On the one year anniversary of starting this project, I am continuing to find this not yet possible to complete. Here is the latest road block I cannot get past-
I have a part I am making that takes a lot of time to cut, and it has to be flipped. I have been instructed by Carbide to not leave the machine unattended, so that’s fine. So when I have to leave, like to sleep, I have tried ‘pausing’, and then restarting when I get back. I leave the computer and the machine on.The thing is, when I get back it sometimes asked me to ‘reconnect with machine’, which means reloading and starting over. And I can find no way to start at the point (line number) that I stopped the night before. I have searched for this option, seems like it is in dev but not available?
any other ideas? I am just amazed at how many roadblocks i keep running into.
Restarting from a given line number is something which is under consideration for being added.
Rather than pause it would be better to shut the machine down, then restart things.
You can edit the G-code (it’s “just” a text file), preserving the preamble, then finding the line which was last sent, moving up from there to find a move down from safe height, then deleting everything (except for the preamble) above that.
What material are you cutting? At what feeds and speeds?
See:
for increasing the feeds and speeds — if it’s cutting well you can also use feed rate override if the project isn’t critical and the material affordably replaced.
thanks for that. feeds and speeds is a separate topic; I have been through that for too long to re-open.
but in ‘editing’ the gcode, is there a preferred way to edit? I opened it in Atom and it was completely greek; no line numbers, just full pages with no breaks.
program a false tool say tool #99 at the point you want to stop.
shut down machine
edit g code in “word” to delete everything above
then start on that tool next day
That’s a .egc file — which is encrypted you will need to decrypt it using the machine by loading it into Carbide Motion, then save as a .nc file, then you will be able to edit it.
holy cr*p it never ends. everything needs a work-around, an adjustment, some kind of hack. it’s groundhog day with different issue, every day. I know for some its fine, but I had no idea the time suck all this would be. I seriously pictured loading my file, creating my gcode, and off we go to make parts. I do not think I have ever been more wrong about expectations in learning something new, and there have been lots of them! Oh well here I go to try to figure this one out now.
I would think it would be safe or safer to start from a tool change. IE just skip from one tool change to the next, all the safe code is there. The tool change location is a consistent start point between all tool changes.
Starting from a random line mean you have to figure out how to get to that line safely
If you are editing the txt file manually , you can safely cut out the tools you have already ran.
You might have to air cut a bit of the path before you catch up to where you stopped but not every thing prior to that tool change.
Also it makes it nice if you want to clean up fuzzies. skip over the tools that cut fine to, say the “vcarve lettering” path, run that path again, then skip to the end. easy
I understand the need to restart from a line however that is a more advanced feature with some risk
Skipping tool changes to get close to where you stopped is much safer. and easier
It would be nice to have both options, one more advanced then the other.
During a tool change prompt you can simply hit skip and it can prompt you for the next tool.
Thank you and I think I understand what you’re saying and it makes sense. However I don’t think that it cures my problem as there is a lot of time in between tool changes. I am trying to cut an aluminum part that has finished dimensions of 2.25" high by 4.5 x 3. So with the limitations of this machine as far as power and torque it appears that I made a mistake thinking this was the correct machine to make this part. When I watched all the promo videos it certainly sounded like it was within its limitations but I am finding out that it just doesn’t seem to be able to handle it. The time required to machine each side is counted in tens of hours. Regarding the g-code, I have spent a few hours researching it and it looks like I’ve got a lot to learn to get to the point where I can edit it so that I can stop, have the machine disconnect for some unknown reason, and then start again at a reasonably close point. I have also had issues where even when I am monitoring it it just goes off the rails for some unknown reason. Lots of theories, but no “known” reasons. So kind of hard to fix an unknown. I’m not a guy that gives up easily but I think on this one I’m going to have to cut my losses and move on. The part I’m trying to make is for my boat, it is out of production and have not been able to source it anywhere so a year ago I decided I would try to make it myself. I’ve been able to 3D print the part and cut it out of renshape, but with this nomad3 I just don’t think it’s going to happen to make it out of aluminum.
Yep Diyguy I agree, it is not for everyone but it is a simple and safer solution for most to restart part way in to a job or to re-run a pass say to remove fuzzies or …
I suggested they have both. One a bit easier and safer and one more advance
Start at bit change ( safer )
and
Start at line number ( advanced )
Before I give up on this project, I have to ask: Is there a way to insert a “tool change” into the gcode that is not actually a tool change? Just to have the safety that is discussed above. What I mean is, it would be the same tool, but the machine would prompt for a tool change and proceed accordingly.
So I could stop the machine, go home, sleep, come back, and start again with a prompt for a tool change, and then proceed with the same tool as the session before.
Jam[quote=“diyguy, post:15, topic:64659, full:true”]
Before I give up on this project, I have to ask: Is there a way to insert a “tool change” into the gcode that is not actually a tool change? Just to have the safety that is discussed above. What I mean is, it would be the same tool, but the machine would prompt for a tool change and proceed accordingly.
So I could stop the machine, go home, sleep, come back, and start again with a prompt for a tool change, and then proceed with the same tool as the session before.
[/quote]
James,
What I suggest (maybe the safest for you) is to break up the operation into multiple operations (ie overlapping pockets, like tiling) where each pocket is a size that you can reasonably expect to do in a single sitting. Then you just run that operation and when you come back you can just run the next operation. I don’t know how big your item is, nor how much you can get done in a sitting (how long you can spend for a given setting), so I don’t know if that is breaking it up in 4 or 6 or 8 or more smaller chunks. I believe you said you have a Nomad. Are you using MeshCAM or Carbide Create (or maybe Fusion 360)? I only ask as I suspect the actual method for sub-dividing your project may differ depending on the CAM software you use. As I haven’t used MeshCAM and am only now learning Fusion360 (and Carbide Create for that matter), I’m hesitant to try and give you a “step-by-step” tutorial on how to do so, but I know others on here have done it (in either CC or F360) and could probably walk you thru the steps on how to do it. I’ve had to do the same at work, not due to session time, but size of file I can load into the machine at work (Siemens 810D controller with not enough memory, maybe 2MB on WinNT 4.0 with maybe 1GB HD). But we use AlphaCAM which definitely works differently (to some degree at least) than F360.
I wanted to do the same thing to separate between multiple toolpaths with the same tool. Normally CM just moves from one to the other if the tool is the same but I wanted to pause for various reasons.
I told it to use a different RPM on the router, like. Switch from 18,000 to 18,005. CM would pause the job and ask me to change the speed. I would just do whatever I wanted like check the sweepy or whatever and then tell it the speed was adjusted.
Sorry guys but I am confused. I have a toolpath that takes 10’s of hours, with the same tool. How do insert a tool change, or an rpm change, or change it to just do partial operations, within that one toolpath?
Another option would be when you are building the toolpaths for your item, to divide the job into smaller selections that can be run in the amount of time you want.
