Estlcam 12 Alpha

Both 11 and 12 are two programs, CAM and control (default install for both 11 and 12 includes a desktop shortcut to each). The only difference with 12 is that controller setup was moved to control. Now both ‘machine project’ and ‘setup controller’ open the controller from CAM.

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Also missing from the drill menu is the somewhat funky, but easy to use, all in one tapping window. The replacement is separate drill (/chamfer) and tapping tool paths. Tapping tool configuration is more painful without the presets (currently untested).


I don’t know what you use it for, but the drill tool configuration now allows setting a peck to full retraction ratio.

OT: Why is the forum program complaining about too many replies?

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Hello,

I removed the code function in Version 12.
What are you using it for?
(I may add it again, but at the moment it seems like this was a quite unnecessary function and I try to keep the program lean)

Christian

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Hey Christian, nice of you to pop in. :slight_smile:

I have a question, if you don‘t mind: Are you planning on adding a function for V-Carve inlays, similar to F-Engrave? We now work around it by setting the starting depth at -1mm for the inlay part, for instance, but that does not work for deep inlays.

And are you maybe adding support for 5 independent motors with endstops? At the moment I am working with the OpenCNC Shield 2 that features autosquaring with an ESP32, but it would definitely be nicer to just have it in Estlcam natively. :slight_smile:

I also agree with people who said the menus are a little small on some monitors. I think the horizontal menus were more accessible visually. But that may be subjective.

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I am a volunteer at an open air museum and make a lot of texts on planks sawn from trees and because ignorant people have to be able to position the text in a good place, I add code before the actual milling. (google translated from dutch to english)

added:
They don’t use the control part of the program and just the generated gcode on a usb stick that is inserted into the milling machine.

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I think V-carve inlays are already possible now that negative offsets are allowed (or at least now that I know they are allowed). I just need to put together a good tutorial without any math.

Here is another idea which is probably in the advanced category:

When doing a finishing pass, the feed rate defines the speed of the (center of) the tool, which can be significantly faster or slower than the speed at the cutting surface depending on the radius of curvature.

On interior corners, the speed at the cutting surface is faster, and on outside corners, the speed at the cutting surface is slower. This is most noticeable at tight inside corners where the tool will go seemingly very fast and sometimes leave a poor cut.

In this illustration the green circle is the cutting bit and the dashed line is the tool center path. The effective speed at the cutting surface is higher on the inside corner, meaning feed per tooth, material removal rate, and tool load are all higher. When the inside corner radius is just a little bit larger than the cutting radius, the loads can be much higher.

I had considered writing a python gcode post-processor to detect curvature and reduce feedrate, but I thought others could benefit from it too if it’s in the CAM processor.

At some point I am hoping to make a jigsaw puzzle where the interior curves are tight and the fit will highlight any errors. I have not tried it yet so I don’t know for a fact that it is a problem, but I have observed anomalies at inside corners before, so I am anticipating this being an issue.

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Version 12.003_A64

Code

Strange. Just one word drawn but on screen there appear 2

I did a quick in the air (no curve/line) text test yesterday and saw the same exact thing (L>R drooping duplicate).

Yes, please. A little math is okay. But only a little. :yum:

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12.003 requires reducing the scale to .9 (setup : basic : scale) to make pocketing related selections. With only a single visible row, scrolling to find the appropriate tool is a PITA (especially so with a big list).

My bad on carve pocketing w/ a flat bit, I just needed to select a pocketing tool (not obvious w/ pocketing icon grayed and Pocketing N/A). Also not obvious is that Ask Depth is Automatic Depth (won’t ask). An old issue is that changing the tool will not automatically change the carve width to the new tool diameter. There is also no indication that the selected tool is too small, that it will leave funky islands, unless one looks for islands in the preview.

In V12.004 This problem is solved

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Path properties tool selection (and related scaling) is also fixed. The color coded background is a nice touch.
tool selection fixed

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Does this mean other fields are good to 4 decimal places? In 11 you can only input bit dimensions to 2 decimal places, unless I’m missing something. So there is a small rounding done when using fractional bits with a metric workspace.

There is no rounding done for the calculations, just what you see. In German there’s an extra tooltip for it. :slight_smile:

So if I set the bit diameter of a 1/16th inch bit as 1.5875 mm, and the field rounds it to 1.59 mm when I press enter, it’s still calculating with 1.5875 mm? Not that it’s a huge deal, just wondering;)

Has the Resize>DXF function been removed, or just not implemented yet?

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Yes, we tried that in a different thread. The German tooltip says that if you put 3.175 it shows as 3.18 but is not rounded when calculating, because obviously we don’t do stuff in inches. :smiley:

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One of my posts with an example of 10 decimal places being viable: Strange things happening on corners and with finishing passes - #19 by dalrun

… The sometimes tool radius equals drawing radius bug in that thread appears to have been fixed in v12.

I was playing with something in v12 and discovered (parts of?) drawings can be right click selected. I’m guessing that’s how all the Select tools work, e.g. right click select and then click the resize tool?

… From Select (before selecting the desired tool, e.g. resize). (Shift) right-click to (de)select one or more drawing elements or Shift right-click drag to select multiple elements.

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I find it very annoying that the code function is not in the cam program of V12. Am I the only one?