All I want to do is set the machine to the corner of the workpiece and have UGCS work from there as zero. I start by homing the machine which works smooth. When I jog the machine to the workpice corner point and hit send, bad things happen with bit plunging into the work crashing and breaking bits, dogs and cats sleeping together, total chaos. I don’t know what the heck I am doing. I try the set zero buttons which are either not working or not sending the machine to the corner of the workpiece. I have scanned all the posts everywhere and all I am is completely confused. what am I missing? what do the zeroing buttons exactly do. I wish I could find a video or something that can simplify things. So in closing all I want to do is set the zero point to the workpiece and push send and off it goes, using the corner of the workpiece as zero. help!
i dont know anything about UGCS but try using chilipeper as a gcode sender. it seems like a really solid platform.
@DonDespain i use v carve to draw and ugcs to run my work, in vcarve ill pre set a safe z to say 1 or 2mm above the work piece. in ugcs ill jog the machine to the corner of the work piece lower the bit to it touches just like inventables easel then hit the button (reset zero) in the machine control tab. Then load my file and hit send and off she goes. In v carve in tooling ill set my bit im using, depth per pass and feed rate, plunge rate. hope some of this helps
Thanks yes it helps! When I hit reset Zero Button I get an error that it is not supported. What version do I need (thought I loaded most current) or is there something I need to change in my settings so this button works?
I am having the same problem. I didn’t at first when I used the post processor GCode in VCarve Pro, but when I tried the post processor for X-Carve it didn’t work. It either sent the spindle to make air cuts or just plunged into the wood and did nothing. I reset the UGS and made sure my zero was the same for the home and spindle and still got nothing. My only thought was that maybe there is an update I need. Easel works fine, its just not going to do the more advanced things I want to do with the XCarve. I might look into Chillipeper as Sergio recommended.
Don, try UGS version 1.0.8 to solve the “command not supported” problem. The link for it isn’t very apparent on the Github page, but you can get it here: http://bit.ly/1BSKon6
Even though it’s still sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, I’ve got my machine running now. 
A couple of brief test cuts with Easel and some scraps of blue insulating styrofoam look good. I’m going to be testing out various software, including UGS, so if I discover anything new/exciting/dangerous on this end, I’ll share my findings with the class. 
TYVM Sir, I had 1.0.7 so I bet that will be it!
@DonDespain My version of ugs is 1.0.8 and the lastest version of Java (not that I think it makes any difference). Happy days.
ok , im kind of a computer dummy here and cant find the correct file to load for the UGCS inside the zip file can anybody give me some direction ?
Mike
on mine it is the .jar file.
yeah that’s not working for me…
ok I got it pulled it from the shapeoko site though now how do I work the xcarve post processer into it ?
Typically the post processor is used in the step before you get to UGS (i.e. the software you’re using to generate the gcode, such as CamBam or Aspire).
so take the post processor file and put it in with the vcarve files?
If you’re using V-Carve, you can go to “File”->“Open Application Data Folder…”. Once that opens a folder on your computer, you should see a “My_PostP” folder.
Drop your .pp file/files into the “My_PostP” folder. This will cause V-Carve to only display those as post-processing options when you’re generating your gcode.
got it now and in the process found the pdf that explains all of it too !