Hi All:

  Just a note on the forward progression of the program as I see it.

  The next phase is for multiple tool cuts. Each one building from the previous. The way I think its all going to work
is that the user will have only one button, "Cut" , which will replace the "rough" button. If you select a tool, and press Cut,
the system will do as it does now, BUT if no material will be removed, the user will be prompted as such and asked if he
would like a "finish pass" to be performed. So if a user presses Cut twice without changing tools, he will be promted
for a finish pass authorization. On the other hand, if material CAN be removed, ie: the tool or direction was changed, the system
will simply add just another rough pass only on the material left over from previous passes.

   This means Users will not be able to decide on their own to do a finish pass and no button will exist for one, LTurn will
only trigger a finish pass when a cut is requested with a tool that cannot remove any further material with arough pass.
 Its my hope this will firstly ensure that no tool can be hurt by improper finish passes that attempt to take away too much
material for the tool's  previous passes, and reduce the amount of decisions made by the user as well as reducing the number
 of buttons to two, one for tool selection, and one for CUT.

Optionally, A third button, FACE, will be added then to allow for the entire job to rotate 90 degrees on the screen
to allow for the other two buttons to be used identically, only in facing operations instead of profiling. That will leave only the final
optional button, BORE to be added for inside operations should I decide to go there.

  Finally,and optionally, two editing operations need to be added, one for drawing or modifying the a DXF profile, and one for drawing a custom tool shape.

    This would pretty much meet the specification I had planned from the start, an easy profiler system, with few buttons, and not a whole
lot of understanding required by the user as to tool loads and such, and as little "air" cut time as possible. If that can be accomplished I'll
feel we have managed to build something not readily available to the public as it stands, most programs being difficult to conceptualize exactly
what will happen in the cutting progression, and having many complex decisions to be made in the DXF to Gcode process, or simply too expensive
for the hobby level or intermittant lathe user. LTurn was never meant to replace CAM as Ive said many times, it is simply being engineered to
make a resonable and fairly powerful way of doing a quick Gocde operation from a simple DXF. The word LAZY is seomthing Im taking very seriously
in its design. We live in a Lazy world, and Im a lazy type guy.

   Im getting pretty close. The next phase will tell me just how capable I am of completion,as Im about to swap the "single pass" system to one
 of linear progression of material removed from pass to pass. If that phase works out as well as previous phases have Ill add the final finish pass
before Releaseing in Beta form and making a decision as to if I feel that facing and boring are worth moving into,though Im of the opinion
that drawing the profile to be used and saving profiles of DXF's may be a necessary thing in order to make the program fully
independant. 

 Personally Im of the opinion that profiling shouldnt be that long to full completion allowing removal of Turning from lazycam alltogether. Mayeb another 2-3 months
, who knows.. All development from that point will depend on popularity and how much the program is downloaded and used (support levels ) as Ill release a standalone
of the program to that point as a test.

 I guess from there we'll find out how many lathe people are out there that dont currently already have a favorite way of generating toolpaths. , and if
indeed there exists a real need for easy Gcodeing in Turn op's. Its turned out to be far far more complex than I originally though, and the work required has
been long and arduous, so we'll need some metric to tell me if my time is better spent elsewhere after that.

Thx, just a few noted on how I see the program developing, and what my rough schedule is on this one. 

Art
 

 

Excellent work ART.
I like the 2 button/prompt set-up.
I hope there will be enough users to justify your time spent on this project.
It surely is appreciated here.
Thanks,
RC

Hi Art

Thanks for the excellent work so far.
In my case your time is very well spent.
As you can see in the time you are working on Lazyturn there are more lathe people coming that use A lathe.
As the program is growing there are more people to come be course you make A program that people can use and is affordable so it will become possible and fun to work with A lathe.

Thanks again and greetings:
Willem

I couldn't have said anything that hasn't already been said.

Thank you Art, you've taken such a great task on with this project and have been very generous  with your knowledge and time.

