Multiple depth stepdown setting changes feed height

[lee9966]

I am trying to pocket a piece of material that will barely fit in my mill.  To do so I set the Feed height, Top height, Retract height and Clearance height to very small values.  I am making a pocket 1.5" deep so I need to use multiple depths.  

This combination brought to light something I have never noticed before, the Multiple Depth setting forces a higher feed height.  If I use a small Multiple depth setting such as the default .039xx it isnt too obvious, but setting it to .250 made quite a change, in fact enough of a change that I cant use the resulting tool path because of my Z axis limitations.  I do get a warning about the feed heights being changed, but none of the values it mentions are available in Compare and Edit, such as "topmost ramp".

I would be glad to share the .f3d file, but it is just one block with one 2D contour pocket, and also I have tried this in other projects and the same thing happens.  I have attached a few screen shots to show the settings I am using, although I have tried all combinations I can think of.

Has anyone run in to this and found a workaround?  

[engineguy · Accepted solution]

@lee9966 

Could well be your "Safe Distance" setting, look under your "Linking" tab and play around with that value, the lower you can set that then the lower you can set your heights under the "Height" tab.

Hope that helps.

Regards

Rob

[lee9966]

That does it, thanks so much.