Warning: Bad gcode after Vectric Vcarve 10.5 Update

This is the list from 10 to 10.5.
Among the changes v9.5 to v10, the two features that made me upgrade are Photo VCarving, and Multiple Clearance Tools (though not revolutionary, they come in handy)

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Support mailed me the old post-processor and asked me to try it.

Been there; done that

@Julien have to been able to replicate the missing feedrate issue?
Edit: looks like the inch pp is missing the [F] on the first plunge.

@johnelle I’m assuming you’re using the inch pp? Looks like they left out the feedrate for the first Z plunge. I’m on my phone, or I’d post a replacement.
Did the old one work?
I’m not sure the old versions differentiated plunges from feeds… I’ll look later.

No, but that’s because I don’t use VCarve’s default post processors anymore. Once your create a “MyPostP” custom directory to store your own custom PP (in this case, yours), the other ones don’t even show up in the selection list (or maybe I changed a setting somewhere so that it’s the case, can’t remember).
And the upgrade process preserves the user PP directory, so I never had to care about whatever changes they do in theirs.

John,

Since you are already in touch with their support, if you think it helps you could tell them that v10.5 + using the “old” post processor works fine, so it’s definitely a bug in the updates they did to their Shapeoko (or GRBL) post-processors:

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Here’s some additional information about the feedrate problem for Shapeoko.

Thanks for the additional feedback. The missing feedrate is a mistake in the imperial units (inches) version of the grbl post from which the shapoko one derives. Sorry about that, we have fixed this for the next patch (due later today). In the meantime, I think you should be able to correct it yourself if you cannot afford to wait for the patch.
Laser Module with Shapeoko - Vectric Customer

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So for what it is worth i updated to the latest version 10.503 and re generated the tool path without any issues this time, made no changes or tinkered at all, simply loaded the file up regenerate all and no errors at all now.

Thought i would share.

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I did my toolpath with 10.503 also and it screwed up the ramps on my profile cuts and @Julien was able to duplicate it. I have since switched back to @neilferreri 's and it works ok. So use the Vectric PP at your own risk.

I have sent my issue to Vectric support so hopefully they’ll fix it soon

Hey guys,
I stepped through a rotten board on my deck, so my day was filled with the fun of fixing that. Good luck finding pressure treated lumber out there. I had to go to three places, and ended up finding the only decent 2x8 in the city and ripping it down to fit.

Anyway, looks like it was the post processor after all. The previous versions did NOT have the “plunge” blocks. I don’t know if we should have them…I’ll do some tests. I glanced at the PPs @Julien sent earlier and it was evident that the inches version was missing the feedrate. They just use the grbl as the base for the Shapeoko version, so it would be an issue with both.

My recommendation would be to stick with the old PPs unless you have a reason not to. I’m not sure the plunge feedrate is set correctly in the new versions. You’ll also run into arc issues eventually with the new versions. #justUseMetric

@johnelle You didn’t reply to any of my previous messages, but did the old PP work? I think it should have.

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I had troubles with the imperial version all the way back to 9.5 and never did in the mm version

My suspicions are pointing to arcs

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Here’s another post from the Vectric forum with a reminder linked to our @wmoy. VCarve Pro ramp on curve - Vectric Customer

… So, I assume from earlier posts the the Shapeoko (mm) post processor is the culprit? … Interestingly, this problem also plagued other software users a couple years ago until a fix was made. Reference to that problem can be found here

I’m getting the old “Arc end point error” ever since the upgrade… Glad I saved what I used 10.5 for so I can go back to 10.0.

They added back arcs, but did not update the precision of those arcs.

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It’s hitting the inch version of their post processors more since the mm version has more precision with the limits on decimals they’re using in the Post Processor.

That’s why I changed to 4 places after the decimal for mm and 6 for inches. Vectric’s use 3 and 4.
Their previous versions had arcs disabled which is why V-Carve arc errors were not a problem.

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I should have read this before trying a nw project, using the dble sided feature in Vcarve 10.5. and adding the bitsetter made things even more unpredictable.
I had a bunch of problems which I wont’ elaborate on, but glad that I did my test run in MDF.
Very frustrating to have these compatibility issues.I can see that it is simulating the tool paths fine.
Just doesn’t perform on the machine.
For now I will revert back to using 10.0 until the dust settles and just doing dble sided part manually, at least the bitsetter will / should work ok, as before.

@aaronz
What post processor did you use?

The same one used on Vcarve 10.0- which worked fine on that version-
Shapeoko for Bitsetter inches.
Shapeoko_inch_TC.pp from Feb 7th

is there an update?

I’ve only read posts on the Vectric forum that the post problems have been repaired with 10.505. I never saw any problems with my Vcarve Desktop.

Probably because I’m using @neilferreri’s version of inch/metric post processors.