Thursday, December 10, 2020
How To Get Started With G-Code
Fusion 360 Blog: Programming is a fundamental skill for all types of CNC machining, even as automation and new technology seem to be replacing programming tasks. Every machinist still needs to understand how their programs and tools work. Whether you’re new to CNC programming and its most common language, G-code, or you’ve been writing code by scratch for years, CNC codes can still feel like a foreign language.
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2 comments:
I really appreciate this review of G-Code. I think it’s useful for anyone who’s running a CNC machines for the first time to have some understanding of what they are asking the machine to do. The only caveats I would have for that statement is that most software will generate the G-Code based on toolpathing. The user could upload that to the machine and run it without ever looking at it, which would not be the worst thing in the world. The second caveat is that for very long runs on a CNC machine, I would not expect anyone to go through the entire G-Code. That would be like pages of numbers that would be mostly nonsense. However, for a simple run with only a few toolpaths, someone should be able to make sense of all the G-Code. For the purposes of review a software produced G-Code, this article is a great tool.
I agree with Victor here that this is a nice article and good review of the basic functions within G-Code. The reality, though, is that very rarely will we, non-machinists, ever need to program line-by-line G-Code for anything. There are a handful of times I've ever had to manually program moves, for example 3D printer pre and post operation scripts, or sending singular commands to the CNC router, but that's not the norm. Don't get me wrong, I think it can be valuable and important to understand generally what is going on within the NC file. Knowing rapid moves, spindle speeds, coordinate systems, and tool operations helps debug or prevent potential problems before they happen (which often means a crash). If someone was really interested in learning the ins and outs of G-Code, I first recommend the Haas Tip of the Day series on YouTube, which is a great all-around machining channel. Another resource is the manual to our CNC router, which has a lot of really descriptive definitions for each g-code command and how our CNC interprets it. This article, though, is a nice intro or refresher.
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