I had this posted somewhere else, but I will see if you can help me here.
I own an engraving business where we make signs for the country/gift shop industry. We run multiple phrases on 1x4 boards. We use Mach3 to run our EZ-Router, and I generate my toolpaths from VCarve. So if I want to engrave the phrase, "Welcome to the Cabin" on a 3 ft 1x4, I choose that toolpath, put the board in, hit start, and it engraves it in about 3 minutes. Then I have to go change the board and pick the next phrase. That leaves me with having to change the board every 3-5 minutes, which gets old. Since we run a very large volume of these signs, and we have a LOT of different phrases, I would like to have some sort of an add-on for my Mach3 controller. What I would like to be able to do is load the machine with 3 1x4s (we only use 1x4s), pick the three toolpaths (phrases) I want on each board, hit start, and walk away and do other shop stuff for 15 minutes.
So say a customer wants a 3 ft "Welcome to the Cabin", a 3 ft "Welcome to the Lake" and a 3 ft "Life's Better at the Beach". So I want to be able to load the three boards on the table, pick the three different toolpaths out, hit start, and the machine will engrave each of the phrases on each of the boards. Does anyone know of a program add on I can get for that? Can anyone program something like that for me?
Bill
**Here was the reply**
Just copy each of your programmes in turn into a blank notepad file, take out the M30 in between these programmes and add a G52 Y* (or X* if stacking lengthways)
What that will do is move your Y axis (or X) by the amount you have entered (where I have put the *)
Its easier to do than explain, do a bit of messing around with the G52 and you will soon see how it works.
Hood
**Here's my reply***
Sounds great, and I knew this sort of thing was possible, but it may take a minute or two to do each time, and since each order for each customer will be different, I will have to do this [/i]every fifteen minutes
just to save a few minutes of changing the board. I guess what I had in mind was a button I would click and it would say, "load first toolpath" "load second toolpath" "load third toolpath" and Mach would do it for me. Does a program add on exist like this? I would use this sort of thing ALL THE TIME. As far as how many toolpaths/phrases I have, I run approximately 140 different toolpaths for that tool (60 degree V Bit) alone. So as you can see, the number of possibilities I have is astronomical.
Thanks for the reply!
**************
Can anyone help?
Bill
www.engraversoflight.com