Z height issue - CAM/Post Processor/Controller/Mill?

[magicniner]

I loaded that into the copy of Mach3 on my laptop and the cuts run at z=0.9 with diagonal returns at a higher level.

[Neale]

Quick scan of gcode says it never goes below Z=-0.1, so at first sight it looks like setting error, tool moved in collet, coordinate offset, or some other user or machine problem. It's not in this extract of gcode, anyway. Any more info on what happened leading up to this "event"?

[Dangle_kt]

now the tool pullout sounds possible... Before this op it running some adaptive clearing and I noticed the floor had steps in it, getting progressively deeper I thought it was all part of the same controller issue - but it's quite possible the heavy cut I was doing has dragged the 10mm endmill down within the collet. I seated the tool up against the top of the toolholder, so when I am in from work I can check by lossening it up and seeing if it can be pushed up, if it can then that is my issue.

Thanks for your help - any advice on stopping end mills walk out of collets is welcome :D

[magicniner]

any advice on stopping end mills walk out of collets is welcome :D

Check the recommended torque for the collets you are using and tighten to a significant percentage of it, you might find that 50% of recommended is way more than you're currently using when you do check.

[Neale]

If you are using ER collets, I would suggest looking at the ball-bearing version of the closer nut (available from Arc Euro and probably a bunch of other places) - let's you tighten the nut more easily.

[Dangle_kt]

well I went and checked, and you were correct - I had tool pullout. Thanks for the pointer