[MFchief]

Hi All,

I am a big fan of Path Pilot, I think it's a big improvement..............but

Am I the only one who feels the options under Conversational are a bit lean?

I miss some of the other things you can do with the Newfangled Wizards such as cutting circles, arc's, slots, etc.

I have said in other threads that when I installed Path Pilot, I opted to use another hard drive and keep my Mach 3 setup. Yesterday I needed to cut a few small disks out of sheet metal, and it was actually quicker to plug in the old hard drive and use the circle cutting wizard, than it was to go upstairs, fire up a cad program, then cam to get the very simple code for the circles. I am not a good enough hand programmer to do circles and arcs on the fly.

I'm wondering if during the web sessions for Path Pilot, did Tormach mention any plan to add more choices for the conversational page? I attended the first session, but don't recall any mention of doing that.

Terry

[tmarks11]

I'm wondering if during the web sessions for Path Pilot, did Tormach mention any plan to add more choices for the conversational page? I attended the first session, but don't recall any mention of doing that.

I attended the second session, and they said they would expand the conversational offerings in future releases.

Would be nice if they would post a transcript of those sessions. They made a video of the third session and posted it, but I am not much for watching videos (attention span of a 3yo).

[popspipes]

I wish they would make the engraving function with the option to set XY off the center of the text instead of off a corner, to me its so much simpler to get the text centered working from a center point than off a corner. I guess I did pipe for too many years ha!! This can be done by figuring the height of the text (Y) and dividing by 2, the X depends of the length divided by 2 etc..
It would just be nice to have the option to lay it out off the corner, or the center.

[MFchief]

Thanks Tmarks, that's good to hear!

Mike, + 1 for the engraving change, I also find it simpler when starting from the center of the text.

Terry

[David C. Allen]

Terry & Mike
I hope you guys have forwarded your requests/ideas to the PathPilot Support Team. I have sent two requests to the team and I received a response on what they thought of the ideas.

David

[quarky42]

I asked them if the current profile wizard could do this or if it could be added:

I'd like to run a pass where Z and X are held constant, so it just starts at one Y and runs along a constant XZ over to the ending Y point. This would work great with my dovetail cutter for cutting a groove into the side of my stepped vise jaws. Someone else might want to run along the X axis instead and thus they would hold Z and Y constant and create a path that goes from X start to X end.

It seems like the current GUI could support this without any changes to the input, I just don't know if the wizard will interpret the inputs properly or if it will balk. I feel like going and trying it, but I'm such a greenhorn newbie novice that it would help to even know if this was possible in the wizard.

It almost makes me just want to do it in g code, but I could screw something up very easily that way maybe.

It would only be a handful of commands to move Z up to a safe spot, move XY to the starting position. Move Z to the starting position. Fire up the spindle, send it to the ending position Y, shut down the spindle, and raise the Z back up to the safe height.

This could be repeated for very slightly different values of X and I would end up with the dovetail cut into the side of the part I need.

[SomeWhatLost]

I asked them if the current profile wizard could do this or if it could be added:

I'd like to run a pass where Z and X are held constant, so it just starts at one Y and runs along a constant XZ over to the ending Y point. This would work great with my dovetail cutter for cutting a groove into the side of my stepped vise jaws. Someone else might want to run along the X axis instead and thus they would hold Z and Y constant and create a path that goes from X start to X end.

It seems like the current GUI could support this without any changes to the input, I just don't know if the wizard will interpret the inputs properly or if it will balk. I feel like going and trying it, but I'm such a greenhorn newbie novice that it would help to even know if this was possible in the wizard.

It almost makes me just want to do it in g code, but I could screw something up very easily that way maybe.

It would only be a handful of commands to move Z up to a safe spot, move XY to the starting position. Move Z to the starting position. Fire up the spindle, send it to the ending position Y, shut down the spindle, and raise the Z back up to the safe height.

This could be repeated for very slightly different values of X and I would end up with the dovetail cut into the side of the part I need.

that would be a single line of gcode ie just typing "G1 Yx.xx Fs" seems it would be far more convenient then going through a wizard? well, I guess you would have to manually move to the start position, but I would have already done that as part of my initial setup...

[quarky42]

that would be a single line of gcode ie just typing "G1 Yx.xx Fs" seems it would be far more convenient then going through a wizard? well, I guess you would have to manually move to the start position, but I would have already done that as part of my initial setup...

I manually wrote it in gcode and it definitely wasn't one line, though it was very simple / easy, there was always the chance I could have typoed something.

The Wizard is there already. It would be nice if it was flexible.

I could have ran three passes a 0.01 at a time just by tweaking one number.

[dirtridn2010]

Under the heading of Drilling cycle, I would think that a PCD drill cycle would be of great help.
A lot of my drilling work revolves around Pitch Circle Diameter.
Also, while we are at it, does anyone else (apart from me) use Metric?
I have mentioned this one to Tormach, who have replied.
The resolution in step mode is 10.0mm, 1.0mm, 0.1mm and 0.01 movements.
Which while it's not bad, but if I switch to G20 I can get down to 0.0001" resolution, almost 4 times more accurate.
They did say that 0.001mm is below the resolving power of the stepper motors, but would look at 0.025mm increments and drop the 10.0mm step!
On another issue....
The reason I ask is that when using Mach3 you had no option but to enter tool lengths in Imperial(inches).
Now for some reason, before updating to V1.9 I was able to MDI G21 and find that my offsets were in Metric (1.123) 3 decimal places.
Now I find that my list of offsets are in imperial and 4 decimal places.(the offsets I did have in there have been converted).
I'm positive(i know I did) i entered the data in as metric, and of course observed 3 decimal places in the offsets.
Anyone else having this problem??
Have a great day!

