I use chillypeppr on a tablet to send code to my XC. It works but I am pushing the tablet’s processor and memory to the limit to make it happen.
I found that limiting the frame rate on the 3D viewer, or disabling it completely, helps as well as disabling the serial port display from updating (showing the code as it is sent)
But file size is a problem. Anything over 2,000 kb crashes the browser completely. Anything over 1,000 kb causes it to loose connection with the XC but I can usually reset and resume.
Unfortunately, I had a cut file that was almost 4,000 kb. (A huge 3d crave) I tried manually splitting it with notepad and that worked ok. Though it was not happy with the lack of header info on the second file so I had to add that. But with lots of messing around I managed to get it to work.
But I figured there had to be a better way. I could not find anything on limiting the file size of a tool path output file. But I did find a “Tape Splitting” command for the post processor to limit the output to a specified number of lines.
TAPE_SPLITTING = " "
Format is : TAPE_SPLITTING = MAX_NUM_LINES LINE_TOL ”FILENAME_FORMAT” START_INDEX INDEX_ON_FIRST_FILE
For example a command of TAPE_SPLITTING = 1000 100 “%s_%d.tap” 1 “YES” would lead to …
Output will be split into multiple files of a maximum of 1000 lines (+ however many lines in there are within the footer section of the post processor), if a retract move exists after line 900 (1000 – 100), the file will be split at that move. If the file was called “toolpath” the split files would be named toolpath_1.tap, toolpath_2.tap etc. The first toolpath output will be “toolpath_ 1.tap” there will be no file named “toolpath” without an index number, (as INDEX_ON_FIRST_FILE= YES is used), unless the file was less than 1000 lines long, in which case the file would not be split.
I picked 75000 lines and a file extension of *.gcode so my command looks like:
TAPE_SPLITTING = 75000 100 “%s_%d.gcode” 1 “YES”
This seems to work. It adds full header and footer too each toolpath file and starts each new section on the same point as the previous one ended.
Chillypeppr is not supposed to have a file size limit, so I am pretty sure this is a table / browser issue. But is anyone else is running into this kind of problem at least there is a way to automatically split the files. 