When a job is finished, I would like to tell the system where to go instead of the back right corner. A lot of the time, I have to change the bit and re zero. If I could choose a place by teaching X and Y coordinates or just go to project “0”
If I have a job that requires a tool change, I would like to be able to jog the machine and be able to zero the z axis. Once complete hit continue.
Bruce Hubbs
That will likely be in V7, which should be “soon”.
I would add a few:
A way for Motion to remember what tool is in the spindle. Measuring the tool every time on shorter jobs gets old.
A button to disable the spindle (with a hot key)
More hot keys:
These changes would go a long way for those of us that would prefer a more CNC machine-like
controller. It would also allow you to add one as a product, as you already have ESP32 experience.
We already measure the tool the minimum number of times required to make sure the user didn’t change the tool without telling CM. If we remove any more, we depend on the user not changing tools in between measurements. When people change the tool at the wrong time, and it doesn’t get measured, the machine crashes and Carbide Motion gets blamed.
This happened with new and experienced users, and we probably have hundreds of tickets and forum threads full of conspiracy theories about bugs in CM causing machine crashes, when it was them changing the tool after it had been measured. (Nobody believes they made that mistake, though.)
Long story short, this system took years to iterate on, and has eliminated 100% of those crashes and a huge number of support tickets. It’s the only thing that works at scale.
Thanks for the detailed reply. That decision makes sense with the context added.
One thing I forgot to add: if you have a small job you want to run without checks, you can remove the tool changes from the code, and the job will run without checking the tool at the start of the program.
Obviously, this only works for single-tool jobs, and you’re on the hook for the crash if you change anything after the tool is measured the first time.
I have a suggestion. Is it possible to have CM remember the last tool used for the probing cycle and offer it as the first choice in the “Select Tool Diameter” menu?