[tdiaz]

Software, such as??

My controller box doesn't have the ability that I'm aware of. It's an Axxis something, with Gecko drives.

I have figured out I can change velocity during the job, but it requires me to edit the GCode myself as best I can tell, DesKAM 2000 does not allow me to do that when converting the DXF to GCode.

Right now, what I've got to work with is DeskNC DOS, and the Axxis 2.0 controller via LPT. Software power setting would be nice as it would mean I can do raster... and single passes on all jobs, as opposed to doing dual passes now.

If there were a pause command in GCode then I could stack the two jobs in the same file and have it do the lower power setting, wait for me to change the power and do the rest.

[TarHeelTom]

Software, such as??

My controller box doesn't have the ability that I'm aware of. It's an Axxis something, with Gecko drives.

I have figured out I can change velocity during the job, but it requires me to edit the GCode myself as best I can tell, DesKAM 2000 does not allow me to do that when converting the DXF to GCode.

Right now, what I've got to work with is DeskNC DOS, and the Axxis 2.0 controller via LPT. Software power setting would be nice as it would mean I can do raster... and single passes on all jobs, as opposed to doing dual passes now.

If there were a pause command in GCode then I could stack the two jobs in the same file and have it do the lower power setting, wait for me to change the power and do the rest.

Sounds like you're using EMC2, with the Axxis user interface. EMC certainly has the capability to do all this, if you add it to your controller box.

Editing Gcode is easy. If you're going to work with cnc, you owe it to yourself to learn at least some basic Gcode.

And there certainly is a pause command in Gcode, as well as a Dwell command, (G04) which is a pause for a specified number of seconds.

The emc2 can turn the spindle motor on and off using the M3, M4, M5, and the S command to set spindle speed. If you build a software/hardware controller for your machine, use M3 and M5 to turn power on and off, and use the S command to set "spindle speed", but use it to select the power setting you want.

I'm not a Mach expert, but feel sure that Mach 3 would let you do the same things without difficulty.

Tom