Carbide Motion 2 Beta

@3dsteve I’ve been using it since… March? Possibly earlier. I don’t think there are substantial release notes beyond Rob’s comments in this thread. He’s currently tied up with some major “under the hood” changes for the next set of updates, but I’d say it’s safe to say it’s stable enough and good to go :relaxed:

I’ve put what I’ve been able to find here: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Carbide_Motion_Machine_Control_Software

I was able to download and install the latest version of Carbide Motion yesterday.
I hope to have a chance to try it this weekend.

Using Version 2.0.3.14 I have noticed that for every tool change it indicates the correct tool that I defined in MeshCam but that the actual tool definition always says ‘1/8" Square…’.

I’m not sure if this is a failure with MeshCam or with CM2 but wanted to bring it up if anyone else has noticed this (seems that it’s not a functional bug rather display only as the toolpath itself is still fine per the cutting).

I wish you were able to put a lot more description on the tool presets

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I jut posted a new beta for Windows at:

​http://carbide3d.com/files/beta/CarbideMotion-Setup.exe

​I added a software rendering option that may fix the rendering problems that people have had.

I was in a rush to get this out for testing that problem so these are also in there but untested:

  • No homing cycle on a Shapeoko when the program is cancelled
  • Table forward on Nomad on an M30
  • Spindle on/off command in jogging in Nomad
  • Optional homing after tool change
  • Recognizes new tool numbers: 201, 202, 121, 122
  • Updated installer to overwrite QT libs on each install to make sure uninstalls are not required before updates.

Those may or may not work reliably at this point but you can try them. I’m very interested to hear if the rendering problems or blank windows go away.

​-Rob

Cool Rob!. Any idea of when updates might be coming to the Apple OSX version?.

Probably a couple of days. We just need to get feedback on the Windows change and test the other features.

-Rob

The latest beta fixes the OpenGL problem I was having on the Dell notebook!

I haven’t tested any of the other new features.

Samuel

Thanks Samuel- that’s good to know.

-Rob

The “opt-out” homing at toolchange is a welcome update, as is the “present to front” table at the end of the machining. I’m using the wrench gcode as the test file, and the new build ran it flawlessly. I did not have video issues on my Dell Win7 notebook on the earlier build, so can’t speak to any improvements there.

Randy

Thanks for the feedback. If that’s the case, I’ll try to post a Mac version tomorrow.

-Rob

On the rapid positioning (click and go), I was surprised to see the Nomad using fast jog speed rather than rapid (G0) speed. Is there a reason for that that I’m missing?

Any news on the update for Mac?

I miss 10mm steps.

The arrow keys work about 1/4 of the time.

Thank you for “jump to”.

I tried jogging, setting zero and air cutting a couple of jobs with version 2.0.322. 2015-07-16. I found the following:
M30 brought the table forward just fine.
The option to skip homing after tool change worked fine. Can you expand this option to other modes or make skipping homing “sticky”?
I had no problems with rendering. The graphics looked good and displayed reliably.
Homing and tool length setting seemed faster.
The Nomad ran the jobs with no new issues.

Keyboard input in jog mode seemed more reliable. Slowing down my tap rate while jogging with the keyboard reduced the “double hit” rate to almost nothing.

Jogging with mouse clicks produced double clicks more frequently than when using keyboard input. this persisted even if I waited for motion to stop before my next click. I did a series of 20 clicks in each direction of each axis with the keyboard arrows and mouse. I got 3 double hits using the keyboard and 21 double hits with the mouse. No axis seemed worse than another.

Arrow and page up/down keys would stop controlling jogging after returning from set zero mode if I entered new values for any axis using the keyboard. If I did not use the keyboard set a new value, jogging wold still work with the keyboard.after returning from set zero mode.

I was not able to figure out how to turn the spindle on during jogging. Also how would we set the speed the spindle will run at during jogging?

I ran the installer without uninstalling the last version. I am running Win7 SP1 on a Lenovo T-410 laptop with 4Gb memory. I am using the built in touch pad for mousing. The display is1440x900 resolution in smaller text/icon mode.

Thanks for the update!

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@robgrz: I also don’t see this command anywhere…

Version 2.0.322
2015-07-16

Hey @robgrz. Any news on the Mac update?. Would love settings updates on new mills in the store. Let me know if I can do any testing for you guys.

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I’m also interested in a new beta for the Mac. I’ve wanted some of the new features for a while.

When “Setting 0 for all”, it would be nice to be able to just manually, by hand, freely move the installed cutter end to the zero point that one wants. Then have it calculate from that point by clicking something like “Zero all from this location”. I don’t know if this makes any sense, or is even remotely possible. Maybe, there are good reasons for not doing this? Possibly this could be done in conjunction with the jog function?