Wow - what a great improvement. I can do one of my typical jobs in 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Thank you very much. As I use your software I log the issues that I have. Sorry to bore anyone reading this but I hope that it is valuable feedback.  The biggest problem that I have.. maybe the only real problem... is saving an Lcam project. (I haven't tried a pocket job yet). There is not information enough saved to be useful - I have to start over. Again, a great job - thank you, thank you!

Lazy Cam Rev 2 Evaluation

1.)   I did a project and left everything up on my computer. I came back and the computer had powered down for the screen saver / power saver mode. It would not awaken. Had to do a 6-second power reset that acted strange (power went off almost immediately). Windows started up and told me I had a ‘Serious Error’. A ‘Stop Error’. Here was the report after the computer reported it back to Microsoft. This happened twice.
 I am not going to say that something else did not happen to my computer (at the same time) to do this but it is strange. Let’s see if anyone else had this experience.

2.)   Cut depth got me. In one of the videos it left me to think, along with the diagram to the right, that it was unsigned. It is not. Putting in .25 brought the tool up, not to the depth. Not complaining – just telling you how an ‘unskilled’ operator’s intuition made me fail the first project.

3.)    Lazycam takes up more vertical than my screen has. So I grab the separator bar between the blue work area and the lower  Tab view menu and drag it. Wow – that is great! In the Tab View window the menu tabs are cut off so I drag that window edge to make them all fit. Both of these get reset when closing out and coming back. Could you consider moving that setting to the registry to remember this setting on power cycles? (Or other method of remembering the settings).

4.)   I love the extents tab – thank you – I use this information a lot to check the fit of the design to the raw material and machine. Very handy.

5.)   My first project. I got a line of G code: N30 M3 S. Mach 3 couldn’t work with this. I looked it up and found it was 0 spindle speed. Ouch. My spindle is on/off. So the default settings you have for 0 spindle speed are probably not the best. Can I convince you to default to something safe – maybe 100 RPM?

6.)   I have a number of items on one sheet to cut so I create a lot of offsets. But I am confused. Creating an offset created a menu tab with a sub menu. I can move all the ‘sub-offsets’ to one offset layer. That is very good! Now I can set the cut info for all at once. While I moved all the cuts into one offset, can I delete the now-empty layers that they were taken from? There is a long list of these and I figure it is safer to disable them.
So since there is now a long list  I use the ‘-‘ sign to collapse all the sub-data. As soon as I uncheck an ‘Enable Layer’ all of the layers expanded again. Didn’t work out too well.

7.)   When multiple passes are required to cut to the set depth LC produces g code with a Z lift and then the z axis plunges into the work. This adds up to a lot of wasted time. It would be nice if it didn’t raise. I am actually editing that out of some G Codes myself. Not a big deal – just something nice.

8.)   I saved an LCAM project, found a mistake, reloaded it to work on it. All my offsets were gone. Mind you, I moved all the offsets to one layer. Well, actually – one was left – out of about 8. I have actually not been able to save an Lcam project and pull it up to anything that was usable. Lots to investigate but I think that there are some issues there.

9.)   Instead of ‘Send to all layers’ it would be nice to ‘Send to lower layers’ (in the tree). Why? Because I start with a chamfering tool and then cut. So a tool change is required. Not a big deal – just a thought to share.

10.)   When you ‘save’ an Lcam project  the list of existing files does not show up in the box. So the directory looks like there are no LCAM projects in it – but there are. When you then proceed to save (over an existing file) Then you get a ‘write over box?’. Again, not a big deal. Just expect to see a list of Lcam projects in the combo box.

Love it!

Thank you,
Art and I are very happy to hear that the new Lcan has mad your work go faster  !

1)   Hmmm … we will keep a look out for the crashing problem over time
2)   We know about this but I don’t think it is a problem at this time
3)   We will have a look but that is VERY complex 
4)   And that is also the same size as the stock on the screen …
5)   This is fixed in the newest rev… it will not put an S if the speed is <=0
6)   I think  in the new rev that you can select many chains and offset them all at the same time. That should fix your problem
7)   I will have a look at making a few less Z moves.. that is a good idea
   This also have been working on in the new rev
9)   Could you please tell me more about what  you are thinking ?
10)   I have not seen this problem  I will look for it

Thanks
Brian

9: Its not a big deal but.... I am routing. So I load my parts in on dxf. I need the original lines to run a round-over bit on (tool 1). So depth and cut speed are different. I send that to all the other layers because its a start (safe distance, spindle speed, etc.). Now I have a couple more layers I generated by offsets to cut the parts out (tool 2). I have to go into each of those layers and set the tool, depth and speed. (I can no longer use 'send to all layers' because I am using 2 tools.

So my point was simply - send to all layers is a great thing. But if it were 'send to lower layers' (in the tree) then I could set up layer 1 for my round over - send to lower layers. Set up layer 2 and send to lower layers. Not a big deal - maybe not right for non-router applications. Just a thought.

Thanks again for all the hard work! I love it.