Estimate program run time

Is there an easy way to estimate a programs run time? I tried searching and couldn't find anything.
I know there is a stickied post on creating a sim, but that doesn't seem useful for quoting.

I've given this some consideration in the past. At first thought, I think most of the data is there, but I don't think any of it is neatly sorted out. There is just so much that goes into affecting an accurate estimation of run time that the effort goes very quickly from "that would be easy" to "holy crap, this is impossible". You have so much to consider. You have the main cut moves - lengths, velocity, velocity reductions, accelerations (and acceleration with regard to allowed deviation from paths), dwell times, delays, probe time, number of probes, etc. I am sure there is a "close enough" approximation. But I've also done this long enough to know that "close enough" will only satisfy some people, and others will be upset when it's off by several seconds, let alone several minutes.

Maybe I will think on it some more, but no real promises.

I've only seen this in real life on one plasma system (not LinuxCNC related) - we have a table at work that the software gives an estimation. It's so wildly inaccurate it's laughable.

Axis GUI, included with LinuxCNC has such a feature in "File>G code properties" menu:


It is fairly useful when you know what it actually shows, like the actual feed time, nothing else, so no G0 moves, no probing, no compensation for feed rate changes, etc.
Takes a bit of time to get used to it, so for simple stuff with not much pierces i just double that time, for more complicated stuff like 286 cuts on a plate i just wing it to 4 or more times the shown time. Works fine for rough estimates.

Sorry for double posting, but i forgot this trying not to forget to upload pictures, namely:
PlasmaC and QtPlasmaC have very detailed time logs, so if you have more than one of the same design to cut, cut one after resetting the timers and check how long it took after the cut, then you know exactly how long the rest of them will take.
This is magnificent for more than one off cuts.

Snowgoer- I get what your saying. I've heard enough "Can't you just...?" of my own. I know you can't please everyone, but I'm grateful for all your and everyone else's contributions.

I guess I'll see what I can do with axis. I do appreciate the plasmac statistics.
As a fabricator, most of my quoting involves chicken blood, planetary alignments and bs. I'll let you decide how much of each.

Does anyone quote by inches and pierces?

bentiggin wrote:

Snowgoer- I get what your saying. I've heard enough "Can't you just...?" of my own. I know you can't please everyone, but I'm grateful for all your and everyone else's contributions.

I guess I'll see what I can do with axis. I do appreciate the plasmac statistics.
As a fabricator, most of my quoting involves chicken blood, planetary alignments and bs. I'll let you decide how much of each.

Does anyone quote by inches and pierces?

I think there is a feature in Sheetcam that gives a job time estimate that does it this way. I see, to remember you did define a pierce time. Don't forget to include the phase of the moon!