Hey all… If I happen to leave an item selected in Easel then go to carve the project, will Easel just carve what is selected?
The reason I ask is I’m in the process of a carve right now and the elapsed percentage doesn’t seem to be jiving with the entire piece… But possibly with the selected area.
Thanks! Keddy
Unless Easel had changed recently it always carves the entire project.
Thanks for the reply @AllenMassey… Shortly after I posted this the elapsed percentage seem to adjust into something that made sense.I’ve noticed in thepast it’s doesn’t seem to be real accurate, but this time it just seemed waaaay off.
The percentage complete bar works on the basis of how the gcode is sent and acknowledged by the Arduino/Gshield.
The gcode file doesn’t get sent all at once, because the arduino has a very small buffer to store commands. So, it sends a handful at a time, and waits to hear that each command was executed successfully before sending the next handful. commands for curves are short and don’t take long to execute so the buffer cycles faster. But straight lines take longer for the machine to complete so the buffer stays full and doesn’t cycle as quickly.
So you’ve got a situation where the machine is moving just as fast through the wood on curves and complex shapes as it does on straight lines and simple shapes, but the command buffer cycles at radically different speeds. This makes it very difficult to have accuracy in things like timers and progress bars.
Yep, the percentage display seems to just show you the percentage of completed gcode lines, The problem is that each gcode line can take a very different amount of time. So the number of lines completed is a great way to know how about how many gcode remain, but a poor way of predicting the time remaining.
@Mike… OK, that makes sense. The area it was carving at the time was a smaller text area and the text is the pockets. I was calculating in my head the percentage done with the letters remaining and it wasn’t jiving. One it got to the second text area which is a pocket with raised text, the percentage slowed down considerably since there was definitely some long straight runs to remove material. Thanks!
@Zach_Kaplan… thanks for the update!!! I will definitely give you some feedback. Been tracking cut times so I’ll let you know how accurarte it is…
@Zach_Kaplan… Have you guys given some thought about giving us the ability to divide our Easel files into folders???
Yes sir…lots of thought.
I did a few short cuts with it earlier, it seemed pretty accurate. The job I did was a rectangle with filleted corners, which traditionally is difficult to estimate automatically, but it seemed to handle it well.
I noted what time it was when I started the cut, and what time it was when I finished the cut. Honestly I was on a tight deadline so I wasn’t really paying very close attention. I will do some more testing on it very soon.
Oh OK cool.
