I got my machine a while ago and I admit, I was both too busy and a bit unnerved to start using- which ironically only fed more into my fear of spindles exploding and breaking everything because now the warranty ran out. But got to start somewhere, eh?
One thing that I wanted to know and couldn’t find is how to stop a machining when halfway through a project. Not pausing- I mean “I need to leave for the weekend and need to turn off the machine and the computer.” A lot of references I see if for pausing or just the machine. When I’m not at home, I want to turn off everything- the Nomad and the computer.
Is it possible? I read about restarting the G-code at the point of stopping. Would that work or will I need to recalibrate?
Yes, this can be done, but it requires editing the G-code — identify where the cut was left off, then determine where the cut can safely begin, preserve the preamble and save the edited G-code in a new file.
It’s not something we support, and it is hoped that a future version of Carbide Motion will have this as a feature.
Be aware that if you do this, you are are the mercy of the accuracy of the homing sequence
to reposition when you re-power. I have found the homing repeatability not to be accurate
enough for high precision work, YMMV.
Something else to watch out for over longer time frames is material shift/creep.
This topo map of Svalbard happened over the course of a weekend.
The line through the middle is probably ~1mm out of whack. The homing routine is much more accurate than this error so it wasn’t strictly caused by rehoming.
My theory, it was 60f and dry on the first day of cutting…when I resumed it was after a hot day of hard rain in an uninsulated garage.
Wood moves, who knew
(this is why I prefer metal working. Consistency. As in, I consistently know that I alone am responsible for blowing up a project/tool…no blaming Mother Nature here )
)