Spoil board program versus Vectric pocket vectors

[toro5xi]

I have been using my AR4 basic machine for a few months now and am very happy with it.  I am embarrassed to say I have not surfaced the spoil board but so far my basic design work has come out ok.  I have trammed milling machines so understand the concept but was afraid to run the canned spoil board program as I didn’t know how much it would take off.  I think I had also heard some users were not crazy about the spoil board program.
I guess my question is why would someone just not use a pocket program from Vectric for my 24 by 24 dimension or any of the respective machines work area and say take off 10 thousands and see if the whole surface is cut?  
Thanks for any thoughts on this.  

[stevem]

It's not hard to create your own surfacing file and run it. I think the depth of cut is only .04mm which isn't that deep. Most of us actually hav another piece of mdf that sits over the supplied pieces the machine comes with.

[toro5xi]

Thanks for the help

[Axiom Tool Group]

The spoil board program IS just created using a pocket tool-path within the software. Its currently designed to remove just 0.25mm (0.010").

However, a pocket tool-path is not enough as the bit can not leave the pocket area and the spoil boards are slightly over-sized. So the surfacing program we have created also includes a profile tool-path, which will move the bit farther outside the pocket....cleaning up the outside boundary.