Why does NC file appear to be metric?

Software Carbide Create
1

Stupidity wins again! I deleted something from a c2d file - version 8 that I shouldn’t have. Now I’m trying to recover by going to an NC file that had the now missing elements. I’ve done just enough tweaking of NC files that I was confident that I can do it.

The problem and question: it appears to me that my NC files are now in metric. Looking at the source C2D file, the job setup says “inches” and I don’t recall ever changing that. Did that change with CC8?

Here’s a short sample of the code. The section that I need to work on runs to 4k or 5k steps, so I’m really wishing I could see this in inches.

2

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all done in metric under the hood, maybe someone who knows for sure can confirm/deny.

3

This can be toggled based on the Post-Processor settings at Edit | Select Post-Processor in Carbide Create.

1 Like
4

Got it. Thanks a bunch! The fine print gets me every time.

5

Although it doesn’t make a huge difference, using metric is inherently more precise than using imperial. NC files are almost always written out using a fixed number of digits after the decimal point, so (for example) 0.0001 mm is always going to be more precise than 0.0001 inches.

I think that GRBl interally always uses mm, so sending inches just gets converted to mm anyways, but these mm would be less precise than if the GCode was in mm originally.