COPYCAT - "KOOL"

[RICH]

Ron,
I finaly got some time to try out Copycat which you breifly went over at Cabin Fever.
It's "KOOL".
How do you get the jog shuttle to appear? Does it work?

Using manual jogging and the most sophisticated of pointing devises ( a tootpick and the a $2.00 laser with tin foil to get the dot )
you end up with something pretty kool as shown by the attachments.

It's rather quick once if you get the hang of it.

RICH

[budman68]

How does this work, Rich?

Dave

[RICH]

Dave,

You just add x,y,z values at different points and then tell Copycat what kind of moves you are making and it writes
the gcode. You can edit the gcode at anytime. Here's an example for the KooL:
1. Click new teach file
2. x & y =0 z=.1 then click rapid move .........G0 X0 Y0 Z.1  START
3. X=.1 Y=0 Z=.1            "                         G0 X.1 Y0 Z.1 START OF "K"
4. X=.1 Y=0 Z=0  Z FEED 10 feed move       G1 X.1 Y0 Z0 F10  MOVE Z DOWN
5. click Start Arc       now move to mid point of the arc     click 2nd point
                              now move to end of arc                  click End arc
  Copycat now provides the  code for a G2 or G3 move
6. Just keep putting in the values for the different points and defining the moves.

Note that i used G90 / absolute distance mode as i was just "manually" moving to points along the profile and entering
the values from my X & Y external to Mach DRO. Thus always progressive positive coordinates to deal with.

POINTING DEVICES:

The toothpick was used as a pointer ( cheap and dirty).

The laser dot could be used as a pointer ( not as accurate as the laser pointer because of dot size generated).
 Probably need around a nice .005" hole in the end of the laser instead of the .010" out of round hole put in AL foil.
 There are a few tricks on it's use that i want to try out which would make finding an odd shaped profile easy.
A scaled cross haired microscope will do the trick, but again need to fool around with what i have.

 I didn't try using the video mode where you could use a camera. Bought a  Radio Shack $20, works, but need to modify it for better resolution and adjustable distance focusing ) which could give .001 accuracy.

INPUT VALUES:
What would be nice is to have two MPG's set up one for the X & Y and just scroll around to move the axis's.
Couldn't get the jog shuttle to come up, thus the manual movement. Would be nice if the values came from
Mach's DRO's. Need to add that i don't know how or if a  Mach update will affect the Copycat ( ie; lead in rules ).
BTW, didn't try Mach TEACHING, but it's use may not be the equivilant of what Copycat can do.

Maybe Ron can give the status of where the wizard is or will go.

What can this be used this for?
1. With a good pointing device you can measure.
2. You could use it to to learn Gcode
3. You could visually create the gcode of a part profile ( reverse engineer it ).
The above come to mind and surely there are others.

I need to fool around some and check  the difference in time it takes using Copycat instead other
methods. Think it is quicker! Just another thing to add in our your bag of tricks.

As usual, a quick and dirty, tutorial would be nice. Maybe the above will surfice.  Maybe when i have some time i will
do one or you can if you wish.

Copycat is  "KOOL" !  Better than some programs out there that you pay money for.
 
As usual......more than you prabably wanted.........but didn't see anything written about it,
RICH

[budman68]

Well thank you Rich, I always appreciate the length in detail that you provide as it helps a newb like me understand things that much more.

I kind of doubt that this would be useful to me as I can draw/trace in cad fairly quick now but this was definitely a slick little wizard and caught my eye.

Thanks you again, my friend-

Dave

[RICH]

Dave,
Spent more time typing than fooling with Copycat.   
RICH

[KTM]

Hi Rich, is this wizard in the latest Mach release?
Could you please post the file.

Thanks
KTM

[budman68]

I have Version R3.042.020 and it is its own wizard called "CopyCat"

You do have to have a license for the NFS wizards to use this one

Hope that helps-

Dave

[Ron Ginger]

Glad to hear you like CopyCat.

You should not need the Jog page, CopyCat allows the jog functions to work- at least all the keyboard jogs. I dont have an MPG hooked up, but it ought to work, as should the Shuttle Pro. Ill go check it out with my ShuttlePro.

INPUT VALUES:
What would be nice is to have two MPG's set up one for the X & Y and just scroll around to move the axis's.
Couldn't get the jog shuttle to come up, thus the manual movement. Would be nice if the values came from
Mach's DRO's.

You are missing something here- the whole point of CopyCat is to get the direct input from the DROs. You jog around with the keyboard until you are at a point, then click the button for the kind of move you want- rapid or feed. CopyCat reads the DROs and builds the code.

Note the important difference between this and Brians Jcode plugin. That one records every move you make with a jog. CopyCat only records the points you select, so if you have to jog back and forth until you hit an exact point it will only record that point, not all the moves until you got there.

[budman68]

Very cool wizard Ron- 

[RICH]

Ron,
Need to revise my posting. Got it sorted out. Need to tweak the video camera to increase magnification.
The keyboard works. Thanks for the reply.

RICH