Please add a stop generation button

[cheidenfelder]

Can you please add a stop generation button? There is nothing worse than losing work because the generating fillets gets stuck at 5% and you have to crash out. Also stop inheriting this generate fillets on following operations. 

[Sean571]

There already is one while calculating. It's the red X to the left of the progress bar or also pressing the Escape key runs the command to quit. It just doesn't always work the way you'd like it to, or stop calculating as fast as you'd like. 

[cheidenfelder]

I know about the "X", that only works on some paths. It will not stop the 3D fillet calculation.  

[glen_h]

@cheidenfelder 

I agree...the stop button is rendered mostly useless when 3d arc fitting is calculating. And I cannot stand it when the 3d arc fitting is inherited from one toolpath to another...some times I will forget to turn it off, then once you get down to some tiny cutters...Powermill just goes for a permanent snooze...so up comes Task Manager! Been burned countless times. (same deal with corner finishing)

[evo80]

When I get in this situation I bang away at the Pause/Break key, this quite often does a much better job than the X at the progress bar.  

[cheidenfelder]

I will give the old pause/break key a good try next time it happens. I will let you know if it worked.

[M_Hennig]

The pause-break key does nothing for me, although I do bang on the escape key, sometimes it works, but most of the time a message pops up that says "break hit" and the computer just hangs up, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes minutes, and sometimes forever, and I have to kill the process in the task manager. The more intense the toolpath, the less likely you can kill it mid calculation.

[evo80]

@M_Hennig , I agree totally, the key to a successful calculation stoppage is to catch it quick

[armin.bosnjakN3JE3]

Same here, as @M_Hennig said, we bang Escape until something happens, because sometimes one tap is not enough. But, again ocasionally we have to kill complete PMILL process.

[iamcdn79]

---

@glen_h wrote:

@cheidenfelder 

I agree...the stop button is rendered mostly useless when 3d arc fitting is calculating. And I cannot stand it when the 3d arc fitting is inherited from one toolpath to another...some times I will forget to turn it off, then once you get down to some tiny cutters...Powermill just goes for a permanent snooze...so up comes Task Manager! Been burned countless times. (same deal with corner finishing)

---

What I have done in this situation is I created my own most used Finishing toolpaths and created a macro inside the ribbon that calls the template with 3D fillet turned off every time it is used.

[glen_h]

@iamcdn79 

Excellent workaround!

[cheidenfelder]

When you start a new tool path the macro runs automatically, or you start a new toolpath than fire the macro? 

[iamcdn79]

Make a macro that opens the toolpath form with fillet corners turned off by default. Then add the macro to your Ribbon bar.

Here is a sample for a constant-z toolpath

IMPORT TEMPLATE ENTITY TOOLPATH TMPLTSELECTORGUI "Finishing/Constant-Z-Finishing.002.ptf"

EDIT PAR 'CornerRadius.Active' '0'

[cheidenfelder]

I see what you are doing, thanks. It is pathetic we have to constantly come up with work arounds to get the software to work correctly. They never fix anything.

[todd.murphy8YH67]

Cant this be achieved by adding all this to the PMuser.mac, during startup?

[cheidenfelder]

The problem is it will inherit from another path that you had 2d fillets, for some reason it will turn on 3d fillets on if the new path doesn't have 2d fillet. 

[todd.murphy8YH67]

hmmm, seen interesting issues on redistribute- arcs and filtering