TurboCNC does the dry-verify time estimation as well - handy for making small tweaks to the g-code and seeing if it really saves any time.
You might want to ask Art if he can roll you a "special" that has a faster estimator if you're using Mach... I imagine he'd just disable a few things to make it faster.
The control really needs to do this, as the time for machining is heavily dependent on acceleration and things that only the control knows. CAD/CAM can add up all the lines in the toolpath and figure 1000" of length at 10ipm is 100 minutes, but the control would get something like 107.74 minutes for accel and rapids; that kind of thing. Sometimes it matters... |