Has anyone used the G Wizard editor (free trial)? This is a program issued by the “CNC Cookbook” folks that provided us with the nice description of Climb vs conventional cutting.
I wanted to edit a G Code (35K lines of code) file and can not figure out the machine setting needed for the Maslow. I keep getting spindle not turning errors and can not figure out how to turn this off. I assume that I need to also confirm the post processor that we should use.
I am just looking to reset all the “Z” vertical move travel speeds. It defaults to a single value (using Easel). While this is fine for the plunge cutting, I want to go 2-3 times faster when removing bit form piece. I have run some test parts and almost half of my machining time was waiting for the “Z” up movement.
I’ve not used it - it looks good but expensive. The feature that explains the parts of each line is nice.
For the Z axis movements, they fall into two groups. There are gcodes that move in X and/or Y and Z together, as I think the climbing cuts you mention do. Those move the Z axis at it’s maximum speed.
Then there are the ones that move the Z axis by itself, typically before and after a transit to the next cut location. Those are of the form
G0 Znnn Fnn
or
G1 Znnn Fnn
Where Fnn is the speed. Your post processor may have a setting for Z axis speed that it uses for those. Or they are easy to find with a plain text editor, and replacing the Fnn with a higher number could/would speed up those parts. It may be that your z-axis is already moving at it’s maximum rate, the stock motor was chosen for torque rather than speed.
The code change I understand. I was hoping that this program would allow me to edit the code easier than changing it one line at a time. This program has a copy and replace command. Is there a good free editor available?
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a good free editor available?
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Maybe someone else will chime in.
I just use a text editor - Notepad++, BBEdit, or pico. There usually aren’t more than a dozen “G1 Znn Fnn” kind of lines in the files I’m working with, though. Yours might well be much more complex.
The g code file I am looking at it for about a dozen pieces spread over the entire 4x8 sheet. There are ~39,0000 lines of code.
The dxf files I created as full 3d solids then make a 2D drawing sheet using Solidworks. I save the solidworks drawings as dxf format then imported into Easel (beta macro). I have also used another program to make svg format and imported into Easel, but the “beta” import function has been working, so I cut out the svg step altogether.
I am using Easel to get g code because it was easy to navigate, but it has many limitations since it was designed for a different system. It may be that I am doing something wrong in the program.
The individual parts (when imported into Easel) are being broken down into separate entities and processed individually. As an example: A simple rectangle shape will have four unique lines to be cut, it does not recognize the box shape as a single object.
When it generates the g code, Easel processes each of the line segments separately (to a total depth of the cut requested) before moving to the next line to process.
This simple rectangle (4 sided object) will have a minimum of four vertical lifts to make for each layer of cut. The cutter moves up to the “safe rest” position between each successive cut made.
For a 1/2" thick sheet using tabs (1/8" deep), max cut depth (1/8") this makes 4 layers to cut completely through. Since each depth gets a “return to safe rest” command to requires 16 vertical lifts to cut this rectangle.
I hope my explanation makes sense. Would love to have a simpler way to do this. May have to break down and learn another g code generator other than Easel.