From Sheetcam to V-carve?

[Johnnybravo]

Hi Folks. We have a CNC Shark at work which runs V-carve (I think) It looks like a pretty basic program.

I made a drawing in Qcad, and have tried several different profiles in Sheetcam to generate the Gcode so I can put the .tap file in the vcarve program and run it on the CNC Shark. The problem is that it is not generating the code correctly. I get like 3 lines of code that don't do anything and the vcarve just looks at me like I'm stupid. There has to be a way to translate this doesn't there?

Trying to be the hero today at my new job LOL, any help out there?

[Les Newell]

I had a look at the CNC Shark website and they don't seem to supply much documentation on their G-code. I reverse engineered their Vectric post processor and I'd say SheetCam's 'Minimum g-code' post processor should do the trick.

In SheetCam did you set up any cut operations? Have a look in Help->tutorials to see how to set up your tools and operations.

[Johnnybravo]

Awesome! Thank you Les! I will try that and respond.

[Johnnybravo]

I think that's going to work! The code all looked normal. I loaded the program while the person running it went on break. I'll load it back on after she gets done this afternoon and try to run it.

I really appreciate your help Les!

[Johnnybravo]

Worked like a charm!

[Johnnybravo]

I am hoping someone can help me with a second issue here.
How do I dictate where the home position is in relation to the piece I am cutting using Sheetcam? It sounds like such a noob problem to me, but I just cannot get the router to rest where I want it to, and subsequently it is adding another step to each unit we cut out.

I am using QCAD to draw the part, and I am using Sheetcam as a post processor, with the 'minimum G code' processor which plays well with the router we are using.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Les Newell]

Is it possible to set the X,Y zero position in CNC Shark? In SheetCam all coordinates are relative to that zero position. For instance if you set 0,0, to be the bottom left hand corner of your machine all coordinates in SheetCam will be relative to that corner.

[Johnnybravo]

I was wondering that, but I won't be able to do it anyway, unless I can make it specific to this drawing. The machine is used for several other pieces during production. If I do that, and it doesn't automatically switch with the drawings, it will mess up everything.