More than one 8 hour overnight session was lost.
NEVER leave a CNC unattended! This is a serious violation of the safety protocols. It may not look like it, but there is a fire hazard plus a crash can seriously damager the machine if one doesn’t E-Stop it in time.
I personally know of a person who lost their detached garage due to leaving their CNC machine unattended - a serious fire. I arrived very shortly after a CNC job went astray and started a fire within the (wood) stock and the vacuum table.
Please don’t do that.
What is the percentage displayed in Carbide Motion?
Personally, I find the percent of little use. I would like to see something like this:
When one loads the G code, I want a box (a scaled outline of the bed, what size matches the machine; may change over time as more C3D devices come into existence). It’s empty.
ALWAYS let me have a color picker to set colors - there are plenty of color blind people out there! I’m not but I have a friend who is color blind more ways than I can count. He needs to do something really weird to my (and your?) eyes to be able to see anything (common red/green/yellow setups are nearly invisible to him).
There is a button (“visualize”) that runs the G code throwing away Z. Now I can get check that things fit on the bed and I didn’t screw up a zero. The lines and pixels are in the “prep” color. Didn’t “visualize”? No problem.
Now I have a “run” button. It runs the job and replaces the “prep” color (if it is there) with the “run” color as it goes. You can have a little field somewhere with the percentage complete. This visualization is a great way to check ones X0Y0 and to see where a currently job is.
The current position of the tool is always clearly marked - the “position” color.
The effective X and Y axes are shown as a “cross” against the workspace/bed. Didn’t set zero? It show an icon, off the bed, where the machine thinks it is.
When I run wood, I will have a dust head and I can’t easily see what’s underneath. This solves that and also makes a great display for onlookers.
The coordinates - in G code units - are visible and changing. The velocity in units per minute would be nice (low priority). Always show my RPM when the job is running.
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