Originally Posted by High Seas Al_The_Man.
Yes it seems that MACH2 does take G41 and G42. But as I read them they are: Cutter Compensation LEFT and RiIGHT. So do I input a line in the GCOde for each pass, so the compensation is on both sides? Or does machine code then figure out to go in al directions and just the initial compensation is Left or Right?
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Jim, you only need one G41 or G42, and one G40 at the end of the cut to turn it back off. I haven't used Mach2, but here's how I do it. Say you're cutting out a square, cutting counterclockwise (conventional milling). You usually need to add a start segment for the tool to have a chance to offset before you actually start cutting your part. So, Starting from the lower right corner of a 2" square:
G0 X2 Y-2.5 (Move a little below the corner to allow for the offset to happen)
G1 Z-.25 (Whatever depth you want to be at)
G42 (offset to the right, because we're cutting counterclockwise)
G1 X2 Y-2 (The offset should occur during this move, the bottom corner of our square)
G1 X2 Y0
G1 X0 Y0
G1 X0 Y-2
G1 X2 Y2
G40 (Turn off comp)
G1 X2.5 Y2 (Run a little past the part, while the tool moves from the comp'ed path back to it's actual path)
This is how G41 G42 operates on our router at work. I'd expect Mach2 to be similar. The manual is a bit confusing on Cutter Comp. I pointed this out on the Yahoo list so hopefully it will be better documented in the future.