How does a fully configured Linuxcnc system compare to industrial controls.

I think that you are describing shortcomings of the "tooledit" dialog that Axis opens. (which is a standalone GUI). I was assuming that your issues were with the tool table itself (which is somewhat limited in some ways)

Some GUIs other than Axis have their own built-in tool editor. (whereas Touchy doesn't seem to have anything at all)
I haven't really noticed the issues with tooledit as I rarely use it (my tool offsets are all changed by touch-off, I only need to go to the tool table to add new tools)

I do agree that tooledit ought to refuse to open multiple copies of itself.
Or, at least, multiple copies that are editing the same tool table simultaneously.

Out of all the available gui’s Axis seems most stable. I tried Gmoccapy and didn’t care for it. I think GreenScreen has potential, but it’s gonna be work to to tweak it out.

I touch tools off also, on the Cinci with the tool probe and the Hardinge by touching them physically. My experience with any lathe, the offsets always need tweaks, tool pressure, temperature effect tight tolerances . I rarely get +/- .005 . Lots of +\- .001 and .0005.

I actually kinda liked the original GUI, TKemc.

Not a pro or very experience user and still quite new to LinuxCNC. Just wanted to add to the many comments before that I am successfully using G41 / G42. I did not find any problems within LinuxCNC and the toolpath is also displayed correctly. However, I do have some differences to the visualisation in CAMWorks (within SolidWorks) regarding the leadin and leadout moves.

As for the learning curve: yes, it might not be easy at times to find a solution for everything and research, implementation and testing is very time consuming. The forum and the community is a great help though and I benefit from deep-diving into the control.

I would like to see (paid) professional support for LinuxCNC or retrofits. Of course, an external service can't be made accountable for a retrofitted machine with a self built control but still I would have loved to pay someone by the hour helping me configuring LinuxCNC when I got stuck. So if there are people interested in these kind of jobs, please let me know. I think it would be a Pro on the list of Dbsharp and helpful for me as well.

I am thinking of offering LinuxCNC related services with my company but we are still too new to LinuxCNC to be consideres professionals.

piflixe wrote:

I would like to see (paid) professional support for LinuxCNC or retrofits. Of course, an external service can't be made accountable for a retrofitted machine with a self built control but still I would have loved to pay someone by the hour helping me configuring LinuxCNC when I got stuck. So if there are people interested in these kind of jobs, please let me know. I think it would be a Pro on the list of Dbsharp and helpful for me as well.

Just out of curiosity, what would be a reasonable hourly rate?
P.S. i never ask for compensation, ever.

JR1050 wrote:

I touch tools off also, on the Cinci with the tool probe and the Hardinge by touching them physically. My experience with any lathe, the offsets always need tweaks, tool pressure, temperature effect tight tolerances . I rarely get +/- .005 . Lots of +\- .001 and .0005.

This is the way I work. I am not suggesting that it is optimal or that LinuxCNC could not make it easier.

And I am talking about lathe work here. 

I mainly use my lathe macros. These return the tool to the final diameter at the end of each operation. 

Typically I aim a cut increment short (so that the final cut has a normal amount of deflection for the process variables) then measure the actual work diameter. 

Then I touch-off the tool to the measured diameter, change the requested diameter to the actual requirement and run the macro again.
(If it is Tool 1 then I touch off the coordinate system instead) 

This works for me, but I make one-offs. 

Stopping a full cut short is actually something that I learned from Stefan Gotteswinter: 
What he says is relavent to CNC setup too.
 

On the machines I have with Lcnc , I program them offline with HSM works. Not having the standard lathe canned cycles , this is a must.

I touch my tools off , if I have a part with open tolerance, touching them off the probe of taking a cut and storing the offset is good Enuff. If I have some thing tight, I back the offset off .005 do my finish cuts and adjust accordingly. This is where wear offsets come in, rather then having to go thru resetting an offset , I can simply back the tool off in the wear offset, cut, check and adjust accordingly. I make mostly short runs, 50 of something is a lot , mostly 1-5 pcs.
When either machine is stone cold, they will repeat with in .0002. When they warm up, they move. Keep in mind, I can make a part that is a 10” dia x 4” thick piece of stainless, and it gets 80% of it hollowed out, by the time the machine has hogged this out, the offsets need tweaking.

I used to have an Ikegai FX-25N , it had a Fanuc 5t, no decimal point, no crt, no fixture offsets. You set each tool with G50( like G92). You could then use the offsets as wear offsets or you could offset all the rest of the tools off the first tool. That was a recipe for a wreck.

I learned to hand G code machines in 1991 and stuck with it for a long time, truthfully, a good model and some decent software makes for a much easier life. There are things that have to be hand programmed, to much trouble to explain to the cam system what you wanna do.