Back to School Special on G-Wizard Ends Wednesday!

We’re running a Back to School special on our G-Wizard Feeds and Speeds Calculator.
Just enter the coupon code “BACK2SCHOOL” and you’ll get 20% off when you order our 3 year subscription. The sale is good through the end of this August, which means it ends this Wednesday!
Click here to order G-Wizard.
Help us get the word out: tell a friend or post a note about it online.
Speaking of schools, if you’re with one and have a “.edu” email address, we have an even better deal for you.… Read the rest

Using Your Mill CAM for Lathe Work?

I’ve gotten quite enamored with the fancy cycles for lathes, such as G71 for rough turning. They really amount to a poor man’s CAM system. For example, with G71, you need only provide a profile such as this one:

A simple profile consisting of 3 G01 segments with a G00 to the starting point…
The profile is created in g-code out of lines and arcs, and then the G71 tells your CNC controller how to turn that profile into a finished part with a series of cutting passes. Here is the g-code with the G71:
And here is the code that was simulated:

% Top to bottom, right to left
( One line G71 )
G0 X4 Z1.0 (Start Position before commanding the cycle)
G71 P1 Q4 D1.0 F2 U0.2 W0.1
N1 G0 X1.6
N2 G1 Z-4.0
N3 X2.5 Z-5.0
N4 G1 X4

As you can see, there’s not much more needed than the profile to get the job done.… Read the rest

Steampunk Dueling Pistols?

Thanks to MAKEzine for putting me onto Jeff de Boer’s beautiful artwork:

Atomic Duelling Pistols by Jeff de Boer
De Boer has the aesthetic just right for pulp science fiction. I have no idea whether the pistols can actually fling their fanciful atomic projectiles, but the work is beautiful nonetheless.
I always enjoy seeing fine machine work that’s turned to art and wish there was more of it. There is an office near my area that I visit from time to time. One of the partners of the firm collects patent models, another source of beautiful work and what a great display for a firm that invests in technology.… Read the rest

What if you had CAM for your Lathe and didn’t even know it?

Imagine how a CAM program might work for the lathe. You draw the profile that you want to turn on a part, push a button, and out comes g-code that converts that profile into the right moves to cut the profile in multiple passes based on the depth of cut for each pass you specified. G71 and its cousins are some of the most useful canned cycles you’ll ever come across for the lathe, because they essentially do what I’ve just described. The difference is that instead of specifying a profile in a CAD program, you specify the profile using g-codes.… Read the rest

G-Wizard Editor Version 0.320 Just Released

Release 0.320 is all about getting G71 working at long last. It’s still only Type 1, but we have both the 1 line and 2 line formats available. Setup is via Post.
Other changes include:
- Implemented repeat (L) word for M98.
- Added a post option that determines whether helical interpolation is allowed by the controller.
- We display the DOS (8.3) short file name on the status bar in a field that you can right click to copy from. Some controllers only have the DOS short file names so it is handy to be able to see what such a file name would be for a file with a long name.… Read the rest

Back to School Special on G-Wizard!

We’re running a Back to School special on our G-Wizard Feeds and Speeds Calculator.
Just enter the coupon code “BACK2SCHOOL” and you’ll get 20% off when you order our 3 year subscription. The sale is good through the end of this August.
Click here to order G-Wizard.
Help us get the word out: tell a friend or post a note about it online.… Read the rest

Windows Has Long Filenames But Your CNC Control Has DOS Filenames

This is one of those seemingly little things that wastes too much time. Windows allows nice long file names, yay! But your CNC Controller is not the newest kid on the block and it still uses the old school DOS “83″ (for 8 letters to the left of the period and 3 to the right) filenames. The good news is a lot of controllers will display your first comment (the one after “%”) to try to help you understand what’s in the file, but you’re still left wondering sometimes what the filename will turn out to be when your file is loaded on the controller.… Read the rest

A Stack Trace for Fanuc Macro Subprograms when G-Code Programming

Recently, I was working through a complex g-code program to find and fix some bugs in G-Wizard Editor. Trying to understand what the heck somebody else’s program is doing and whether or not my own g-code simulator was properly simulating the program often leads to helpful ideas for tools that make G-Code programming easier for everyone. For example, it got me to add the ability to make the simulator run until it hits the next macro command that would cause a branch to some location other than the next line of g-code.… Read the rest

Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On!

With appologies to Jerry Lee Lewis and his famous song, Dang we’ve been busy here at the Cookbook!
As a result, I haven’t posted anything to the blog in way too long. I’ll make this post a roundup of the news of what we’ve been doing and try to post more frequently going forward. As many of you will know, sometimes you just get sucked in and have to swim with the current.
CNC G-Code Tutorial
We continue to add chapters to our G-Code Tutorial series. Since I last posted about it, we’ve added the following chapters:
- Linear Motion With G00 and G01: Just finished that one this morning.… Read the rest