I have my mill up and fuctional with 2d functionality. I would like to be able to start trying things out between V21, Mach3 and my mill. Is there any way that I can tell BobCad to put some kind of pause in the g code anytime the z axis needs to be changed? If not does anyone know if there is something I can inside of Mach3 to allow me to do this? I am not looking at doing complex stuff, I just want to start out by cutting some shapes and hopefully some text in a block of aluminum.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Brian

You can do this:

Open the NC-CAM window.
Click on Setup => Conversion.
On the Original side input Z*[0-9]*.*[0-9]*, on the first empty line.
On the Convert To side in the corresponding line input your Stop command.
Then click OK.

When you generate code it should replace the proper strings with the stop command.

Furthermore, you could do this:

Original input Z[0-9]*.*[0-9]* and corresponding Convert To "M01 (Rapid to Retract)".

Original input Z-[0-9]*.*[0-9]* and the corresponding Convert To "M01 (Feed Plunge)".


This would allow you to see what it is you are supposed to do with the Z axis at the time the stop is issued.

Either way, you will need to use the conversion options in V21 to get the output in your code.

Regards

Thanks! I will try this.

Brian