Help · Cabinet shops

Machine files for your CNC (any brand)

Set your machine's maker and control once in Rack and tools, and Space writes the cut files for every sheet, reads each one back before you get it, and adds air cuts, the test coupon and a setup sheet. Or take the DXFs into your own CAM program.

Space writes cut files for every sheet in a kitchen, for most CNC routers sold to cabinet shops. You can also take the DXF of every sheet into the CAM program you already use.

Machine files come with the CNC plan.

Set up your machine (once)

In the studio, press Cut, then Rack and tools.

1. Machine maker: pick your router's maker. More than 180 are listed. If yours isn't there, pick Not listed.
2. Control: Space fills this in when the maker always uses the same control. Many makers sell machines with different controls, so check yours. It's on the control's screen, in the machine's manual, or your dealer can tell you.
3. Units: inches or millimetres. This has to match how your control is set.
4. Tool changer: Automatic, or By hand (a file per tool). By hand, Space writes one file per tool, in order: load the tool, set its Z, then run the file.
5. Z zero: where your machine's Z zero is: Table (spoilboard) top or Top of the sheet.
6. Top spindle speed: your spindle's highest speed. Space never writes a faster one.
7. Tools: the rack position (T#), speed, feed, plunge and pass depth for each tool. Use your tooling maker's numbers.

Press Save and rewrite the files. The settings are kept with your shop standards on this computer.

The controls Space writes for

WinCNC (tool changer, or one tool at a time), Mach3, Mach4, Masso, GRBL / grblHAL, LinuxCNC, Centroid, UCCNC, Fanuc-style, Syntec, Weihong (NcStudio), RichAuto (DSP), ShopBot (OpenSBP), plain ISO G-code, and Custom, where you type the start, tool-change, spindle and end lines yourself.

If your control isn't listed, use the DXFs (below), or email us your control's name. A sample file from your machine helps.

Proven and not yet proven

A control marked (proven) has been test-cut on a real machine. Today that's WinCNC.

The other controls are not yet proven on a real machine of that kind. Space writes them from each control maker's published codes and checks every file. But a file hasn't run on that kind of machine yet. So for those controls:

• you tick I'll run the air-cut file and the test coupon before cutting real parts in Rack and tools before Space writes anything, and
• every download has an air cut for each sheet (the same moves, 1" above the sheet, so nothing is cut) and the test coupon.

If you run one of these controls and you're willing to send us a file from your machine and run a test cut, please email us. That's how a control becomes proven.

Getting the files

On the Cut screen, each sheet has its own buttons for the cut file and the air cut. All files (.zip) gets the whole job:

• TAP/: the cut files, one per sheet (or one per tool per sheet, if you change tools by hand). The folder is called TAP whatever your machine's file ending is.
• AIR_CUT/: the same moves 1" above the sheet.
• COUPON/: the test coupon, with its own air cut.
• SHEETS/: a DXF of every sheet, nested where Space placed the parts, and LAYERS.txt, which says what each layer is. Use them in any CAM program that reads DXF.
• SETUP.txt: the machine, units, Z zero, tools and sheets.
• README.txt, the nest list and the cut list.

In the desktop app, the files can go straight into a folder you pick, such as your machine computer's job folder.

How Space checks every file

Space works out one set of moves for each sheet. It writes those moves for WinCNC, the proven control, and for your control.

• Tap Check measures every move in that set: feeds and speeds, how deep each pass goes, rapids and the spoilboard. It uses its own limits, so a wrong number in your tool settings still gets stopped.
• Cut Check reads your control's file back the way the control would. The file must set its units and absolute mode first, turn the spindle on before cutting, stay on the sheet, keep rapids out of the material and end properly. It must also cut the same moves as the WinCNC file, to within 0.002".

A file that fails either check is held back: you don't get it, and the Cut screen says why.

Before you cut

• Run the air cut for every file and watch all of it. The Cut screen's set-up list has Air cut run for this file on every sheet.
• Cut the test coupon on a scrap of the same sheet before the first sheet of each job. Check the holes and pockets against the hardware.
• Check that your control's units and Z zero match the setup sheet.

The checks can't see your machine's set-up, your tools or your hold-down. Check every file before you run it. Space doesn't control your machine (terms, section 5).

Still stuck? In the Space app, press Ask Space, or email hello@stillespace.com.