My System Info:
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.2
Raspbian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Carbide Motion 635
My experience:
A couple projects on the S5Pro
Some Feature Requests:
1 - Add per toolpath group (or, per “unique operation”) progress bar. The progress bar shows progress of the entire project. It’d be nice to have an indicator of how far along the machine is on the CURRENT cut. For example there may be 6 or 12 or more toolpath groups in a project, I’ll group them by “workholding”, “starting holes”, “through holes”, “part cuts”, something descriptive of the purpose of that group of cuts. Those groups are ordered by necessary operations e.g., workholding needs to go first and will mill small pockets to indicate where to add screws to hold down the workpiece safely outside of a finished part. Then groups are ordered by same bit to reduce tool changes. Having a more fine grained progress indicator will help me know when to expect a tool change and in case something goes wrong during a cut I have a better estimate of what toolpaths are already done and can be disabled.
2 - Can there be a “Test” tab alongside “Run” and “Jog”? Specifically I want to test workpiece margins before cutting to make sure I zero the X and Y with enough margin from the edges that it won’t rip out during a cut. For example, I’m usually cutting 2ft x 4ft plywood but with the kerf this might be closer to 23,1/2" x 4 ft if I get a 4ft x 8ft ripped at Home Depot and they measure badly. If I have a large design and try to maximize material usage I want to / need to place the toolpaths close to the edge of the piece. I try to inset by at least 1 - 1.25" but sometimes it’s still cutting it close for the margins and risks the edge of the plywood ripping out. If the edges rip off it may take some workholding with it, may grab the bit, cause drift etc. I can jog the machine to test X/Y limits but it’d be nice to have a test that will do this, that I don’t forget to run because it’s on a dedicated tab before running the job. This is not to jog to the corners, it’s to jog to the absolute X/Y limits that the machine can travel to. This is one of my most common problems with jobs (the plywood workpiece edge rips out and causes drift / destroys a cut / breaks tabs and the part gets loose during a cut). A similar useful test would be to travel to the absolute X/Y limits of the project (min/max of where the toolpaths are actually going to cut + slowly trace the box representing those min/max limits to ensure there’s no collision with workholding) There are probably other tests worth running. Users should also be able to load custom tests and enable / disable tests.
3 - It seems like the bit zeroing process can be more streamlined. If I zero a bit at the SouthWest corner the zeroing process means the machine will traverse max-X all the way to the bitsetter at the SouthEast corner, then traverse all the way min-X back to the SouthWest corner. I’m usually ready to run the job so I immediately traverse all the back again to the SouthEast corner. Unless I’m missing something that process is almost funny how needless it is.