SheetCam Ethercut Question

[OTHill]

I recently bought a used Fastcut Plasma table and had to upgrade to Ethercut from candcnc due to unavailability of parts for the old controller. Some of you have been there done that. Question is when I upgrade SheetCam to Ethercut what changes? Does it have a different Post Processor? I still want to use SheetCam for my old blade runner DTHC2. How is this done and do I have to run all my old files through Sheetcam again to cut with Ethercut? I sure hope not. Excuse my ignorance. When I bought the Fastcut I was expecting to have 2 tables with all the same hardware but no such luck. Any help is much appreciated.

[sphurley]

Sheetcam is Sheetcam. The Post Processor is what can change. If you had your (assuming you have one) sliding Z offset in Mach in your old files and now you have it in the post then that will change. You can use the Ethercut DTHC post with the older bladerunner by turning off Ethercut in the post. You can use a different post for jobs in Sheetcam. Just select the post under the machine options.

[ovrrdrive]

I think the entire touch off sequence is different than in mach. Plus there are a ton of new features that have been added to commandcnc even in just the last year that I have been following it that weren't available in mach too. One more thing that comes to mind is the VAD vs the older tip saver function. VAD is supposed to be far superior. At worst I think you might have to install the newest version of the linix tools and the latest commandcnc post file.

CandCNC has a facebook group now that's pretty responsive. You might want to join that and ping luke about it to be sure. I would think at the very least you'd have to run the files back through sheetcam with the correct post processor on them to make it work correctly. Tom is pretty active here too so it's probably just a matter of time before he sees this.

I never used mach but commandcnc is really nice...

[tcaudle]

If you upgrade to th LINUX CommadnCNC the g-code (and thus the POST) is entirely different and you old g-code files need to run through the new POST. If you moved to a MACH Ethercut then the old files would work but you will have to set the DTHC parameters manually on the operators console,

If you want to take advantage of the DTHC automation then you need to use the correct POST for the system you have. The POSTS for MACH are in the SheetCAM Update Installer in the Downloads. It puts them in a folder named SheetCAM-CandCNC on the C drive. You have ti IMPORT a POST into SheetCAM. On LINUX system you have the same folder and it has the same Posts and toolsets folders but the POST is for LINUX

Since the EtherCut is avaialble in the MACH or LINUX flavors it does not tell me which you have so I answered for either install.

[ovrrdrive]

Oh I guess I was assuming he had one mach3 and one commandcnc but after rereading it I guess he never said that...

[OTHill]

Both tables run Mach 3.The fastcut table is the one upgraded to Ethercut. I already upgraded Mach3 to Ethernet on it.

[WyoGreen]

So short answer, use 2 different posts. One for the ethercut, and one for the DTHC2. You can have more than one post button in Sheetcam, so you can use one button for each post.

Steve

[OTHill]

Thanks all.

[OTHill]

So WyoGreen how you set a another button for the other post in SheetCam?

[motoguy]

So WyoGreen how you set a another button for the other post in SheetCam?

I think that can only be done in the DEV version, not the stable version.