NCPlot M99 option ??

[TURNER]

Hi Scott,
Could you help me with this small problem please?. When we make our cnc programs we sometimes paste them all up together so we can load them into the machine in one shot. When NCPlot sees an M99 though it reads it as end of program and will not plot the rest of the other programs...eg
%
O4454
G80
( JOB DESCRIPTION )
G40
G0 G55 G90
N12T12M6
(*ROUGH* THREE PASSES.)
G0G17G90X347.63Y-70.S936M3
M8
G43Z10.H12
G1G94Z4.5F5000.

-----PROGRAM CODE------

G0 G91 G28 Z0.0 M95
G91 G28 X0.0 Y0.0
G90 M5
M9
M99 NCP stops here
O6454(M/C PAD FOR WELDED RAMP)
(10MM DJA BALL NOSE. STATION 9)
(CALJBRATE TOOL 9 TO BALL CENTRE)
G21
G80

-----PROGRAM CODE------

G0 G91 G28 Z0. M95
G91 G28 Y0. Z0.
G17 G90
M99
%


Maybe you could have an option to ignore M99 so the whole lot could be plotted at once.
I know you have the subprogram feature which works well if i split all my progams but its a bit of pain to do in this case.
It would be great if you could help.

Also before i forget, i have noticed when you use the insert macro function, if the output numbers in the code are whole
numbers it doesnt add a decimal point ??

thanks...Turner

[MetLHead]

Originally Posted by TURNER Hi Scott, Could you help me with this small problem please?. When we make our cnc programs we sometimes paste them all up together so we can load them into the machine in one shot. When NCPlot sees an M99 though it reads it as end of program and will not plot the rest of the other programs...eg

NCPlot stops at the M99 to prevent it from just looping forever.

Originally Posted by TURNER Maybe you could have an option to ignore M99 so the whole lot could be plotted at once. I know you have the subprogram feature which works well if i split all my progams but its a bit of pain to do in this case. It would be great if you could help. Also before i forget, i have noticed when you use the insert macro function, if the output numbers in the code are whole numbers it doesnt add a decimal point ?? thanks...Turner

Adding an option to ignore the M99 is possible, but it seems like there could be a better way to handle this. What you are trying to do is plot all of the programs in the file at the same time, is that right? What about programs that end with M2/M30? Maybe you could try this approach:

M98 P1
M98 P2
M98 P3
M2

%
O1(PROGRAM1)
..
M99
O2(PROGRAM2)
...
M99
O3(PROGRAM3)
...
M99
%

Of course, this will only work as long as each program ends with M99 and not M2/M30.

I'll check out the macro insert problem and let you know what I find.

Regards,
Scott

[TURNER]

Originally Posted by MetLHead Maybe you could try this approach: M98 P1 M98 P2 M98 P3 M2 % O1(PROGRAM1) .. M99 O2(PROGRAM2) ...

Scott,
Well done again this approach works great. Thanks for the help.
Turner.