Pause machine to chage tool ??

[Lasercutouts]

HI all

Hopefully someone will be able to assist

I have purchased a Chinese cnc router which seems to be working ok still getting used to it

It is using the Ucancam 10 software with ncstudio which again seems ok for what I am doing

I want to pause the machine to allow me to manually change the tool ( no auto changer fitted) part way through a job
the manual for the ucancam software says to add “TOOLCHANGE TOOLCHANGE to the post set instructions. I have done this when I download and run a job the spindle starts but just stays in the start position.

Any idea how I could get it pause between jobs

Thanks

Paul

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[steve323]

Is there anything wrong with treating each tool as a separate job. You have to manually interact with the machine to change bits. Then just load the job for the next tool and start up again.

Steve

[Jim Dawson]

Is there anything wrong with treating each tool as a separate job. You have to manually interact with the machine to change bits. Then just load the job for the next tool and start up again.

Steve

That's how I do it.

[CNCMAN172]

If you setup Mach3 for tool change it will pause and ask you to change the tool. Does you CAM tool support tool change. It would issue a M6 T? command.

You do not need to have an automatic tool changer for this to work. Everyone does this manually. you can even tell MACH3 to go to a given location, stop the spindle and then allow you to change the tool, set the new zero height and then you press cycle start and the job continues.

Russ

[steve323]

If you setup Mach3 for tool change it will pause and ask you to change the tool. Does you CAM tool support tool change. It would issue a M6 T? command.

You do not need to have an automatic tool changer for this to work. Everyone does this manually. you can even tell MACH3 to go to a given location, stop the spindle and then allow you to change the tool, set the new zero height and then you press cycle start and the job continues.

Russ

I just did a test last night to check out different amounts of backlash on some wooden gears. I have Vectric Cut2D and it does not appear to support automatic tool changes. It forces you to save all the cuts for different tools into separate tap files. It isn't that much more effort to load a second file after each tool change. However, it is an additional step when telling the software to recalculate a new cut path using a different endmill diameter. Cut2D treats this as a tool change.

It is possible that some of their more advanced software supports tool changing.

Steve

[CNCMAN172]

Steve323,
Yes, I believe vcarve pro, and aspire support tool changes. I think the Vectric site has a feature comparison chart somewhere showing what is support in each version. Cut2D as I recall was one of their very basic packages.

Russ

[fixtureman1]

You could download a trial version of Vcarve pro or Aspire and run one of their sample files