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GCode, Freecad, LaserGRBL, LaserWeb

A project log for G-EDM

The G-EDM is an electrical discharge machine that supports sinker EDM, EDM engraving, EDM drilling and Wire EDM operations. #Drahterodieren

gedm-devgedm-dev 08/11/2023 at 02:050 Comments

Ok. X and Y is working. That is a good thing. But the GCode created for Lasers with a bigger laserdot diameter to simulate the electrodes can turn out very ugly.

A laser moves from on side to the other and doesn't care about overshooting the contours. Normally the dot of a laser is small so this isn't a problem. But a 1.5mm "dot" can create an ugly outer shape.

I'm currently modifying the internal GRBL postprocessor that is part of freecad.

First goal is to get electrode up/down movements working instead of using Z axis motions. This could be done within the G-EDM software too but to keep it simple and clean a modified postprocessor would be a good way.

Generating GCode with freecad is not as hard as it looks.

Update: Looks like it is possible with GRBL-Plotter to compensate the tool diameter and prevent ugly contours with negative toll diameter values and the output of the customized FreeCAD postprocessor looks promising too:

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