PRIME MOTIONMesh height maps
A program assumes your stock is flat. Often it is not: plywood cups, a spoilboard wears, a sheet sits on a chip. A mesh height map is a grid of probed heights across the stock. With one, each move's Z is adjusted for the height at that point, so a cut meant to be 0.2 mm deep is 0.2 mm deep everywhere, not 0.05 mm at one end and 0.4 mm at the other.
When it is worth doing
- Shallow cuts over a wide area — engraving, V-carving, PCB isolation, surface detail.
- Material you know is not flat — reclaimed timber, thin sheet, anything warped.
- A spoilboard that has seen work.
It is not worth it for deep cuts through thick stock, where a few tenths of a millimetre make no difference.
Mesh in the command rail
Mesh in the command rail on Control does two things:
- Tap switches mesh levelling on or off for the next run. It is lit while on, and the Notes card says Mesh levelling on — no map yet until you probe one.
- Long-press, or tap its corner triangle, opens the mesh-probing drawer. That needs mesh levelling on and a program loaded, because the grid is laid over the program's stock.
Mesh and Air Run exclude each other: switching one on switches the other off.
Probe a map
The grid is a fixed 3 × 3 over the stock: the four corners, the middle of each edge and the centre. Without stock information in the program, the toolpath's extent is used instead.
- Load the program and set work zero as you will cut it. Set Z zero on the surface the map will describe (see the datum table below).
- Tap Mesh so it is lit, then long-press it. The Mesh Probe Setup drawer opens.
- Choose the Datum: Stock top or Machine bed.
- Tap Start Probe.
- The drawer becomes Mesh Probe — Point 1 of 9. The plan view marks the point to probe (●), the points done (✓) and those to do (○); the section view shows the tool at its height. The Point readout gives its X and Y, and the plate thickness used.
- The machine moves above the point. Place the touch plate under the tool and clip the tool.
- Tap Confirm — Probe. The machine probes down, records the height, retracts and moves to the next point. While it moves, the button reads Moving….
- Repeat for every point. When the ninth is done, the Notes card records Mesh map captured, and the probed points are drawn in the view.
Abort stops at any point. If a probe fails, the drawer becomes Mesh Probe — Failed, shows where and the controller's message, and Close ends it; start again from Start Probe.
The plate's thickness comes from Settings → Connection → Touch Plate; it must match the plate you own.
Which surface the map describes
| Datum | Compensates | Set Z zero on |
|---|---|---|
| Stock top | Waviness in the stock's surface | The top of the stock |
| Machine bed | Flatness of the bed itself | The spoilboard, before mounting the stock |
While the job runs
With mesh levelling on and a map probed, each move's Z is corrected by the height at that point, interpolated between the probed points. The Notes card shows Mesh levelling on — 3x3 map with the lowest and highest deviation the map found, in mm.