LeadInMove comes after the cutting when 2.5d profiling / holding tabs prob.

[Miguel-]

Well the subject tells it all.. I did some signs with text in it and at some letters the profiling started plunging and went to specified depth directly. After the circulation machine "cut the air" doing the lead in move after doing the letter.

Also the holding tabs didn't take account the tool diameter.

You've got a great and simple software coming -thank you for that 

I'll attach the file that did these.

I've got one suggestion also: It would be nice to select multiple items from the Layers- and Machining-menus using ctrl + mouse click (for examle when doing copy of a text and converting them to a polylines -if you click elsewhere, you can't put all the polylines active because of the text pattern ontop of them)

[10bulls]

Thank you Miguel,

Yes, the holding tabs should really account for tool diameter. I will change that.

I'm having trouble replicating the lead in problem.  Can you send me a CamBam file that is generating the incorrect lead ins?  The file you attached just had the profile letters with no lead ins.

I agree with the multiple selection request.  A rewrite of the tree view is planned soon.

[Miguel-]

Ach -that was the old version of the file and I changed it to right one

In corrected attachment, Profile (5) and Profile (6) has the LeadInMoves as a Spiral. I did a simulation on those and in profile (5) at the last i-dot it happened. I had also another job yesterday that had the lead-ins sometimes after the circulation (I thought that I messed something up but it happened also today and also got it replicated with simulator right now so i guess that there might some kind of a bug or something).

And I also noticed on the simulator that this profile (as well as profile 5) leaves some portions of the profile a bit higher plane that is different coloured (I use Free CNC-Simulator 4.44f for simulations and Linux-EMC at my machine -oh yea cb runs on vista, but I guess it shouldn't matter since its .net program).

Hopefully this helps you

[10bulls]

OK Miguel, I think I have found the problem.

When the toolpath is generated, the lead in moves are in their correct position.

However, after the toolpath is created I run an optimisation pass to re-order the toolpaths so the next toolpath in sequence is the next nearest one.  Unfortunately this occasionally will move a lead in move out of sequence (as you have found out).  I am very sorry about that.

There is a workaround! (Isn't there always)

Under the properties for the profile, set the OptimisationMode to None.

Optimisation for profiles isn't that useful anyway.  It is more applicable to pockets (which do not yet support lead in moves).

Thank you very much for pointing this one out Miguel and sending me your files to help track it down.

I will fix this in my development version and provide a bug fix release soon.  I will also change the tab width to account for cutter diameters.

I am not sure about the different height problem you mentioned.  Apart from the spiral ramps, the Z values seem to be consistant when I simulated it.  If you can upload a gcode file I can take a look at it.

Thanks Again!

[Miguel-]

Thank you for u'r reply

I added a screencapture of the simulation -this might also be a problem in the simulator (I didnt measure the produced signs, they're my 2nd and 3rd works with my first DIY-mill -and the mill is still in development ). The different colours mark different heights (white=surface, blue=0, pink=-1, red=-2, cyan=-3, green=-4, yellow=-5, dark grey=-6) and near the LeadInMoves the colours are not solid so theyre in different heights. Ill repeat myself again, this might be problem with the simulator and I havent measured anything produced..

Im using the same file in my first post but I left the pockets in the file disabled and run the toolpath- and ncfile-generators. After this I modified the tools correctly to simulator (well before this I changed the CB tools so that there isnt a zero-tool at all, and disabled the optimisations in LeadInMoves) and did the simulation.

-hopefully its a bug in the simulator

[10bulls]

OK, I did a bit of investigation.

It appears that CNC Simulator does not cope with spiral arcs.  That is, arc moves G02/G03, which also change the Z value.  For these moves it is ignoring the new Z value.  You can see this when stepping through the code line by line in CNC simulator and the Z value does not change.

I have generated a very simple test file which demonstrates this.

I think there may be some other issues with CNC Simulator...canned drill cycles need a custom drill script to move to the drilling point is one that springs to mind.  It seems an OK simulator but you just need to be aware of it's idiosyncrasies.

I hope this helps.

[Miguel-]

So it was the sim causing that -no problemo there

I think that I would have noticed if my mill would have done this doing the signs... Ill know to look simulations more accurately if there's next time

Thanks yet again