Hi all,

I haven't got Mach3 or 4 yet as I'm still on the fence as to whether a cnc machine will meet my needs. I want to use one to score glass ready for cutting and the glass scoring tool I want to use is a bit like a trolley wheel - where the scoring edge trails behind the centre point of rotation. So as you drag this tool across the glass, the swivelling scoring point will be a good few milimeters behind the centre and this will obviously cause inaccuracies when going round corners and curves.

The only similar cnc example I can think of is one for cutting card that has a trailing blade (a tangental cutter) - but this type of machine has a 4th axis, which I could use, and Mach3 supports, but it will add problems that will inhibit the glass from breaking as it should.

any advice appeciated.

The compensation for an offset cutter is normal controlled in the CAM side. I would take a look at SheetCam and use their KNIFE plugin to create your Gcode.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

cheers - that looks like it'll work but it's a pain you have to have so many different software programs just to use a cnc. you'd think it would all be built into one program.

If you do NOT want to do the offsetting with it just use a Knife that doe NOT have a trailing offset and set up mach3 to do Tangential cutting.

There are MANY  functions you have to master to do CNC well (;-). Remember that the actual controller is dumb as a stump, it only does what you tell it to do. OFFSET Knife cutting is NOT a normal CNC machine function it is ONE of the specialties machine functions.

Drawing   (Create the part)
CAM         (Convert the Part drawing into Gcode)
Gcode     (Understanding the Motion)
Hand Coding   (Creating the Gcode by hand)

Just a thought, (;-) TP