just discovered millmage, been using lightburn for a while and then bought a cnc router, tried various cad/cams and discovered mill mage.. brilliant.
My question is this, when i job the machnie around manually i get a dro readout. when i run a program all the numbers freeze and dont give me the current machines location, I would like it to check Z depth and clearance issues as i run, is it a normal thing for no DRO while running or just my configuration, running smoothiware , i did get feed back when i tried using ugs and cncjs. so pretty sure that side is ok,
This is because the program is streamed into a buffer (memory section) where is is pulled out as the controller is ready for it. The stream is typically many program lines ahead of the actual machine position. While streaming, there is no live position feedback from the controller.
These do not bulk stream like MillMage does. I am pretty sure they send only 1 line of code, then stop and wait for a response. Another way of saying it is they feed commands sequentially, avoiding memory overflow errors. I suspect if you have a complex program with high feed rates, or a 3D design, you will see the mill stutter rather than move smoothly.
You can get that information in the preview window before you ever run the job.
I believe “live” DRO is in the plan, but isn’t implemented yet. We generally avoid sending anything to the machine other than the gcode being streamed, because that gets maximum throughput, but we’re looking into adding occasional position queries during the job.
