Padder which inserts blank spaces between the elements of a line
of G-Code.
N24G01X12.357Y-8.278Z-4.50F300. becomes: N24 G01 X12.357 Y-8.278 Z-4.50
F300.
I once received unpadded code which I found very difficult to read so I
wrote this trivial utility to make my life easier. I have bundled it in
here.
Wrapper which wraps a normal planar toolpath around a cylinder
so that XYZ becomes XAZ. You specify the relationship between y
movement and A axis rotation. The machine must be capable of
simultaneous movement in the A axis and the X & Z axes.
Scan2CNC which allows you to scan a line drawing and convert
that to G-Code so that the drawing can be cut by a CNC machining
centre. (Even photographs can be approximated; but that is stretching
it.) There are plenty of utilities that will convert a plot file to
G-Code but this one is novel in that it converts a scanned image of a
drawing into G-Code without the need to vectorise or trace anything.
The whole process is done by hardware & software. The steps
required are:
Scan the drawing
Load the scan into a graphics program such as Corel
Print the drawing specifying the Epson LX80 dot matrix printer. Print
to File (so you do not need to have that old fashioned printer, just
the driver which comes with Windows).
Process the print file through Scan2CNC which will translate the
printer file into G-Code. The toolpath will replicate the printer file
so it will be raster cuts in the x direction with y axis step overs
between cuts. You can scale & manipulate the image in Corel if you
wish & the print file can be scaled as it is translated into
G-Code. There are 2 cutting qualities offered and you can set the
minimum width of the black & white space.
These utilities are freeware and the Clarion 2.1 source code is
included. Help is built into the program, sample scan files & a
text file explaining how to use the program are included.
