Hi everyone, I have been reading the Forum for the last couple of months, trying to familiarize myself with Xcarve and learn from the conversations. I will be purchasing a new 500mm Xcarve with a 611 router in the April timeframe. I think I will be upgrading the x axis, purchasing the Xcontroller and installing 9mm belts. I was wondering if the 9mm belts were working ok and how the Xcontroller was performing. Please feel free to send me any information that might be helpful with this purchase. I am fairly good with mechanical stuff, but have a lot to learn in the electrical end of the project. I know nothing about how to use gcode or how to change it. I am looking forward to this experience and hope I can get much needed help from the Forum members. Thank you.
I am very happy with the X-Controller, It performs exactly as advertised!
You really don’t need to change or edit much gcode, The program you use to generate tools paths (Easel, or Fusing 360 or Vcarve …) will create exactly the gocde you need as long as you are using the correct post processor for the program (except for Easel which does not not need a post processor). Think of the the post processor like a printer driver, It just makes the gcode work with the grbl based controller on the X-Carve.
@ AllenMassey, thanks for the info. I plan on using Easel.
Using Easel you never even need to see any gcode unless you want to.
Allen, you just had a conversation with CharleyThomas regarding a gcode file he created to 0 the three axis. How could that be added to the gcode for something I wanted to cut in Easel?
Roger,
As far as I know, the only way to send gcode manually from Easel is to use use the Advance/Machine Inspector. With that interface you can manually enter gcode (or paste a section of code in) and then send it to your X-Carve. So you could have a chunk of Gcode like Charley was discussing stored in a text editor like notepad and then paste it in the text box and send it. But that seems like a pretty clumsy way to zero the axis. Plus I am not sure how many characters you can send like this.
Of course it is always possible that Inventables could add the code to Easel so it would be sent as part of the machine setup each time you are getting the machine ready to carve. But that would take a commitment from Inventables and they would only do it if they thought enough people were using an edge finder to make it worthwhile.
I would be happy of they would just add support in Easel for the touch probe to zero the Z axis.
@AllenMassey, yes it would be nice if Inventables would do that. We could also use a touch plate for Z Axis 0 and a laser to locate X and y, if that would be accurate enough. Thanks for the response!
If you use a gcode sender like Universal Gcode Sender you can create gcode macros that can run the gcode necessary to use the touch probe or edge detect the X and Y Zeros. I don’t use Chillipepper but I am pretty sure it can do it also.
@AllenMassey , thanks for the info on machine inspector and UGS. I will have to spend some time researching them and how they work. Thanks again