Never really paid a ton of attention to this, but if you do a rapid position to “C” or Center the Y value is 345mm, but if you do any of the “Southern” (SW, S, SE) rapid positions the Y value is 770mm (not 690 like I would assume). So if Center isn’t really centered, how was this value derived? Also I know that part of my workable area includes the 3" +/- inches of router hangover at the front, so that would make center REALLY not centered. So in reality these rapid positions relate to??? Wish list if anyone is listening, can we please either get macros in CM (where we can set repeatable positions for fixturing and such) or please make these rapid positions editable? I know the touch probe “is coming”, but in all honesty if I could set up fixtures with known zeros for different types of projects, THIS would be super cool (for me at least, I can’t speak for anyone else). I’ve made a few fixtures using 1/4" steel dowel pins. I drill the holes using my XXL into a sacrificial waste board, and all is cool if I never re-zero, or until I remove the fixture, then it’s trash. Not a big deal if I plan to cut say 20 Widget-A in a row, but then if I need to re-fixture to cut 10 Widget-B’s, then decide I need a couple more Widget-A’s I’m starting all over again. If I could put same pins at known positions into my more permanent waste board, then use those to align my fixtures it would be like Christmas in October, and November, and maybe even year round, …kinda… I think the probe will be great, and I plan to get one soonly (I hit refresh several times a day awaiting a blog post or new item in the store, money I don’t have burning a hole in my pocket, really…), but I don’t think it will completely solve all of my cutting needs.
p.s. Love that the 10-key support has been re-implemented, and really digging the feed over rides!!! Thanks to @edwardrford, @robgrz, @Jorge, @WillAdams and anyone else I’ve missed at C3D that may have made that happen!
@chamnit would be the other person to thank for the speed over-rides.
I adjusted the table size on my machine until I got it nicely centered (then managed to kill my board and failed to write down the dimensions and XYZ steps, so need to repeat all that).
That would be the reason behind macros, you wouldn’t have to write anything down, and (baring a hard drive failure) you wouldn’t lose anything even if a board croaked. If a place for multiple macros was set up, you’d also be able to set up multiple “zero” points, for multiple hard fixtures. I also have a 3D printing hobby, and most of the software I’ve used allows you to set some macros. I’ve also looked at several of the other hobby CNC controller softwares, and many of them also allow this. I’m really liking the way that CM4 is headed, and I like that it’s 100% compatible with my machine, add the touch plate, some user settable macros, definable non-standard tooling (for touch plate zeroing) and it’d be a home run!
Click on the words “work position” and they will magically change to “machine position”. Click on them again and they change back too.
To explain my retracted post above, I was writing how cool it would be to be able to see work position and machine position. Just after I posted I was playing around with CM and found out that it was already there. It’s like an Easter egg, those crafty folks at C3D added the feature before I could whine about it, haha!!