Why does my machine jump all over the board when drilling or cutting out parts, and how do I control the cutting order?

Why it happens

By default the software picks the order itself. The official wording is that, unless you tell it otherwise, the program optimizes the order to reduce machining time. That calculated order is often not the tidy row-by-row order a person would choose, so the travel can look random.

Fix for drilling

1. Open the Drilling Toolpath.
2. Check Use Vector Selection Order. The holes are then machined in the order you selected them.
3. Select the hole vectors in the order you want before calculating.
4. For long runs of holes, group each row first, then click the rows in sequence. This is the method one educator recommends for cribbage boards, because clicking a few groups is far easier than clicking hundreds of circles.

Fix for profile cuts

The Profile Toolpath has an Order tab with four choices:

• Vector Selection Order: cuts in the order you selected the vectors.
• Left to Right: starts with parts on the left of the material and works across.
• Bottom to Top: starts at the bottom of the material and works up.
• Grid: works through the parts section by section, using a grid sized to the parts.

You can tick more than one. The software then calculates each option and keeps whichever gives the shortest machining time. Tick only one if you want that exact behavior.

Pro tips

• Inner shapes are protected for you. With Vector Selection Order on a profile, a vector inside another one (like the middle of a letter O) is always cut before the outer one, regardless of the order you clicked.
• The V-Carve and Chamfer toolpath forms also offer Use Vector Selection Order, and V-Carve adds Use Vector Start Points so each segment starts near the vector's own start point.
• For the order of a whole nested sheet (small parts first, onion skin last), see the entry on what order a nested sheet should cut in. For how selection order affects other tools, see the entry on whether the order you select vectors in matters.