I am still fairly new CNC operator , about 15months. I run vectric Aspire 11.5 on my Avid 5X16. The problem is that I took over the operation of this machine from an operator that basically vanished from the job. I am running into some issues where he saved the toolpath but not the original file and have not found a way to go back and recreate the original file, so I can modify it to fit my current needs. Is this even possible or am I destined to have to recreate the files from scratch?
You’ll probably have to recreate from scratch, but it depends on the details. What sort of toolpath is it, and what sort of changes are you interested in making?
The particular one I am working on right now is a custom molding profile. Without actually running the program it is hard to verify if the profile is correct, also the material dimensions are longer than what are needed for this job.
If you haven’t already, you could use ncviewer.com or just load the G-code into Mach4 to take a look at the toolpaths. It might give you a pretty good idea what the profile will look like. There’s a free program called CAMotics that simulates G-code with stock, which might give you a better idea of what the program does. (I haven’t tried it.)
If you can spare the time, loading stock that’s too short should still cut the stock correctly, it will just waste some time cutting air, too. If that doesn’t work for you, then it’s probably most practical to recreate what you need from scratch.
Thanks for the input, I just ended up running the program and seeing what happened, it was the correct profile. After I finish with this job I am going to try and change dimensions of the stock with the edit feature , I will let you know how that works out.