Re: mach2 and linux - Look-Ahead

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Jon Elson <elson@p...> wrote:

> turbulatordude wrote:
>
> >I would think that if the effort was put into a good interface for
> >EMC it would be faster to completion than to try to port Mach2

over

> >to Linux.
> >
> >On my wish list is a read-ahead feature so the control does not

stop

> >at each line where a slight change of direction is encountered.
> >
> >
> >
> Umm, I certainly don't have this problem on EMC. If I NEED square
> corners, I do
> a G61. A G64 gets you back to smoothed trajectory. There's a

G61.1 that

> does stop between each move. I've never used this, but have used

the G61 to

> prevent drill breakage when drilling many holes. I don't want the

XY

> axes moving
> until the drill is safely out of the hole.
>
> What version of EMC are you using, and on what kind of hardware? I

do

> LOTS of
> stuff with arcs and essentially spirals where it is milling a

continuous

> curve made
> up of expanding arc quadrants to bore out a pocket. It does the

whole

> thing in
> one smooth, continuous path with no stops.
>
> Jon

I'm not using EMC. When I first looked for software (2 years ago) I
did what a lot of people do, get everything working with Turbo-CNC,
then had enough experiance to know what I needed and wanted.

I looked at EMC, but went to Master5 (now Mach2) for the interface.
Don't remember the specifics why, but I think it was simply because I
had a Windows machine and could try Master5 with no effort.

Up until now, I thought Mach2 was the only low cost software that
does the look ahead feature.

I cut large elipses that are comprized of multiple line segments,
about 40 per full elipise. Without the look-ahead that is nerve
wracking.

I can break the elipises into multiple arc segments for a more true
representation, but that too has limitations.

Since I'll be getting the plasma running by summer (hopefully) I'll
be able to run much faster than a router. Look-ahead will be very
important.

I have not looked at software recently am not well versed on the
features of the different products.

But, if EMC had an easy interface, I could considder testing it on
this machine.




Dave