simulation

LinuxCNC does not have this facility.

I can think of partial solutions (with a stepper motor machine, simply turn off the stepper drivers, with a servo machine you would need to short-circuit the feedback loop in HAL, which is actually fairly simple to do)

But, the real problem comes when you _exit_ simulation mode. Should the actual machine rapid to the simulated finish point (that would be the default behaviour with the HAL-only solutions I mentioned). If the machine, instead, needs to reset its current position to the start-of-simulation position, then I think that that would need code changes inside LinuxCNC.

It's interesting to note that, as far as I know, nobody has asked for this in the 10 years I have been working with LinuxCNC.

Again, the first answer can do all you are asking for.

RobotMatic wrote:

You tell me that the solution is to have two linuxcnc working in the same machine, one as a simulator and another functional?

Yes.
you can have many different machines on one pc. Or as many sim's as you like.
And if you want to have the machine working while you are testing something else, do it on a virtual box, as Todd mentioned.

RobotMatic wrote:

It is the second time that happens to me, the first one was with the tool radius compensation, what the developers say is fine, in cnc technology it is a big mistake, the compensation loses a segment of the trajectory at the entrance, and now this. The result is always a cheap alternative, not a professional one.

I am sorry that the answers are not what you hoped for.

Fundamentally the problem is that LinuxCNC is cheap software, and you tend to get cheap solutions.

We have proposed work-arounds that might get part way to what you want, and that work _now_ rather than at some unknown point in the future when somebody decides that they fancy looking at your enhancement ideas.

Maybe you think that LinuxCNC has a whole team of developers who are allocated jobs to do by a central controlling committee? That isn't the case at all. LinuxCNC isn't anyone's job. Not even on a part-time basis.

What would your proposal look like? Would it just be the equivalent of the existing Axis preview, but running in real-time? Running the preview in actual real-time would be relatively hard, but running it line-by-line might actually be quite easy. (And less tedious for the operator)

But then you have something rather close to what (I think) already exists. I think you can click on the G-code and cursor up/down to see what each line does in the preview. (I can't guarantee that this works at the moment, as I am working away from home, and nowhere near a LinuxCNC machine, I am on my Mac laptop in a hotel). Is your requirement for a way to _force_ your operators to perform this process?