higher accelerations than Mach3.
And the higher accelerations could give you faster work and smoother finishes.

Re: surface finish different between Mach 3 and UCCNC

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 4:37 am
by dannytso
Thanks for the response. Whereabouts n UCCNC do I go about changing the CV settings?

Re: surface finish different between Mach 3 and UCCNC

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 9:46 am
by dannytso
Nevermind I found it. I will read around to see the best way to configure this to get my results. Thanks a lot for all the replies.