Importing gcode silently fails

I’m trying to import this gcode (attached - it’s the holes/pockets for my spoilboard) and it silently fails. It works in gSender (screenshot).

4040 Pro_toolpath4_Makita 65mm Holes_Endmill 3.175 mm.gcode (41.4 KB)

I may be wrong, but you cannot use MillMage as a GCode Sender. It did not silently fail. It told you there are no operations to perform. None of that detail is in a GCode file.

When you import GCode, are you expecting to see something like what the Candle software produces?

Hi Jon,

The GCode in your file contains G3 movements with I J arcs that MillMage does not support:

Try using this tool to convert each of those arc movements into a series of G1 moves:

Rename the downloaded .cnc file to have a .nc or .gcode or .gc file extension so Millmage will see/import it (remember you can use use drag and drop).

Once imported, use these tools in sequence to tidy up the vectors (since there were several passes in Z - those paths were duplicated):

Arrange>Break Apart (Alt+B)
Edit>Delete Duplicates (Alt+D)
Edit>Auto-Join Selected Shapes (Alt+J)

Then, because the circles look like this:

Edit>Optimise Selected Shapes (Fit arcs)

Perhaps there should be some kind of message show when the import was successful but no vectors found to display and maybe worth a Fider request to have Millmage do a similar arc-breaking conversion to allow G2/G3 to be imported.

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TY. Shouldn’t MillMage tell me that as an error/dialog/something when I try to import a file? Something like “Unable to import file with G3 IJ movements”. I have no idea what G3 IJ movements means, but at least I would understand it was unable to import the file for that reason instead of just getting a blank.

TY as well for the steps to possibly convert it. I think I’ll just go back to using gSender for this, but if I need to convert something different in the future, I’ll give that a try.

Update, this seems to have been recently fixed (last week) to allow the import to complete with these shapes included, please check for version updates.

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There will be a new release candidate soon that will have this in it, I believe. Keep an eye on Announcements

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I feel like it’s worth mentioning that importing GCode into MillMage isn’t a recommended way to work. You can run the GCode from MillMage, which is effectively using it as a gSender replacement - if you did that, it would run fine.

You seem to be trying to import the GCode files, expecting some reasonable representation of whatever is in there, and MillMage was never intended to work this way.

The GCode import in MillMage was created as a way to debug and valide our own GCode output, just so I can see if the shapes exported match what I expect.

If you create GCode elsewhere, run it like you would from gSender, don’t import it.

If you’re trying to recreate the paths in a GCode file so you can use MillMage to rebuild the GCode, we’re working toward that, but it’ll be a “best effort”.

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TY for the explanation of the intent from the developer side, however I don’t think that matches the expectation from the user side of things.

The import dialog lists it as a supported format to import, without any indication that it’d work differently than the other supported formats. If there is an “import gcode” function, I expect it to “import gcode” and be able to preview it the same as gcode generated by MM.

If that’s not the case, I think it needs to be communicated inside the app, otherwise you’re going ot have a lot of confused and frustrated users. If it’s just a debug tool for devs, maybe it needs to be hidden from users.

Fair point, but while the whole program is still pre 1.0.00 there will be a lot of rough edges that need exposure in order to get smoothed over.

I have attached an export of the file, taken from the (latest) MillMage import, which actually placed them as 1mm drill holes so I had to offset them by 5mm to get to the size I think you are after (11mm) - are they for some kind of threaded insert for a clamping system?

4040 Pro_toolpath4_Makita 65mm Holes_Endmill 3.175mm

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