[CabinDigital]

Ok have a new series 3 Tormach 1100 and a relative newbie to it and Mach3

Lots of tests and playing with the machine... also use Vcarve so I have a few questions...

As path pilot install wipes the Tormach drive - how hard is it to revert back to Mach3?
Can I just disk image the Tormach?
Does PathPilot work with VCarve Pro (expect it does as that creates Mach3 Gcode

Would like to hear the pros and cons - expect I will move to Path Pilot sooner or later and part of me says move now and learn it and part of me says wait until things are stable (of course that means I learn Mach3 and then Path Pilot....)

advice?

[shred]

Personally I switched to an early beta of PP and and am using it in my business, but I have a high tolerance for minor bugs and issues (not that Tormach's Mach doesn't have them too, but they are more-documented) and my workflow works well with PP (ie; I don't want to run third party speed/feed calculators or apps or surf the web from my controller)

Pros and Cons will vary by usage. But PP does seem to be the strategic direction for Tormach. Being in Beta is a Con, so scope the threads to see what-doesn't-work and make sure you don't want to do that right now.

I think the new-hard-drive is the way to go if you want to be able to swap back with a minimum of effort. I'll let the other people that were playing around with dual-boot chime in on that.

[japrenticeuk]

... also use Vcarve so I have a few questions...

As path pilot install wipes the Tormach drive - how hard is it to revert back to Mach3?
Can I just disk image the Tormach?
Does PathPilot work with VCarve Pro (expect it does as that creates Mach3 Gcode

Would like to hear the pros and cons - expect I will move to Path Pilot sooner or later and part of me says move now and learn it and part of me says wait until things are stable (of course that means I learn Mach3 and then Path Pilot....)

advice?

If you have a Tormach Mach3 restore disk then you can re-install Windows/Mach3. Note that you will need to re-create your tool table and, of course, load copies of any files in the GCode folder.

VCarvePro works very well with PathPilot - smooth and fast. I use it a lot. The fact that, in PathPilot, overrides for rapids and feed moves are quite independent is very useful in tuning cutting speeds. I find it hard to guess optimal feed rates and some carvings have many G00 (rapid) moves which waste a lot of time in Mach3 if you slow down the feedrate very much.

Two things I need to do to the code files: (a) The Mach3 ATC (mm) postprocessor puts a G71 (switch to metric mode) near the top of the code. This needs to be a G21 with PathPilot (and works with Mach3). I am not sure but suspect the inch versions put a G70 ( -> G20). (b) If you do manual tool changes then you probably need to add code to move the head up before each tool change (the block with M06 in it) as you cannot jog with PathPilot during tool change. I just use G00 Z100 (in metric) but G30 or the Tormach specific M998 are other solutions.

Whether you want to try PathPilot has to be a personal decision but comments in threads here seem generally very positive.

John Prentice