I'm a brand new Handibot owner & just getting to know the tool. I'm wondering if there is a functional limit to the complexity of toolpath the Handibot can handle? For example, I tried to cut a file that was over 10MB, and the tool just hung up and wouldn't do anything.

There does seem to be an upper limit but I (as a fellow owner) can't quantify it. I take it you have tried simple files and they are working fine? If not, try something easy so you/we will know it is a file problem or something bigger.

Bill--I'm actually not sure that there is an upper limit--however there may be a significant lag while the tool converts the ShopBot Code to G-Code...which isn't noticeable with smaller files because it happens so quickly.

However--there's a sort of work around that you might try...If you download the old-school control software from www.shopbottools.com There is a "File Conversion" utility under the "file" menu--it will let you select an SBP file and convert it to GCode.

The difference would be that the conversion was taking place on the much faster processor of your PC rather than the Intel Edison chip. Then you could load the gcode file into fabmo--and likely get a quicker response from the tool.

We're working on eliminating the lag...but for now this could help!

Added note: you'll need to add a little bit of code to the top of the file to turn the spindle on and pause while it spins up.
simply add the following:

m4
g4p2



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2017 02:25PM by Brian Owen, ShopBot.

Thanks. I'll give that a try next time. For the current job I was able to simplify the vectors quite a bit & shrink the file size down to about a 2MB Shopbot file. There was still some lag, but only about 30 seconds.

On the previous attempt, the Handibot would I guess be "thinking" so long the AP connection would time out - at least that's my theory.

It is cutting simple files just fine (as long as I do things like set the width within the cutting window, chuck the right bit, etc). It's amazing how many mistakes I can make in the course of a day!