In Carbide motion, is it possible to display the tool change comment (Line 3) during the actual m6 command? Similar to how it displays the tool number, I would think this could help with identifing the correct tool for those who don’t have the tool numbers memorized.
For example line 3 is the tool change comment
1 (Face)
2 T41250 M6
3 (1/4" Single Flute Endmill Coated)
4 S24000 M3
5 G54
6 G0 X0.1894 Y-0.5208
7 Z1.35
I’ve moved the topic to feature requests, and Rob may take a look at this as he can. I know he’s been working on enhancements for the Shapeoko 5 machines (can’t wait!) for carbide motion/create.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure if I should label it as a feature request or not.
Looking forward to seeing more about the SO5 too.
PrusaSlicer dumps all of the print settings into the .gcode file as coments. Some at the beginning, and most at the end. It also comments most of the commands in-line. Example:
; generated by PrusaSlicer 2.2.0+win64 on 2020-08-01 at 17:49:49 UTC
;
; external perimeters extrusion width = 0.45mm
; perimeters extrusion width = 0.45mm
; infill extrusion width = 0.45mm
; solid infill extrusion width = 0.45mm
; top infill extrusion width = 0.40mm
; support material extrusion width = 0.35mm
; first layer extrusion width = 0.42mm
M73 P0 R912
M73 Q0 S919
M201 X1000 Y1000 Z200 E5000 ; sets maximum accelerations, mm/sec^2
M203 X200 Y200 Z12 E120 ; sets maximum feedrates, mm/sec
M204 P1250 R1250 T1250 ; sets acceleration (P, T) and retract acceleration (R), mm/sec^2
M205 X8.00 Y8.00 Z0.40 E4.50 ; sets the jerk limits, mm/sec
M205 S0 T0 ; sets the minimum extruding and travel feed rate, mm/sec
Carbide Create could do something like either one of those options. My thoughts for each option, for what it is worth (hint: you can’t buy anything with it).
In-line comment - you have to scroll through the gcode to find all of the tool changes. I think this would be tedious to have to go through 10K lines to get to the last tool change in that job.
Tool catalog dump at the beginning of the file - now you can either write them down real quick if it is only 1 or 2 tools used for the job, or do a screen-grab of that comment block and reference it while cutting.
CNCjs and gSender will display the comment after the M6 command. If something is done with thia idea (of adding more tool information to the CM prompt), I would vote to do so in the same way as it is both easy to implement and it is nice if more software adopts the same conventions instead of having different conventions. For example when CNCjs / gSender processes the line:
T4 M6 ; tool #4 / 2L O flute for aluminum
will display a message on the screen like:
Found T4: tool #4 / 2L O flute for aluminum
and the proceed to handle the logic for a toolchange.
I’ve also already got a Fusion 360 post that outputs the tool information in a comment so it would be easy to have Carbide Motion work well with Fusion 360 for those of us using it.
@MadHatter I use Superslicer for my 3d printer, so it can behave very similarly. The tool catalog idea might be interesting an interesting concept.
@crpalmer that seems like a reasonable way to do it, my fusion 360 posts it as the next line as shown above, but none the less, if the end result makes it a little more user friendly/human readable it would be a QOL feature.
I have several custom tools set up. I finally had to put a list of the tools on my Shapeoko because I could not remember what tool was for what number. So a short description in the dialog box would help.
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