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G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / plugin/wizard/external editor to automatically organise and edit tp-files
« on: September 02, 2015, 03:44:36 PM »
hi everyone,
my first post so please excuse my asking obvious questions..
ok.. i do build snowboards..using a bzt cncrouter, rhino/madcam to generate code and at the moment mach3 but plan to switch to mach 4 for continious support in the future.
my problem is that doing some sort of semi custom production, i have to manually choose from many existing (some hundreds) different single tp-files and add offsets manually, depending on client's board configuration.
That is time consuming and error prone.
So my idea is to get a friend who is a programmer at UCSD to write me either an external software, maybe to be somehow connected to mach or some sort of plugin or wizard or what ever, sorry have no bloody clue of programming, some vb class at uni long time ago
the design brief would be:
-some sort of simple selection/scroll down menu to choose between relevant shape parameters (6x6x3x3x3 parameters) and offsets (ca 50 offsets)
=>then relevant existing toolpath files (relatively simple 2D files) get chosen automatically (ca 14 files to be chosen ot of a number of a couple hundred, i would think by their file name), some of them
summarised/integrated as defined. total output number of resulting files would be ca 4-5.
=>x/y/z offsets get added automatically into these 4-5 files as defined/chosen in scroll down
=>a great goodie would be if it could mirror single toolpaths around an axis other than 0/0, change the direction they are running (keep it clockwise), add an offset and summarise as said above, would cut down CAD/CAM
work to generate exiisting base file significantly, but not sure if that's possible
Also my friend said he could quite easily write something external, maybe webbased so he could use a configurator on my website, but then i would need to manually open the new changed files in mach?
Or he could write some sort of plugin that could doo all that inside of mach 3 or 4?
What do you guys think? any tips will be highly appreciated !!!
As he is no cnc/gcode guy and doesn't know anything about gcodes, i need to provide him with the relevant changes in code that need to be made automatically and the exact positions of tose added code/changes in the existing codes.
My understanding of code is quite basic as well , so i could do with some help, thanks
An abbreviated example of one of the 2D routing codes generated in Madcam for mach3 would be as follows, i left out the center part, as it is of no importance..:
G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90 G64
G21
(6mm)
M6 T1
M03 S15000
G01Z30.000
G00X-1284.500Y-420.000
Z16.350
Z15.000
G01Z0.000 F100
X-1284.953Y-420.003F1500
X-1285.407Y-420.011
........
......
X-1391.500Y-645.000
Y-648.000
X-1406.500
G00Z8.175
G00Z16.350
M5 M9
M30
so my questions regarding this:
-where do i insert a global offset of let's say +5mm in x y or z direction and how would the correct spelling be? would that be the same for mach 3 and 4?
-how would i summarise the code above with another code into one tp file? (let's assume i just use the same one twice) how would then header/start and tail end look like? with no pause, with a pause after moving to a
predefined position, and with or without different offsets for the two parts?
- is it possible to mirror single toolpaths around an axis other than 0/0, ( i think you do that with some sort of scaling and -1 ?) AND also change the direction they are running (keep it clockwise), add an offset and summarise as said above, would cut down CAD/CAM work to generate exiisting base file significantly, but
not sure if that's possible
hmm my head hurts...i really hope i managed to explain this so it makes some sense..please let me know if not
thanks a lot in advance to everyone..
cheers,
andi
my first post so please excuse my asking obvious questions..
ok.. i do build snowboards..using a bzt cncrouter, rhino/madcam to generate code and at the moment mach3 but plan to switch to mach 4 for continious support in the future.
my problem is that doing some sort of semi custom production, i have to manually choose from many existing (some hundreds) different single tp-files and add offsets manually, depending on client's board configuration.
That is time consuming and error prone.
So my idea is to get a friend who is a programmer at UCSD to write me either an external software, maybe to be somehow connected to mach or some sort of plugin or wizard or what ever, sorry have no bloody clue of programming, some vb class at uni long time ago
the design brief would be:
-some sort of simple selection/scroll down menu to choose between relevant shape parameters (6x6x3x3x3 parameters) and offsets (ca 50 offsets)
=>then relevant existing toolpath files (relatively simple 2D files) get chosen automatically (ca 14 files to be chosen ot of a number of a couple hundred, i would think by their file name), some of them
summarised/integrated as defined. total output number of resulting files would be ca 4-5.
=>x/y/z offsets get added automatically into these 4-5 files as defined/chosen in scroll down
=>a great goodie would be if it could mirror single toolpaths around an axis other than 0/0, change the direction they are running (keep it clockwise), add an offset and summarise as said above, would cut down CAD/CAM
work to generate exiisting base file significantly, but not sure if that's possible
Also my friend said he could quite easily write something external, maybe webbased so he could use a configurator on my website, but then i would need to manually open the new changed files in mach?
Or he could write some sort of plugin that could doo all that inside of mach 3 or 4?
What do you guys think? any tips will be highly appreciated !!!
As he is no cnc/gcode guy and doesn't know anything about gcodes, i need to provide him with the relevant changes in code that need to be made automatically and the exact positions of tose added code/changes in the existing codes.
My understanding of code is quite basic as well , so i could do with some help, thanks
An abbreviated example of one of the 2D routing codes generated in Madcam for mach3 would be as follows, i left out the center part, as it is of no importance..:
G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90 G64
G21
(6mm)
M6 T1
M03 S15000
G01Z30.000
G00X-1284.500Y-420.000
Z16.350
Z15.000
G01Z0.000 F100
X-1284.953Y-420.003F1500
X-1285.407Y-420.011
........
......
X-1391.500Y-645.000
Y-648.000
X-1406.500
G00Z8.175
G00Z16.350
M5 M9
M30
so my questions regarding this:
-where do i insert a global offset of let's say +5mm in x y or z direction and how would the correct spelling be? would that be the same for mach 3 and 4?
-how would i summarise the code above with another code into one tp file? (let's assume i just use the same one twice) how would then header/start and tail end look like? with no pause, with a pause after moving to a
predefined position, and with or without different offsets for the two parts?
- is it possible to mirror single toolpaths around an axis other than 0/0, ( i think you do that with some sort of scaling and -1 ?) AND also change the direction they are running (keep it clockwise), add an offset and summarise as said above, would cut down CAD/CAM work to generate exiisting base file significantly, but
not sure if that's possible
hmm my head hurts...i really hope i managed to explain this so it makes some sense..please let me know if not
thanks a lot in advance to everyone..
cheers,
andi