#Cnc simulator forum windows 7#
#Cnc simulator forum windows#

This is easily fixed using standard Rhino drawing tools to edit the toolpaths, but adds an all-too-easily forgotten step to your workflow. Some caveats about MadCAM: It sometimes makes your вЂњrapidsвЂќ at the wrong height вЂ“ those times when the tool is simply repositioning but not supposed to be cutting anything will occasionally be placed too low in height to clear the intervening part resulting in an inadvertent cut and possible tool breakage since the machine is rapidly translating and crashing the tool into the part at greater than desired cutting speed. Boom! Much more elegant than editing G-code, and you can see what youвЂ™ll get as you work. But, in MadCAM, you can just draw your toolpath directly on the part surface using standard Rhino drawing tools to replicate it those thousands of times, then offset it above the surface appropriately for the particular tool youвЂ™ll be using and edit it into a MadCAM toolpath to replace the MadCAM generated toolpath with your own. Then youвЂ™ll end up learning to manually edit G-code (youвЂ™ll end up learning that anyway, eventually) but youвЂ™ll not want to manually edit thousands of lines of G-code for that one instance when a whole slew of step-over points just wonвЂ™t quite line up to give you that cool Guilloche-like tooled look on your finished product that you wanted. RhinoCAM makes some really nice toolpaths, true, but that one day when it just wonвЂ™t quite put the tool where you want it to go will vex the heck out of you. You can see the toolpath in your Rhino drawing, but you canвЂ™t touch it or edit it. RhinoCAM makes all that invisible by (apparently) storing toolpath info as invisible user data somewhere within the drawing file. I prefer MadCAM over RhinoCAM because the former is вЂњtransparent.вЂќ By that I mean the MadCAM-generated toolpath output is stored right there in your drawing file as Rhino drawing entities (on its own layers) and you can edit the lines and copy them and move them and stuff like that all you want. Exporting to Fusion 360 and such is a pain. I much prefer to keep the CAM inside Rhino. Unless youвЂ™re running a SmoothStepper or equivalent, you DO NOT want your CNC-dedicated computer to be on a LAN, wired or wireless вЂ“ the CPU activity to service the LAN will cause you to lose steps and your cut part will not match your expectations.ДЇinally, regarding CAM software. If you want to be on a LAN, youвЂ™ll need a separate Ethernet port to connect to your hub/switch/whatever. YouвЂ™re вЂњnot on the network,вЂќ but just sending output to the SmoothStepper (and receiving input from it) via the Ethernet port. The SmoothStepper uses a dedicated Ethernet port on your CNC-dedicated computer. That said, I think your understanding of the SmoothStepper is lacking. If you go that route, you may as well get Mach 4.

#Cnc simulator forum windows#

If you want to run any other Windows operating system youвЂ™ll need the Ethernet SmoothStepper or equivalent to вЂњbridgeвЂќ between computer and CNC machine. If you run WindowsXP youвЂ™ll need Mach 3, but if you run Linux you can save the Mach 3 dollars by running LinuxCNC (free).

#Cnc simulator forum windows 7#

IвЂ™ve tried with Windows 7 and it just doesnвЂ™t work, and newer versions of Windows only make it worse. Only WindowsXP and Linux are stable enough to let your machine do any extensive cuts (>5 minutes or so) using printer port output.

This is because the printer port output can be affected by other machine tasks and cause your CNC machine to вЂњlose stepsвЂќ so that the actual motion is not what was commanded.

You could save the dollars on the Ethernet SmoothStepper by connecting your machine via the printer port, but youвЂ™d be limited to only running WindowsXP and Mach 3, or Linux and LinuxCNC. There, I run the file in Mach 3 or Mach 4 (dual boot Windows XP/Windows 7) and send the output thru the LAN port to an Ethernet SmoothStepper which drives my Gecko 540. Prehabitat, I run MadCAM in Rhino which generates G-code that I then move to my CNC machineвЂ™s computer.