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Mach4 General Discussion / CNC movements not smooth
« on: July 11, 2016, 02:24:21 PM »
Hi,
Lately, I have been developing a laser engraving process which let me paint a picture on a piece of wood or other material. Everything related with the laser is fine and I am having a great time experimenting with it.
Originally I bought the PicEngrave 5 Pro software to generate my G-Code but I quickly moved on to programming my own software. So far, the software is great and I am having a lot of fun.
The software generates a list of lines (G01 X Y) and I am using the Speed control to vary the intensity of the laser and thus change the color of each line. This allows me to effectively create some nice greyscale engraving. So far, so good.
The problem I am having is the fact that the CNC stops for a brief moment right between two G01 calls. This introduce significant delays in the process because of the large quantity of G01 calls I am making.
I have set my motors to do a very high acceleration/deceleration before/after movements in the hope that it would fix the issue. It helped but the small delay between two G01 calls seems to be introduced by Mach4 itself.
I also tried using Constant Velocity (CV) versus Exact Stops but it didn't help.
I would like my CNC to make very fluent movement and not to pause for a brief moment betwen two G01 calls.
I have attached a copy of a typical G-Code I would run on my laser engraver, you will see the large amount of G01 calls.
Any idea what could fix my problem? I have not tried to use Mach3 to do the same job since I dont want to spend time setting it up.
This is my setup:
Mach4 2872 -> ESS (Old plugin) -> G540 -> NEMA 23 (30 Kg*cm)
Thanks,
Lately, I have been developing a laser engraving process which let me paint a picture on a piece of wood or other material. Everything related with the laser is fine and I am having a great time experimenting with it.
Originally I bought the PicEngrave 5 Pro software to generate my G-Code but I quickly moved on to programming my own software. So far, the software is great and I am having a lot of fun.
The software generates a list of lines (G01 X Y) and I am using the Speed control to vary the intensity of the laser and thus change the color of each line. This allows me to effectively create some nice greyscale engraving. So far, so good.
The problem I am having is the fact that the CNC stops for a brief moment right between two G01 calls. This introduce significant delays in the process because of the large quantity of G01 calls I am making.
I have set my motors to do a very high acceleration/deceleration before/after movements in the hope that it would fix the issue. It helped but the small delay between two G01 calls seems to be introduced by Mach4 itself.
I also tried using Constant Velocity (CV) versus Exact Stops but it didn't help.
I would like my CNC to make very fluent movement and not to pause for a brief moment betwen two G01 calls.
I have attached a copy of a typical G-Code I would run on my laser engraver, you will see the large amount of G01 calls.
Any idea what could fix my problem? I have not tried to use Mach3 to do the same job since I dont want to spend time setting it up.
This is my setup:
Mach4 2872 -> ESS (Old plugin) -> G540 -> NEMA 23 (30 Kg*cm)
Thanks,