Hi Rich et al.,
So, I sprung for the $175 and purchased the license to Mach3. Solved the previous G-code garble problem.
I'm cutting a profile into wood. I'm using three separate runs:
1) cut the billet down from square to round,
2) cut the desired profile into the billet,
3) make a deep, parting cut.
Now, I used the same AutoCAD file for both run 2 and run 3. I just made the parting cut deeper for run 3 and moved some surfaces up to the billet diameter so LazyTurn wouldn't waste time cutting the same areas again. I didn't move any the location of the parting cut. I just made it deeper for run 3.
I was very careful not to shift ANYTHING in AutoCAD. Indeed, I can load the two runs alternately in AutoCAD and they perfectly overlay each other. I also checked the positions of the vertical lines defining the shallow cut and the deep cut and their X values were identical. Only the length of the lines, i.e. the Y ends, were different, to set the depth of the cut.
When I fire up run 3, it wants to make the parting cut about 2 mm farther out, i.e., about 2mm offset on the Z-axis, and out of position from where the shallow version of the cut was made in run 2.
Am I missing something here? It looks like a bug in the program to me, but I'm hoping you'll have an explanation that I overlooked.
By the way, everything else is working well. I'm very pleased with myself because the hardware I scrounged and assembled is performing just as I hoped. Not a hint of chatter. Plenty of torque in the step motors. I can re-run phase 2 over and over and it overlays the previous cuts perfectly. Fun and amazing to watch.
I just can't figure out why LazyTurn is shifting the location of the parting cut.
Any ideas?
Regards,
Dave