All my notes from a thorough evaluation of the latest Mach3Mill beta, v3.043.022
(Most of this applies to earlier versions too.)
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Submitted to:
http://www.machsupport.com/forumBugs and features in Mach3Mill:
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Starts up at -2.550, -3.442 instead of 0,0
G80 seems to be ignored.
Disabling X, Y, Z, A, B, C on settings screen only partly disables them. The motion is reduced to 1/10th. Under certain conditions.
G97 is not documented anywhere, yet it shows up at the screen top.
Loading a file resets much less than it should. Keep the machine coordinates, but everything else should go to defaults.
Mach3Mill burns 50% of CPU cycles before the program file is even loaded. Ideally, when the program is not running, CPU usage should be near zero.
It would be nice if the Open File window would find .ngc (EMC and KMotionCNC) and .nc files in addition to .tap files.
Metric/English unit confusion:
G20/G21 changes the active display -so the operator can't be sure what they are seeing. No indication -other than tiny g20/21- whether units are English or metric.
Jog doesn't work right. Sometimes it just goes dead and is unresponsive, the a minute later starts working again. In metric mode, the units are all botched.
Substantial rounding error:
x1 goes to 0.9906
x.012 goes to 0.0
x.013 goes to 0.0254
If internal state gets set wrong, even G20 will not fix this.
Tab key: MPG is not pulled out as far as it should be (right half cut off). Sure, it can be repositioned, but why not get it right the first time?
Load scorpion.tap file. Repeatedly click "Regen. Toolpath" button. Sometimes the image disappears completely. Doing "Cycle Start" runs, but the image doesn't reappear. The Tool Path screen shows the program limits are all +/-9999.0000
Hold left mouse button in toolpath window. As image is tilted, it partially disappears. [Seems to be an issue just on my computer -video driver?]
The roadrunner.tap file seems slightly corrupt -there are spaces and nulls at the end of the file and there is no ending M30 code.
The Cross.tap file has a strangely sunken eye orbit.
Typos on G-code tables:
Length is misspelled as "lenght" several places. (i.e. H Tool lenght)
Non-uniform capitalization (i.e. N line number)
Known issue: Entering values in dialog boxes are not saved unless the enter key is explicitly pressed.
Focus is not given even when the G-code window is scrolled.
No way to see what the internal "set next line" is set to.
Clicking "Zero X" when in "Machine Coords" zeros X without any indication.
Input box not greyed out when in reset mode.
Cannot scroll code window when Single BLK is active.
Clicking Reset turns off Single BLK mode.
ESC does not toggle Reset, like the documentation states.
If Machine Coords is on (Program Run and MDI screens): The Diagnostics screen will show the Current Position as the Machine Coords and the equations will be wrong.
I have seen where subroutines were completely ignored, however I couldn't reproduce that problem.
If a carriage return (^M, space, ;, etc.) is missing after the Onnn line in a subroutine, the subroutine will be ignored! (i.e. if a LF immediately follows the 'O' line, the line is ignored.)
Highlighting in wrong place in subroutine calls -see file.
Last line in file ignored if not followed by a carriage return. Very bad if this line is M99.
Doesn't stop on M1 -not even predictable. It stops, but a few lines ahead due to buffering.
"Reset" button is mislabelled since it doesn't reset anything. Should be labelled "STOP".
It would be nice to use 'mouseover' to give context-sensitive information.
Jog could be done with the mouse and arrows.
The diagnostics page should show more internal states/variables.
When in run mode, the only thing which should accept user input on the "Program Run" (Operate) screen should be Feed rate and Spindle speed override.
All comments are displayed in the "Status: " bar, not just (MSG...) ones.
A non-existent subroutine does not cause an error, it may hang Mach3 though.
(i.e. Calling P0 when P0 does not exist)
G81/G82/G83 do not give errors when X, Y, and Z are missing. G83 takes forever...
Axis inhibits will prevent "GOTO ZERO" from moving, but do not stop the MPG MODE jog buttons from operating.
Stopping/restarting an executing program looses lines -apparently a cache buffer being flushed.
Clicking "Mach3" (to run it) is sometimes ignored if you just closed Mach3. It takes a few seconds to actually stop running, sometimes. Clicking again will run it.
The purple lines showing the current tool position get confused sometimes.
Mach3 is confused about whether it is in G0/G1 mode sometimes, this is shown in the plot window. Will do G1 even when G0 is displayed at the top mode line. Also, the display plot shows the wrong line type.
Doing a Cycle Start will (sometimes at least) set the mode line to show "G0" even though it is still internally operating at G1.
Can't reproduce, but have seen: Clicking "Zero X" will zero X, but change (not zero) Y too.
Have not yet pinned down: Loading the Roadrunner sometimes shows one, not 3 roadrunners.
Soon to figure out: Cross.tap stops after drawing an eye. Only special circumstances.
(+) and (-) keys not inverse. [May have been fixed in current version.]
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