It's truly appreciated how easy you've made it for this newb (me!) to even get this far. 

Thanks,
Dave

Hi Art,

I guess from there we'll find out how many lathe people are out there that don't currently already have a favorite way of generating toolpaths.

I know from the German Mach3 forum (Immo) that there are some people (besides me) who are interested in LazyTurn. It seems to become a very good tool for us hobby-millers.

Thanks for your hard work,

Andreas

Hi ART... You said you are a Lazy guy...:)Don't tell me..... and  Don't fool us man... You are the most intelligent and genius man around here... The creator of Mach series ,Lazycam and now Lazy turn must not be a common men like us.. You are an  indigenous intellectual... and i am proud of you being with us... Salute to YOU..

khalid:

  , Thanks for the comment, but really none of this is all that difficult I think, Im the slowest thing in it and believe me, I confuse myself every day. I guess I should be gratefull no true genious decided to do CNC, I woudl have been left far behind. LOL , but I do appreciate the compliment.

  My secret is that I found that you can do anything in programming if you are persistant and work through the confusion. Im lucky my concepts of LazyTurn are starting to work very well, I was getting the feeling that it needed someone brighter than I to do it because the math is very difficult to conceptualize , but suddenly I find its on its way and Im really pleased with whats coming out now. I just got multiple tool cuts working today and it looks like it really WILL be Lazy after all.

  Just a note, Im off to Florida for a short vacation week starting Saturday, so you likely wont get multiple tool cutting till a week or so after I get back. The diagnostics tests Im doing are working very well though so Im hopefull it wont be too long.

Art

Art..Your THIS humbleness killing me man Really thankful to you for taking your time and  answering my post...  Have a nice and safe Journey

Art,
Hope you enjoy the vacation and  appreciate the insight on how Lazyturn will proceed.
Have a few questions.
Will it be mandatory to make a rough pass?
Will you be able to just double click cut and get a request for a finish pass?
Will you be able to post after a rough pass?
Will a license be requred to post code? Put a little differently, what if anythiing will come with MACH?
 
I am struggling with the drawing program somewhat. Yes, you would need to save the dxf if that was provided.
Guess if a choice existed between having a drawing program with dxf save or facing and even just a simple
( if simple really exists) straight thru boring i would want the boring and facing. But that's just my preference.

It will be interesting to see the usage of Lazyturn. Only time will tell. Appreciate all you have done.
Don't get a sunburn while on vacation.
RICH

Hi Rich:

>>>Will it be mandatory to make a rough pass?

  Yes, the way it functions is to do a rough if material exists that shoudl be roughed, only do a finish if the tool is done. I will look into perhaps making it just finsh if no rough seems necessary, but
the way the algorithms work I think it needs to compute the rough ..

>>>Will you be able to just double click cut and get a request for a finish pass?

  No, the checking is mandatory as it performs many of the main calculations needed.

>>Will you be able to post after a rough pass?

  Yes, you will be able to post at any time, or just on specific stages.

>>>Will a license be requred to post code? Put a little differently, what if anythiing will come with MACH?

   Yes, and No. Ive promised from the start to give it at no cost to LCam Pro users, but that may be just Pro users up to any release date.
No real decisions have been made, Ill wait to see how it all works, how clean and how lazy it is before I decide how to handle its distribution,
Support issues and such may preclude it from being a part of Mach3's distribution, if so I may just make a separate web site for it and give licenses
to all LCam Pro users to its release date, then make it a standalone package since it could in theory be used with any lathe as long as the post processor
can be configured, but all thats a ways away, and just thoughts, I have no set plan and it depends on many things. Beta testers and such will all get free licenses ,
previous users of Turning in LCam will as well, but the distribution issues will wait till LCam and LTurn have been changed abit in what they offer and then it will
 be looked at in context of two separate packages and how best to support them.  In summary..christ knows..

Art