Toolpath Settings: Wood Carving vs. Laser Engraving

I currently use VCarve Pro (VCP) as my toolpath generation software.  When generating a toolpath some settings will vary depending upon what I am creating - a wood carving or a laser engraving.  Other than the tool selected from the Tool Database, there are a few other settings that will change depending upon laser engraving or wood carving.  This page is a brief summary of those differences.

Z Movement

Typically wood carving involves a lot of Z movement as the bit needs to raise and lower.  For laser stuff you do not want that - you want it to stay at that set Z height.  You should have your Z height set to known value which provides he best focus point.

In VCP, in the Toolpath commands, there is an option to Set the Material Setup. 

Within that Material Setup section, at the bottom, are where I make my changes.

Referencing the above 2 images, the settings on the left are what I use for my wood CNC carvings.  Your values may be different and that is fine.  The image on the right shows my settings for my laser engraving projects.  Since VCP will not allow fields to be 0, I use the very small value of 0.0001 inches.  There will be some small Z movement but it is negligible.

NOTE: This is V-E-R-Y important - if you go back and forth between CNC wood and laser engraving projects be sure to check these values every time before generating g-code.  VCP will remember prior settings and you do NOT want to go from a laser to a wood project and forget to reset these Z height values or you quite possibly will ram the bit into the side of the wood when the router is being moved from one carve location to another.