Hi Stephen,
as an FYI those grbl settings are actually stored on the CNC and is read from that, so both Candle and Easel will always read the same values 
It souds like maybe your Z zeroing method is flawed, possibly the Z probe thickness is not configured properly. Easel default probe thickness is 14.99mm so if you happen to have a thicker probe, than that might be the issue. You can check this setting in Easel by going to Machine>Edit Machine and there at the lower left is a button to access the probe settings where you can set it to your probes true thickness as measured with a pair of calipers.
Over in Candle, Within the Settings there is a line of code that youād need to edit for the Z probe as wellā¦
You could kinda check this issue by using the paper method of Z zeroing and if that then allows the carve to work right, than youāve made some progress and it may either be the probe setting OR possibly the Z calibration setting ($102 in the grbl settings)
I suggest joining the Sainsmart CNC owners Facebook Group, thereās 28,000+ members and they are very quick to offer help, you likely would have gotten a response (the right response) in under an hour over thereā¦
AND a great resource for 3018 setup is the James Dean Designs YouTube channel, with a whole playlist for 3018 build, setup, and a bunch of tutorials for getting started with the machine.
This is the entire 35 video Playlist based on the 3018 model>>>>