I just ran my first “dry run” (no end mill installed) job that went to completion without error from the software’s point of view. In real life it would have failed due to my misplacing home and running the cutter slightly past the edge of the stock. Is there an available software feature that would cause the machine to navigate the outside borders of the current job with the cutter at clearance height?
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I am not 100% sure that I understand, but I usually just use the jog buttons to move my machine around to the edges of the part that I am going to cut before cutting it so that I can see if it will all fit on the sheet
I’m not sure how common it is since I haven’t used very many CNC machines, but my Carvera Air has a feature that I really like where if activated it will move the tool head with a probe attached (think laser pointer) in a box around the boundary of the area that will be machined. This has been really handy for me to know if I have everything aligned the way I thought I did. It sounds a lot like what you’re doing manually, but I find it really convenient automated.
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I use this pen when I want to check the exact path, it is not so automated because I have to generate a G code in a single pass.
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That’s a really cool idea and something I’ll likely try out to help reduce material waste. In the case of the feature that I’m suggesting here, though, my intent would be to navigate the machine around the smallest rectangle that can contain the entirety of the current job so that it’s easy to observe whether you have xy zero correctly and sufficient material to avoid running off the edge during job execution.
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You could do that manually with adding a rectangle perimeter cut in your cam software. Just be sure to set z cut height up so it’s cutting air instead of material.
Dano
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I may start doing that - at least until I gain more confidence in/with the setup
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This is a feature that would be very useful. On my smaller machine, I use UGS (Universal G-Code Sender), which allows me to right-click and navigate to those coordinates, and I can trace my work quite nicely. I have tried to use UGS with my M2, but it doesn’t work properly and I wind up having to recalibrate my machine.
With the M2, I have done what Bar said, and use the jog buttons to move around the perimeter of the work.
Another trick that I can do though, is set my Z-zero quite high, and then ‘air-carve’ the job, which will show me where it is going to work, and I don’t have to turn the router on.
I don’t know if UGS will work with the M4, as I don’t have one. Maybe someone else has tried?