Not having the 3D view, or any other significant data about a toolpath I’m about to set in motion (except for time & whether it fits) has always bugged me. F360 puts a Zmin comment for each tool which I can see in the g-code, which helps. F360 also lets you add a comment, which I use to add some key facts, like where origin should be, but I think more/safer would be useful.
I made a tool which I like a lot, so I’m curious to see if others want a copy. I also am hoping that 1F can open up an option on the BB controller that would make my tool (& a universe of others) even more useful.
I’ll drop a screenshot, but my tool (a post-post-processor) reads the nc, and shows a bunch of stuff about the file, but also re-writes the nc file with some extra comments at the top you can review on the BB screen, e.g.:
%
(NIGHTST-4-TOPFINISH)
(Post-post-proc at 2/7/2025 11:25 AM)
(X Range: -0.0402 - 6.7258)
(Y Range: -0.0289 - 4.4888)
(Z Range: -1.4442 - 1.7)
(Z Tops: 1.7, 1.3, 1.1544, 1.1368)
(Top Level-Z moves: 1.3-Rapid, 1.0735, 0.9762)
This gives me enough info to confirm it’s what I think it is and that I’ve got the workholding and probing done appropriately. It has options for:
- Adding envelope comments (as above)
- Automatically restoring rapid moves (for those of us using F360 free)
- Removing the XY home instruction the default 1F post in F360 tacks on the end of every path
- Removing some of F360 useless & verbose comments
I’m wishing there was a controller-integrated way to see toolpath-associated content on the BB screen, be it a web page that my tool would create, a PDF setup doc, such as F360 can produce, or even a dynamic, web-based visualization. I could see a few simple/useful alternative ways of implementing this:
- If you upload content viewable on the controller browser (HTML, JPG, PDF?) with the same name and in the same folder as the selected toolpath, a link will permit opening it in a browser tab (may want to add an optional or default behavior when deleting files to delete these “companion” files with them)
- a feature in the g-code listing that shows specially formatted comments as functional links, opened in a new tab. E.g., a toolpath could have a comment at the top like “([[setupPage.html]])”
- A single customizable HTML section somewhere on an accessible page. Now that SSH seems to be disabled on the 1F BB controllers it might be easier for folks to have this point to a different machine on their network that could mange a setup DB, but it could also serve local content. Some might just use this to show a custom logo. A configurable HTML blurb to the right of the 1F logo & left of the new Rotary icon would serve well enough.
A weaker version of this could probably be made available on the controller (& I will probably give it a try) by adding a bookmark in the controller browser, but this will be a bit awkward, especially for those of us using the smaller touchscreens. It also would be hard to give it any context as to which toolpath is loaded, so prone to mistakes.
Would others find this useful? Is there already a way to do this that I’m missing? Does anyone want a copy of the tool I made? (If more than 1 or 2 I’ll post the code to github for whoever wants it, or wants to extend it.)
-r
