I just started using SketchUcam. I have been working with some test shapes. I get good gCode with a rectangle, but when I put a semicircle on the outside of the rectangle, the gCode does weird things on the curved part. Using a Mac and Sketchup 2013 Make. Has anyone else experienced this?
Can you post the file (Or a screen shot). My guess is that the faces are on a different plane, or the face is broken somehow.
This is the visualization of the G Code. The shape is supposed to be a 2"x3" rectangle, with a 2" semi-circle on the right, and a 1.5" semicircle on the top edge. In Sketch-up, I made it all on one plane, using top view with perspective off. Sketchup shows the semicircles to be made of 12 segments. There are no interior lines, and the surface is all one face. With SketchUCam tools, I only did an outside cut, which looks right on the drawing. So I see two issues - the jaggedness of the semi-circle cuts, and then the wide circle of the last segment of the smaller semicircle. I am trying a reinstall of all both Sketch-up and SketchUCam to see if I torqued something. On a side note, the Plot Gcode Plugin does not work for me in Sketchup. I had to display the gCode with UniversalGCodeSender, a Java App that sends the files to my ShapeOko CNC.
Now I just feel foolish. It turns out that the problem is the Visualizer, not the G Code. I looked at the G-Code in a text editor, and it looked proper, so I did an air run on my ShapeOko, and it tracked beautifully. Onward!
What version of SketchUp are you using? Did you install it through the install option in SketchUp? I tried SU 7, SU 8 and Make and the Plotter works for me in all the versions. Do you have the 'Plot Gcode' option in the Plugins menu?
I am using SketchUp 2013. I installed the SketchUCam plugins through the Preferences, Install Plugins option. The Plot Gcode option is in my Plugins menu. Nothing comes up when I call it.
In the 'Window' menu you'll find an option called 'Ruby Console'. Click on it and a window will open. Now try to call the gcode plotter. Please post here what the console window says.
Okay, tried that. Nothing came up in the Ruby Console. I have dug a little deeper, and see that there is a gcode.exe and gcode.dll in the Phlatboyz directory, and that the Gcode Ruby file calls this. Since I am using a Mac, I assume the exe just won't run, and that is why the Plot GCode plugin does not work. Does this make sense? Is there a Mac version?
You're using a Mac so you will need to make sure that when sketchup call the code plotter gcode.exe that it will in fact run (under some sort of Windows simulation for Mac). This works on my Linux box under Wine, but I don't have a Mac so this is not something I can fix. If you do find a free gcode plotter for mac, you can adjust the code that calls the plotter to call the one that works instead of the gcode.exe. or you can install planetcnc.com's software under Wine and use that as a previewer.
Thanks, Swarfer. I will look into making the Mac run the gcode.exe. Right now I am using UniversalGCodeSender to talk to my machine, and it includes a GCode Visualizer. And it tracks it as the GCode is run.
