Program stops

I am sure this has topic has been beat to death so I apologize. I did look through past and didn’t see anything that helped and most were from 2017. My project will stop due to the program ending as if the software is saying “hey-all done”, but it isn’t. It’s done this three time in a row and on simple practice pieces like the shape of Alabama and the tool holder. Anyone have an idea? I’m also running easel pro in windows with a Dell.

Open up your Gcode in a text editor like NotePad or WordPad and look for a line of code that starts with M0 or M30.

|Program Mode|M0, M1, M2, M30|
|Spindle State|M3, M4, M5|
|Coolant State|M7, M8, M9|

Also feel free to reach out directly to supper (help@inventables.com) and we can look at the specific Easel file and see what’s going on!

I used to have this problem a lot when our X-Carve machines were new and my students and I had very little experience. With more experience on my part I learned to emphasize careful scrutiny of the tool paths shown in the preview pane after running a simulation. In most cases we found that the simulation showed precisely what we accomplished with the physical project. Generally, we discovered that when the machine doesn’t “finish” a carving job it means that we created an object where some parts of the drawing were too small for the selected bit. The machine carved what it could with the bit it thought it was using, and concluded that the job was finished when it reached geometry it couldn’t negotiate.

I usually keep 1/16" bits in all 3 machines but since EASEL defaults to a 1/8" bit, it’s easy to forget to change the settings. If the machine “thinks” it has a 1/8" bit installed, it will only cut shapes that a 1/8" bit can create, leaving many un-carved areas that the installed 1/16" bit could have reached.

Eventually I printed out screen-shots of simulations showing previews of the same projects with different bits selected in the software, and carved samples of those projects using bits that did not match the software selection. This visual solved most of the complaints that the machine “didn’t finish”, although some students still insist on discovering the problem for themselves and since the value of the failed experience exceeds the value of the spindle time required, I let them.

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Stay tuned for an update to Easel that will show any part of the design that won’t carve in red in the preview. Hopefully keep you from having to do a real life carve as an example for your students!

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Thanks Brandon!