#FEATURES ON PRO PLANNER PLUS SOFTWARE#

As your machine warms up, parts expand at different rates. Another important source of error is addressed by Temperature Compensation. As you move a machine in X, it may change Y or Z some tiny amount. Add to that straightness compensation which adjusts for the fact that the axes of the machine are not completely orthogonal to one another. There’s Backlash and Pitch compensation for the aforementioned ballscrew problems.

#FEATURES ON PRO PLANNER PLUS SOFTWARE#

With the right software in your Controller, it can try to compensate for these issues. Sometimes a commanded move of an inch is 0.9996 inches while other times it may be 1.0003 inches. No ballscrew is without at least some small amount of backlash, nor does every inch of the ballscrew thread advance with perfect precision. If you’re doing 3D profiling or running a fancy HSM toolpath you will love having these features available from your Controller. They can provide capabilities like Automatic Corner Override, Advanced Contour Control, Advanced Feed Forward Control, and Advanced Acceleration Control. They user this information together with Closed Loop Information and Lookahead Information about what the g-code will do next to try to anticipate and stay ahead of the game. This can lead to a number of advantages including greater precision, smoother/faster speed changes, better surface finishes, and ultimately, shorter cycle times. They not only understand the acceleration capabilities of the machine, they also understand the actual shape of the acceleration curve. The very best Controllers are all over the acceleration problem. That’s extremely useful for cost estimating and for tuning up g-code part programs to run better. We added some information to our G-Wizard Editor that tries to tell you what acceleration is doing to g-code program run times as well as what’s happening line by line. In fact, it is surprising how often they’re not going the speed you thought you’d programmed them to go because they’re busy trying to accelerate or decelerate to get there. They can’t accelerate to the commanded feedrate instantly nor stop on a dime. Advanced Acceleration and Shape ControlĪcceleration is always a bit of a bugaboo for CNC machines. The precise position can then be read from the encoder position to an accuracy that’s much higher than can be achieved with a simple Home Switch.ĥ. The actual Home Switch only has to identify the neighborhood within 1 encoder revolution.

Increased Homing Accuracy via Closed LoopĪnother neat trick the Pros use is to tremendously increase the accuracy of Home Switches by tying them to the Encoders on each axis. If there’s a mistake you either get too little of the hole threaded or the tap hits the bottom and usually breaks. The acid test is rapid tapping into a blind hole. It’s not easy to do it right for one thing. In theory it should be pretty straightforward to get this into Hobby Controls given that they support an encoder for threading on lathes, but you don’t see it very often. I prefer to look at what specific features the user gets from Closed Loop rather than worrying about the theoretical implications, so I’m going to name a few here. There’s a lot of Holy War diatribe about whether or not there is Closed Loop all the way back to the Control when discussing such things as Mach3 versus LinuxCNC. Rigid Tapping via Closed Loop to the Control Canned cycles like G71 on the lathe make it fairly easy to hand program even complex profiles quickly and without the need for CAM software.ģ. This is another one that makes a big difference, particularly when programming lathes. Branching is the ability for the g-code to change what it will do based on outside inputs. You can only do so much with #variables and subprograms without branching. What’s specifically missing so far are branching structures–IF, GOTO, and WHILE loops. The ability to program the g-code in Pro machines is quite a ways ahead of the Hobby Controllers such as Mach 3 or LinuxCNC. Better Macros and Subprograms: Fanuc Macro B vs Mach3 vs LinuxCNC Despite their newfound power, there are a number of features that Pro CNC Controls have that most Hobby CNC Controllers do not. Amazing stuff, and it’s only going to keep getting better over time. I recently saw an article on a single chip CNC controller–no need for a PC, just add a few outboard parts and it drives the stepper motors, provides an LCD screen UI, and quite a lot more. Hobby CNC Controllers have gotten to where they’re quite powerful.

Features on pro planner plus