I have learned a ton about Vcarve. Have been designing things, customizing my toolpaths, having a great time. I use UGS to send my code to the xcarve, which works great, except for one little thing. It doesn’t turn off my spindle at the end when it is all done. I have to manually send a “M5” command after each carve. Shouldn’t the post processor add that in already? I would rather not have to pay such close attention to when it finishes if I’ve come back inside and started doing something else while the carving is happening.
You can edit the post processor file to add commands to the beginning and end of the gcode as desired. Vectric has plenty of info on that in their help files.
Here’s my ending code for Vcarve in the Post Processor. If you are going to use the M30 you need to have grbl v0.9j installed.
±--------------------------------------------------
- Commands output at the end of the file
±--------------------------------------------------
begin FOOTER
“G0 [ZH]”
“M5”
“G0 [XH] [YH]”
“M30”
Yes, that’s exactly what I thought it should be. For some reason, the standard post processor included with Vcarve didn’t have the M5 command in there. I went ahead and added it in, just like yours. I hadn’t realized I could so easily edit it.
Thank you both for your help!
Hey Steven , a noob here but can you walk me through your process after your intial design. I’m learning vCaeve but don’t how to send to usg.
There are a few steps here. Let’s say you have designed your item, whatever it is, in vcarve. And you have already created your tool paths there as well (pockets, profiles, whatever). Then you just need to save your tool path with the right post procesor. There is just a button right there in the tool path area for “save toolpath.” Then you pick the post procesor for x-carve, either inches or mm, and tell it where to save it, and that’s going to generate your gcode file. Of course, make sure you set up your materials and bit and such right in vcarve. They have lots of tutorial videos for that.
Now, open up UGS on your computer, connect to your machine (use the highest baud setting, or it won’t work). Make sure it is connected by jogging of around in the machine control tab. Now move it to your “zero” location, wherever you told vcarve to put it. I always use the lower left corner, top of my material. The gcode you have is set up however you told vcarve to do it, so make sure you use the home location you mean to when designing in vcarve.
THEN ZERO YOUR UGS BEFORE YOU START CARVING!!! If you don’t, who knows where that thing is going to xarve. When you can verify that the “work” location in UGS in the left section of the screen is zero, then you can go to the file tab, browse to where you directed vcarve to save your file, open it up, put on your goggles and ear protection, cross your fingers and get your hand ready to pull the plug if you need to, and hit Send.
Truthfully, your first few times, you might want to just cut air to see if you missed something major. That is, don’t lower it all the way down to your workpiece. Leave it an inch above or so, and zero it there, so your machine thinks it is carving, but it’s not actually going to touch anything. That way you will be able to make sure your spindle turns on, you have it zeroed right, you set the vcarve settings right, all that stuff.
This is super high level. I think there are a few very detailed threads on the use of UGS here in the forums that might be helpful, by folks who know a ton more than I do. Good luck, and happy carving!
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Here’s a tip that might save you some time/frustration:
Place your X-carve Post Processor files in this directory (modify for where you have your V-carve installed)
C:\ProgramData\Vectric\VCarve Pro Trial Edition\V8.0\My_PostP
If you do this when you go to select your Post Processor only the X-carve files will show up in the Post Processor selection window.
Thank you for the time taken to write this up Steven. I now have a better understanding of the entire process!!