Post Processor Questions and Suggestions

[Mainstore]

Hi All,

Purchased the software day before yesterday and machined my first pulley yesterday. GT2-8. Overall a very nice program. I am very well pleased. The rapid rate of development is a great sign for the future. The output G-code is very accurate and makes for very smooth gears.

I hope that it will not be considered presumptuous of me to make a few observations and possibly suggestions.

While the g-code was nice and clean, it took a considerable amount of work to get it ready for a Haas/Fanuc style controller to run.

1. No line numbers. Haas controllers need line numbers in the form of Nx to Nxxxx and rolling back over to Nx. Increment is arbitrary. I usually start at N100 and increment by 5 to leave a little room for inserting hand edits. On a 25,000 line program, this is not something that can be done by hand.

2. Greater flexibility in the prolog/epilog would be nice. For example, between the last M5 and M30, Mastercam and most other CAM programs will add code to bring the table to home.
N150 M5
N160 G91 G28 Z0. M9
N165 G28 X0. Y0. A0.
N170 M30

3. The feed rates in Gearotic are integers. Haas/fanuc controllers need a decimal number or they will stick at that point.

I wrote a quick and dirty UltraEdit script to add line numbers and put decimal points after the feeds. I would be glad to upload it for everyone to use if that seems to be of interest to anyone.

I chose UltraEdit because I thought that it would be the most generic for the users here. UltraEdit scripts are 'kinda' javascript. It's kind of kludgy. UE didn't really want to do what I wanted it to. I would have preferred Awk, but didn't think many people here would be able to run it on a Windows machine :)

If I was allowed one wish, it would be to make the feeds floats. The line numbering in the script is pretty robust and can easily be converted to other scripting languages but the code to add decimals to the feed rates is cheesy and not at all transportable.

Kevin

[Mooselake]

I chose UltraEdit because I thought that it would be the most generic for the users here. UltraEdit scripts are 'kinda' javascript. It's kind of kludgy. UE didn't really want to do what I wanted it to. I would have preferred Awk, but didn't think many people here would be able to run it on a Windows machine :)

Gnu Awk (gawk) is part of cygwin, which is a port of unix utilities to windows, and not particularly difficult to install - plus you get vi!  Or at least a clone like vim.  I also found a windows stand-alone gawk on sourceforge, but it hasn't been updated since 2008.  Probably works fine.

I've done some giant kluges with awk/gawk, along with what I though was non-klugey stuff, on Windows and several versions of *nix.  It's been several years since I looked at it.

Kirk

[ArtF]

Hi:

Good points. I will see if I can implement them. I wasnt aware that a haas was so picky.. L-)

Art

[Ken_Shea]

My CNC is a Haas and does not require line numbers, I don't use them, could be the way the NC post is set up, perhaps it could be the software version, mine is 12.0 something.

Ken

[Mainstore]

That's what so great about the community that builds up around a product such as Gearotic. The things that you learn, or in my case the preconceived ideas that you find are incorrect.

I stand corrected. My Haas machines do not require line numbers. It's funny, I was actually running the test when Ken posted. I have always used Mastercam (makes sign to ward off evil spirits) and the standard Haas post in Mastercam puts in line numbers. Learned something new, and very important/useful today.

I will stand by my observation about the floating point feed rates. Tried that again tonight. No decimal point, no run.

Now I have to see if the line number roll over at 9999 is actually necessary. I like line numbers, but they would be so much more useful if they could go all the way to the end of the program without rolling over.

Thanks again, this is fun.

Kevin

[Mainstore]

This gets more interesting all the time.

Very interesting fact; Haas/Fanuc controls still honor what is called '8 character assignment'. In 8 character assignment all numbers had to have 8 digits, 4 before the (implied) decimal point and 4 after.
For example 10.000 = 00100000, 1.0 = 00010000, etc. Similar to other fixed point schemes. So if you enter a 2 without a decimal point, as I did for a plunge feed rate, the controller sees it as .0002. So the machine seems to the eye to hang when in reality it is just plunging at .0002 inches per minute!

This behavior is a hold over from the old days, the really old days, like from the 1950's. It is still honored to allow legacy code to run.

Referring back to line numbers. If a Haas/Fanuc program has "N" preceded line numbers it can use M97 (Haas only) and M98 (Haas and most other machines) subroutine calls.

[ArtF]

Hi:

  I cant easily fix line numbers.. Ill have to list that one as it impacts a lot of Code, BUT .. I have aded
a Feedrate precision specifier to the post file, so you can select as many digits after the feedrate decimal as you like as of next version.

Ill look into other fixes over time.

Thx
Art

[Mainstore]

Great!

I understand that a lot of people don't want or need line numbers. The offer still stands about uploading my numbering script. I'll remove the kludgy feed rate code. The rest is robust and should work OK for anybody.

Thanks
Kevin

[ArtF]

Hi Kevin:

Sure, drop it here, and Ill check it out and include it in the release files .. if it can help someone..why not. :)

Art