This section clarifies the role of the Retract option in drilling cycles.
When completing a “Hole Cycle” dialog you are asked for depth settings of ZLEVEL, RETRACT DISTANCE, DEPTH and ZCLEAR.
For single level cycles the RETRACT DISTANCE is passed to the Code Generator as a Retract Plane set at ZLEVEL+RETRACT. If no retract distance is given the Retract Plane defaults to the Clearance Plane Height.
For Multilevel drilling the ZLEVEL is ignored and a RETRACT distance is passed to the Code Generator. If a RETRACT distance is not stated it defaults to the ZCLEAR height. The Code Generator will then set up a Retract plane based on the height of the first point and that Retract Distance. For this reason it is recommended that in Multilevel Drilling a RETRACT distance should always be entered in the dialog.
If any multilevel cycles are to be used it is suggested that for best results all hole cycles with the same tool should be treated as multilevel. A combination of multilevel and single level cycles with the same tool may not give the expected NC output.