Good evening. I am building a CNC milling machine out of a cheaply acquired Sieg x1 which needed a new motor controller. This wasn't the Clarke board but an E bay purchase which is nearly identical but costs £18 and wires straight in once it has been removed from its box. I have stuck neoprene foam on the inside of the upper box which has quietened it a good bit and I replaced the lower spindle bearing. Total cost for the machine was £127 and a couple of evenings meddling so I am a happpy man.
I have three Nema 23 motors and have fitted the first one to the z axis.
I'm using an Arduino Uno running GRBL1.1 and I'm using the Universal G-code sender to drive it.
After a couple of days of frustration and engineering language, I got the programs talking to each other and yesterday, I connected it all up and calibrated the screw.
Blow me down, it works!
Now I'm much less good at Cad programs than I am at rocket science but I have done a lot of laborious assembly language over the years so G-code isn't too intimidating. I found an online g code simulator program that allows me to edit the code and see the toolpath (I am making simple one piece objects with little embellishment.) so I could make the part in wax or plastic for test purposes.
Here is the problem. Once I start to make this in metal, I shall need to make a series of repeated shallow cuts, won't I?
The machine and cutter won't have the grunt to work deeply so I was wondering whether there was a method of executing a block of code, for example,
mill an outline,
step the z axis,
repeat until done.
Move on to the next process,
mill a shape,
step the z axis.
Repeat until done.
sort of like a subroutine in a conventional program.
Is this how it is done?
If it is, would somebody please explain to me how to do it as I can't see any way of doing it without cutting and pasting a huge amount of code with z statements between them which looks pretty clunky to me.
Sorry, it is an elementary question but I'm a beginner and this would be a very great help
Thank you for reading this far!