Carveco says Onefinity with BB doesn't support tool change

[Aiph5u (Aiph5u (not affiliated with Onefinity))]

Hey Chris,

@aero23

OK, Carveco emailed me and said that they have been told by Onefinity that their BB controller does not support tool changes.

that’s what Onefinity tells you, because they don’t want to deal with the tool-change code, but you can clearly see on the Buildbotics Home Page that Buildbotics tells you how to use the tool change function.

So what Onefinity tells is wrong. It’s just that the code in the ‘tool-change’ field of Onefinity stock configuration is unusable.

@Aiph5u

@Aiph5u

Regarding the other way, i.e. splitting the g-code file to one file per tool, of course there are advantages and disadvantages:

@WaywardWoodworker

@Machinist

@Aiph5u

@Mike01

can you think of any pros/cons of running a single gcode file with multiple manual tool changes vs running them as separate files, one for each tool change?

usually you would say, if your program is well-tested and mature for production, one g-code program with all the tools saves time.

Many forum members here say the advantages of one g-code program per tool is that you can change the program for a certain tool easier or re-run a pass easier. They put the name of the tool into the file name, and the pass that it is for.

Yes to this. I used to be in the camp where I wanted to keep all tools in the same program. But because I don’t have an ATC and am not running production on anything, I find it more convenient and flexible to actually program for separate tools. So even though I can program for tool changes, I prefer not to.

I was in the “one program per tool” camp until I implemented the tool setter then I found it was easier to and more accurate put them all in one program and use the tool change to measure T1 Z height, switch to tool 2, then measure T2 Z height and automatically reset the Z offset accordingly. This also works well if your Z axis zero point no longer exists after running the first tool path.