Hello, all,

Is anyone still suign Bobcad/CAM Ver. 16.1? I bought this a number of
years ago, and after some effort to learn the programs quirks, I got
pretty good results. The toolpath wasn't always as efficient as I
might get if I wrote the G-code by hand, but it was quite reliable,
and always did what I wanted it to do.

I don't use it all that often, as it is more eficient for me to do
a lot of things using some conversational-like programs that I wrote
to cut round holes, rectangular holes, etc. So, I only use it a few
times a year.

I did a cutout for a small (computer style) fan, 12 little pie-wedge
sort of pockets, with a 1/8" end mill. Well, I didn't like the roughing
procedure, it left a rough edge and broke a couple end mills. So, I
went back to the original drawing and tried to do better. I created a
new offset line inside the offset for the final dimension, and then
tried to get Bobcad to cut to the inner offset in 3 step-downs, and then
cut the outer (final) offset at full depth. Well, the G-code looked
like TOTAL garbage! I think the X-Y part was pretty reasonable,
although there were many places where it repeated the same X-Y
coordinates over and over. But, the Z coordinates just made NO sense.
I had the clearance plane set to +0.1", and the final depth set to
-0.15", and the step-down set to 0.05", so it should just produce
coordinates of -.05, -.1, and -.15" But, I got all kinds of screwy
Z coordinates, bouncing from +.15 to -.154, and jumping up and down
instead of smoothly working its way down .050" at a time. I've never
seen it do anything like this before. Did I set something wrong?
Has the code somehow gone "stale", a config file gotten corrupted,
or something like that?

I ended up extracting what I could from the messy G-code for one of
the little pockets and writing my own program to rewrite it 12 times
at 30 degre intervals. But, i don't understand why I couldn't get it
to do essentially the same thing I've done many times before.

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

Jon

Try adding 6 zeros to the Z coordinates. IE: "-0.05000000"
JR
Dweller in the cellar

Jon Elson wrote:
Hello, all,

Is anyone still suign Bobcad/CAM Ver. 16.1? I bought this a number of
years ago, and after some effort to learn the programs quirks, I got
pretty good results. The toolpath wasn't always as efficient as I
might get if I wrote the G-code by hand, but it was quite reliable,
and always did what I wanted it to do.

I don't use it all that often, as it is more eficient for me to do
a lot of things using some conversational-like programs that I wrote
to cut round holes, rectangular holes, etc. So, I only use it a few
times a year.

I did a cutout for a small (computer style) fan, 12 little pie-wedge
sort of pockets, with a 1/8" end mill. Well, I didn't like the roughing
procedure, it left a rough edge and broke a couple end mills. So, I
went back to the original drawing and tried to do better. I created a
new offset line inside the offset for the final dimension, and then
tried to get Bobcad to cut to the inner offset in 3 step-downs, and then
cut the outer (final) offset at full depth. Well, the G-code looked
like TOTAL garbage! I think the X-Y part was pretty reasonable,
although there were many places where it repeated the same X-Y
coordinates over and over. But, the Z coordinates just made NO sense.
I had the clearance plane set to +0.1", and the final depth set to
-0.15", and the step-down set to 0.05", so it should just produce
coordinates of -.05, -.1, and -.15" But, I got all kinds of screwy
Z coordinates, bouncing from +.15 to -.154, and jumping up and down
instead of smoothly working its way down .050" at a time. I've never
seen it do anything like this before. Did I set something wrong?
Has the code somehow gone "stale", a config file gotten corrupted,
or something like that?

I ended up extracting what I could from the messy G-code for one of
the little pockets and writing my own program to rewrite it 12 times
at 30 degre intervals. But, i don't understand why I couldn't get it
to do essentially the same thing I've done many times before.

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

Jon



--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Home Page: http://www.seanet.com/~jasonrnorth
If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes
Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive
The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me
No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses
--------------------------------------------------------------
Dependence is Vulnerability:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

JR North wrote:

Try adding 6 zeros to the Z coordinates. IE: "-0.05000000"

HUH? In the tool up/down menu, type in six zeroes in the places
for the top and bottom of the pocket Z coordinates? Wow, I will
sure try it. That certainly isn't an obvious one!

Thanks,

Jon