forum.cncdrive.com

Hello! I'm going to try the laserengrave plugin but I cannot find a way to save/edit the generated gcode.
I want to do this for two main reasons: 1. to re-use the same g-code without run again the plugin and remember settings for each image, 2. to run a post-processor on it.
After clicking on "generate and send to UCCNC" I cannot see the g-code, and clicking on "edit file" leads to a blank editor.

How to do that?

Code is not generated with the laser plugin, it would be just a huge amount of resource waste to generate code plus for very large picture images the generated code might be so large that it would not fit into the memory.

I don't understand how it might work, then!

Anyway, I generate g-code for laser rastering since several years with no memory issues.
Of course, the files may be quite big, but the same applies for 3D carving for example.
I would like to try this CAM because it seems it's the only one that supports the "overrun" to avoid acceleration/deceleration ramps and to engrave at constant speed only.

You simply send it to the UCCNC from the plugin and then press cycle start and that's all, no g-code, it will run from memory.
To unload it do a RESET.

An image can be several thousands times several thousands of pixels size and it is possible that for each pixel the laser intensity has to be changed, that is a huge amount of characters in g-code while it takes only 8bits per pixel when run directly from memory with the data stored as a byte array.

cncdrive wrote:An image can be several thousands times several thousands of pixels size and it is possible that for each pixel the laser intensity has to be changed, that is a huge amount of characters in g-code while it takes only 8bits per pixel when run directly from memory with the data stored as a byte array.

I know this.
But as said I never had an issue with that! Most of my files are about 5-6 MB (300-400k rows).
I understand running it from memory is more efficient but you have no further control...

What further control would you need?
If the laser is stopped in the middle of the job then the job is 100% sure ruined, so I see no point for any further control.

cncdrive wrote:What further control would you need?

I said that in the first post: use again the same file without remember the settings for each one (I have hundreds!) and use a post-processor to customize whatever I might need (example, I always add a comment header section with notes about material, size, origin, etc...).

Yes, that sounds a reasonable idea if you want to save it. Unfortunately there is no such option like that in the plugin at the moment, but I will be thinking about this.
Maybe we could make the data save-able and reloadable in the plugin.

cncdrive wrote:Maybe we could make the data save-able and reloadable in the plugin.

It would be very appreciated, thanks!

Yes! Saving engrave params for jobs would be wonderful.

I also asked for these last year but I'll ask again: Please add X axis backlash and S3 parameters to the engrave plugin. Too often I forget to set these, messing up a job. Also provide feedback after the plugin is finished sending the data stream to UCCNC. There's no way of knowing and it can take a few seconds for a big engrave job.