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In case you missed it, we aired an Easel Live episode yesterday showcasing the great new features our Dev team has implemented into Easel. You can watch the episode if you want the full experience.
Here are the three new features (live in Easel, right now!):
Toolpath Animation: Rather than just view the toolpaths and see a rendering of your project, the toolpath animation panel allows you to preview your machineâs exact movements.
For 2 stage carves, could it be made possible to select which features you want to be cut with which bit?
I have a project where am cutting a profile cut and the item has a smaller engraved detail on the face. whenever I select a second smaller bit to use for the detail engrave, easel wants to use it for the profile cut as well. I want to use a larger bit for the profile cut so that I can cut faster.
maybe there is already a way to do this but I havenât been able to figure it out yet.
The 2 stage carving looks a great addition but a quick question. Will this work if you are creating a G-Code to export to a different machine.I am not in a position to be able to afford to purchase an X-Carve machine so have had to settle for a cheap Chinese small table top machine and this will only work if I export the files and use GRBL. I have tried using Easel to carve but it changes the Z axis movement from 1mm to 0.24mm which is not convenient as this involves a lot more calculation of material thickness.
Whatâs the purpose of toolpath animation, so you can see what âorderâ the tool runs around the board to carve? Itâs not like you can change and reorder any of that in Easel, so why add the feature?
You can export two different g-code files from Easel with two-stage carving: one for the roughing pass and one for the detail pass. Iâm not certain how that will work for your particular objectives, but Easel does export the g-code separately for both bits. This means youâll be able to send the roughing pass first and then the detail pass.
It is nice to know about these features. But I am not able to use them. I am in Puerto Rico and since the hurricane Maria hit the island in Sept 20 today is the first time a have access to phone and internet connection with AT&T. There is no power in the 92% of the island the main distribution lines across the island are down, so I have no idea when I will be using my machine again. If AT&T still up I will hear from you how these new features works. Bye for now.
Just like when you export normal gcode from Easel, youâll need to make sure you set the bits in Easel correctly before you export the toolpaths. The gcode files will be named âroughingâ and âdetailâ and correspond to the roughing and detail bits youâve set in Easel before exporting the gcode.
Hi Mo
Thanks for your reply. I made a sample drawing of an infill pendant and yes it did create the 2 files which is great but there was a slight problem. On the original drawing I did the outer edge of the pendant was to be cut out with a 1/8th bit leaving 4 tabs but every time I tried it and added the finishing cutter for the fine detail it kept reverting it to cut out the outer edge with the smaller cut. Any advice on what I am doing wrong. Look forward to your reply.
Allan
Thanks to the devs for implementing these great new features, and you for your fun explorations on how to use them. My question relating to 2-stage carving is, wouldnât it be simpler for users to save a file as separate files, split into which kind of bit they use, and to start from machine zero as homing position each time? That way once say the roughing pass is finished, including only those design elements you actually want roughed, you change bits (and bump the x and Y axis as much as you like), then simply send it home, close the roughing file, and start again for the finishing pass file? That way you could use as many different tools as you like, all mapped to different files in Easel, with the machine home position as the work home position also (with maybe a Z axis adjustment using the Z probe). I hope that makes sense!
Just what I was waiting forâŚ