Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: cismontguy on February 03, 2014, 11:10:14 AM
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Hello,
I just "wrote" a new engraving program with morning using BobCAM V24 It ran perfectly in the BobCAM simulator. I then opened the G code in Mach 3 on our CNC router's computer. The engraving is straight forward, on a 9" x 9" square. But I cannot see the artwork in the Mach 3's Tool Path window, on the right hand side of the monitor? There is a tiny little green dot that you can not zoom up to, no matter how you try? Any ideas? The machine was working fine last week.
I did try loading another file that has been used before, and it opened in the tool path window, just fine?
Thanks,
Cismontguy
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Check the program limits to see if the engraving is far away from the origin.
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Hello,
I am not sure what you mean, by limits?
The 9"x 9" rectangle is at 0,0 for the lower right hand corner of the X,Y axis in BobCAM.
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Also, do you get an error message in Mach3's status line? Sounds like maybe a problem with the BobCAM gcode.
John Chaamplain
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Go to the Toolpath page, and see what the X any Min and Max values are in the upper right part of the screen.
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Thanks for the replies!
OK the Program Limits screen shown on the Tool Path page of Mach 3 are : X range +0.00 +15.540 / Y range +0.00 and +7.360 which are well within the working range of my CNC router area of movement.
I decided to take a chance and just run the program and it ran just fine but for some drawing detail errors that became apparent when the tool cut the sample materal, but still no tool path illustration shown in Mach 3?
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Just to answer the other question, Mach 3 is not showing any error messages on loading the file and creating the tool path.
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Do you have a licence?
Hood
Edit, sorry just noticed you said it ran fine so not sure whats going on.
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Do you have the toolpath turned off?
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Hello,
Yes, were have a fully licensed copy of both BobCAM and Mach 3. Yes the Tool Path function is turned on . I can see it on other CNC programs I have loaded this morning to make double sure something in the settings has not been changed between today and last week.
Cismontguy
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If you want to attach your code I can see if it looks ok here.
Hood
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Hello Forum,
I am not sure whether I have solved the problem, but I found there was an error in the drawing and or Gcode that, on simulation run in Mach 3 the program stopped. The line reads "Zero Radius ArcLine 2637". I have no idea what this means, and without being able to see the tool path I did not know where it was on the project, so I just ran a piece of material and it was in the letter "C" in some of the text. I tried redrawing the file's art work several times and this same error came up several times, further down the Gcode. But after I simplified the artwork, I got a ToolPath displayed in Mach 3 and the program ran without a problem.
So I guess, if you do not get a ToolPath image in Mach3 you had better not run the program until you find the error in the code. I hope that is correct.
Cismontguy
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If you don't see the toolpath, the error should be displayed as soon as you load the g-code.
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Hello,
The error was in the Status Line and I did not see it or it did not come up until I ran the Mach3 simulation. I did not know that if the program ran OK in BobCAM's simulation it might not be OK in Mach3. I am just not that familiar with the software yet. Cutting a second sample right now. First one came out OK.
Hope this helps someone else in the future!
Cismontguy