[BlueChip]

KipwareM ( milling - KipwareM Conversational CNC Programming Software for CNC Milling ) and KipwareT ( turning - KipwareT Conversational CNC Programming Software for CNC Lathe and Turning ) are 100% PathPilot compatible if you are looking for a more powerful, flexible alternative. Installed on a laptop ... it makes for a very flexible "conversational control."

[TurboStep]

Under the heading of Drilling cycle, I would think that a PCD drill cycle would be of great help.
A lot of my drilling work revolves around Pitch Circle Diameter.
Also, while we are at it, does anyone else (apart from me) use Metric?
I have mentioned this one to Tormach, who have replied.
The resolution in step mode is 10.0mm, 1.0mm, 0.1mm and 0.01 movements.
Which while it's not bad, but if I switch to G20 I can get down to 0.0001" resolution, almost 4 times more accurate.
They did say that 0.001mm is below the resolving power of the stepper motors, but would look at 0.025mm increments and drop the 10.0mm step!
On another issue....
The reason I ask is that when using Mach3 you had no option but to enter tool lengths in Imperial(inches).
Now for some reason, before updating to V1.9 I was able to MDI G21 and find that my offsets were in Metric (1.123) 3 decimal places.
Now I find that my list of offsets are in imperial and 4 decimal places.(the offsets I did have in there have been converted).
I'm positive(i know I did) i entered the data in as metric, and of course observed 3 decimal places in the offsets.
Anyone else having this problem??
Have a great day!

If you're using metric then that's two of us
The step increments are not particularly well programmed. They rely on a fixed ratio of 10. I presume you're interested in 0.0025mm increments - this was probably the only step size I ever used in Mach3 and a prerequisite for me moving to PP. I therefore modified PP and also converted the internal machine units from inches to metric. I didn't have any problems with metric but I just tested G20 on my machine and received tool lengths in the order of 1800" (approx. 150ft) - now I'd love to see the machine that uses THAT tool!
Between v1.8.2 and v1.9 Tormach have modified the tool list refresh system and have apparently overlooked the fact that changing from G20 to G21 doesn't modify any values - therefore no refresh. It appears to be just a display issue (see PathPilot bug tracking item #982), the tool length value shown next to the tool number in your screenshot appears to be correct. One workaround is to create a dummy tool, and each time the values are shown incorrecly simply change the length or diameter of this tool (not the name) the entire list will then be refreshed. I corrected the code but my version is now quite different from the original so I can't be sure that this doesn't occur anywhere else. Tormach should get behind this one.
Step

[GLCarlson]

KipwareM ( milling - KipwareM Conversational CNC Programming Software for CNC Milling ) and KipwareT ( turning - KipwareT Conversational CNC Programming Software for CNC Lathe and Turning ) are 100% PathPilot compatible if you are looking for a more powerful, flexible alternative. Installed on a laptop ... it makes for a very flexible "conversational control."

Prices are normal for software, but pricey nonetheless- 500 and 300 bucks.

[dirtridn2010]

If you're using metric then that's two of us
The step increments are not particularly well programmed. They rely on a fixed ratio of 10. I presume you're interested in 0.0025mm increments - this was probably the only step size I ever used in Mach3 and a prerequisite for me moving to PP. I therefore modified PP and also converted the internal machine units from inches to metric. I didn't have any problems with metric but I just tested G20 on my machine and received tool lengths in the order of 1800" (approx. 150ft) - now I'd love to see the machine that uses THAT tool!
Between v1.8.2 and v1.9 Tormach have modified the tool list refresh system and have apparently overlooked the fact that changing from G20 to G21 doesn't modify any values - therefore no refresh. It appears to be just a display issue (see PathPilot bug tracking item #982), the tool length value shown next to the tool number in your screenshot appears to be correct. One workaround is to create a dummy tool, and each time the values are shown incorrecly simply change the length or diameter of this tool (not the name) the entire list will then be refreshed. I corrected the code but my version is now quite different from the original so I can't be sure that this doesn't occur anywhere else. Tormach should get behind this one.
Step

I did put in a request to Tormach for something more accurate than 0.01mm.
I did note that 0.001mm is obviously less than their Imperials res. but suggested 0.0025mm.
Their reply was that the machine was not capable of less than 0.0001" resolution.
But did say that 0.0025 was possible and they could in fact drop the 10.mm increment.
They did say they would consider it.
However as of yesterday, it has not shown up in their list of "to Do's" list.
Maybe it will come up in later version releases.

Peter:wave:

[bevinp]

I did put in a request to Tormach for something more accurate than 0.01mm.
I did note that 0.001mm is obviously less than their Imperials res. but suggested 0.0025mm.
Their reply was that the machine was not capable of less than 0.0001" resolution.
But did say that 0.0025 was possible and they could in fact drop the 10.mm increment.
They did say they would consider it.
However as of yesterday, it has not shown up in their list of "to Do's" list.
Maybe it will come up in later version releases.

Peter:wave:

Waving Pete,
Have just received my PP controller, so... where is the Tormach's PP "toDo's" list?
Bevin

[dirtridn2010]

Waving Pete,
Have just received my PP controller, so... where is the Tormach's PP "toDo's" list?
Bevin

Hi Bevin,
Go to Tormach Personal CNC (PCNC) | Small CNC Machines
select:
support
Software downloads
PathPilot
Pathpilot software
then click "V1.9 release notes" to open the PDF
It provides a list of fixes and enhancements that they are currently working on.
A new version is due out the end of this week or early next.
Cheers
Peter

[bevinp]

Thanks Peter.
Bevin