machining in 2D on knee mill with mach3

[Deano7/11]

hello all

i am a bit of a newbie with all this cnc retrofitting. i am yet to start my conversion of my knee mill and have being toying with the idea of converting the table first and running the mill in with manual height adjustment for now.

most if not all the parts i make are 2d and i would benefit from a cnc table greatly but when i figure out what i want to do with the Z i will convert that.

my question is - not knowing mach3 very well is there a way to tell it that you dont have a cnc z axis and when it needs a adjustment in depth of cut it will pause and prompt you to do this adjusment then you can tell it you have adjusted to the depth the drawing calls for and it will continue cutting?

thanks guys

[BobWarfield]

I don't recall seeing an option like that, but it doesn't mean there isn't one.

However, even if you don't find one, you can find the Z moves in the g-code pretty easily and put an M01 optional stop in. If you use an editor with regular expression search you could do an automatic search and replace. Or you could write a basic program.

You're going to have to make sure you don't get any multi-axis moves for interpolation or ramping or you won't be able to manage that though.

People certainly have done what you're thinking of, though I think they only do it just long enough to get a proper Z-axis motorized!

Cheers,

BW

[Deano7/11]

thanks Bob

sounds like the easiest way is to get the z sorted at the same time as the table then i don't have to worry about crashing my machine or breaking off bit due to the rapid/multi axis movements