GearHeads Corner

Hi Art,
I've had this happen before and though it had to be me but now I'm not so sure.  The little circles - two in this case appear in the triangular case but disappear when the only thing changed is the number of sides being asked for.  I've tried a number of things but to no avail.
I'm attaching a jpeg of the gear as it was cut and another of the Mach 3 screen both of which show the "little circles".

The TriangleTrio.gprj is the GM file and the Triangular.tap is the gCode.

Hope you can shed some light.

John

Hi John:

  The prblem are lines such as

G01  X-0.3135 Y0.4759
  G03  X-0.3134 Y0.4760 I-0.3290 J0.5031

  This actually calls for a full circle when it shouldnt in this case. Im looking for the problem.
In the output managaer there is a selection called "Rounded Corners". Can you turn that off
if its on? Its possible that the system is trying to make a round corner where it shouldnt
and the result is a small circle.  Ill search here as well to see about putting in a safety to ensure that doesnt happen.

  You can get rid of it in the mid term by deselecting the "rounded Corners" checkbox I suspect.

Thx
Art

John:

  Ive added a safety to ensure the spokes will not create G2/G3 sets in spokes. This shoudl cure the problem
with the next release if Im right about the Runded Corners option being the trouble.

  the problem comes in from the pocketer being a very high precision, then rounded to 4 decimals. The arc it was
trying to create was very very small, and when rounded to 4 decimals became a full circle as a result. This shoudl
have been very rare and created by certain tool tolerances. Next version should stop that behaviour.

Thx
Art

I changed tool diameter to .0325 and got a change in locations of the loops.
Has something to do with tool diameter because I tried .015 and it worked fine.

Hi Art,
I turned of the "rounded corners" on the original GM file and generated new gCode for Mach3 and the little corners were still there so I went back and with rounded corners off I re-booted the program and this time when I generated gCode the circles were gone.  In fact when I put rounded corners back on again, the little circles were still gone.  Perhaps the effects of rounded corners only takes effect when  the program is re-booted?

Anyway it looks like I have a solution until the next version -- thanks very much

John