Ncam Facing subroutine bug

Hi. Thanks, as always, for NCAM, I use it all the time and it's brilliant.

Not sure if this is the right place for a bug report but: the Facing subroutine will allow me to choose bidirectional or unidirectional when the Axis setting is X Axis, and unidirectional only if it's on Y Axis. If I try to set Y Axis, Bidirectional, I get 'gcode error in ncam.ngc Near line 168 of .../scripts/ncam.ngc: Parameter is readonly' - any way to fix this?
All the best
Andy

Hi Andy,

Are you using linuxcnc as root ?

Fern

I don't think so; launching from the desktop icon rather than using sudo from a terminal so I guess I'm not root.

I do not think the problem is in NativeCAM but something with your setup...
When was it installed ? Have you had other issues ?

Fern

Hi Fern,

I've installed NativeCAM earlier this week. Thank you for your wonderful work and videos.

I've observed an additional Surface Finishing (Facing) use-case which will cause Axis to lock up, requiring a "kill -9 <procId>" to terminate Axis.

Scenario: I have an initial Workpiece (Raw Material) and End Mill Change in the NativeCAM tree. My intent is to create a "decking" pass to clean up the top stock surface, using a single Z-height depth of cut. I add a Facing (Surface Finishing) operation.

To recreate the lockup in the Facing operation:
CutStart = Surface
CutDownTo = -1
StepDown = -1
LastCut = -1

The bug: Axis locks up when CutDownTo and LastCut have the same value. The lockup only occurs when using NativeCAM within Axis. No lockup observed when running NativeCAM in stand-alone mode.

Through trial and error I believe I should set LastCut to 0 to achieve my desired single Z-height depth of cut. However, I'm sure no one wants Axis/NativeCAM to lock up, even with bad user data.

NativeCAM v0.1.14b
LinuxCNC v2.7.14
Debian Wheezy

Yours,
Annuello.

Thanks Annuello,

I will address this

Fern