Heheh first air cuts on The Shiz with new Acorn system

I reposted one of the operations from my X axis bracket using the Centroid post processor. I chose the first 3 sections - Face, 2D Adaptive (roughing) and 2D Pocket (finish). Seemed to post OK.

First issue - the free version only supports up to 50kB file size. But even removing 2 of the operations still left it too big. Sod it - I was planning on paying for the upgrade to "Pro" or "Digitising" pretty soon anyway. And as it seems to be working quite nicely, coughing up seemed the sensible thing to do.

I went for the "Digitising" option ($399 = £299), as I intend to use my probe and make the best of the fancy probing functions that Fusion 360 supports. The digitising option also allows you to do 3D digitising of objects (to generate an STL file) - the clue's in the name - although I don't expect to make much use of that. Who knows, famous last words etc. The other option would be the cheaper "Pro" upgrade which only supports simple probing (edge and hole centre) and is limited to 10 tools. But here doesn't seem to be a way to upgrade from Pro to Digitising, so it's probably best just to go the whole hog now and be done with it.

The various options vs features (and prices!) are shown here. 

You send them a config "report" for your system and they send you back a license key for your particular Acorn. Then you go into the utility menu and point it at the license file. Worked OK.

Here's my first program, using the code generated above:

And the whole sequence, from powering up the cabinet, through homing, to cutting the (air) part:

Have to say,  the homing speed is PAINFULLY slow. I had it set to the maximum configurable speed. Thank god it's not a large gantry machine or I'd have had to go off and make a cup of tea / take a crap / walk the dogs.

Annoyingly, the Acorn doesn't remember where it was when you turned the power off. The Newker had a non volatile memory, so it wasn't necessary to home each time - that worked very nicely. Dunno if this is a limitation of the Acorn or simply that they chose not to allow it but that could be a right PITA. I'll probably end up rapiding the table to the far ends before either turning off or homing.

Before I actually cut any metal, I need to figure out how to work the tool length setting function. Ideally I'd use the tool setting gauge to do this automatically.