Evidence Official manual workflow + owner verification method Applies to Supported M-Series CNC configurations Safety High-speed coordinated motion Updated 2026-08-21

Use flight cutting

Flight cutting reduces stop-start overhead across repeated suitable features. It is an optimization, not a cure for poor pierce, focus, gas, calibration, or ordinary contour quality.

Use it only when the baseline works

First produce a repeatable conventional cut in the same material, thickness, gas, nozzle, and process. Confirm size and edge quality. If ordinary features do not cut consistently, solve that before enabling a faster motion strategy.

Suitable jobs

Flight cutting is most useful for arrays of small, regular features where the software can coordinate a continuous efficient route. Irregular contours, mixed feature sizes, warped stock, weakly supported remnants, or geometry near clamps/table edges deserve conventional processing until proven safe.

Setup sequence

1. Save a copy of the known-good ordinary job and process.
2. Verify drawing units, remove duplicates, and organize the repeated features.
3. Confirm head calibration, sheet flatness, nozzle/optic condition, gas delivery, and extraction.
4. Enable the documented flight-cutting function for supported geometry only.
5. Review any lead, pierce, transition, speed, and path options against the software/manual version supplied for the machine.
6. Simulate the entire job. Look for long unexpected diagonals, skipped features, crosses through released parts, or a route near clamps.
7. Frame with emission disabled.
8. Test a small array at a conservative area of the sheet while supervising it.

Compare, do not assume

Place the flight-cut coupon beside an ordinary-cut coupon. Check every feature for full separation, entrance/exit mark, taper, heat accumulation, diameter/width, and positional consistency. Record cycle time only after quality passes.

Stop or revert when

• the head crosses or strikes a released part;
• incomplete features appear intermittently across an array;
• heat/dross accumulates progressively along the route;
• motion differs from the simulation;
• an FTC, following, servo, gas, or source alarm occurs.

Revert to the saved conventional file/process and diagnose the underlying layer. Do not hide intermittent failures by increasing power across the whole route.