Green button

When is the green button active?
I have never found it to be so and always have to click on the laptop. It would be great if it could be made to always answer to the affirmative on dialog boxes.

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When you're about to hit "OK" to start the spindle, you can long press on that green button and it'll do that for you. Useful if you have a laptop and you want your hands on the machine before you start it up.

Thanx Eric, apparently I have not loooong pressed it. I will try again next session.

I think they made it a long press so you really have to "mean it" to start a cutting file.

Also, if you hit the red button, you can pause a cut if you need to fix something. When you hit that red button the machine will stop, pull up to a safe Z height and give you options to resume, quit, or nudge the machine. I've used this before when a small part got cut out and jumped off the table and I was afraid the cutter head would hit it on a jog move.

It's also a great "OMFG STOP NOW" button

Lol, quite familiar with the red, it is the one you slam as the bit dives way too deep!

How long should it take the red button to respond? I had to use it this weekend and it was very slow to respond (>5 sec) and stop the machine. Does it need to be held down like the green button?

I'll let the ShopBot techs answer this better than me... But in my experience there is a buffer of code that is sent to the machine....

USB communication from a computer isn't like a phone call all the time, it's not live. Sometimes commands are pushed to the Handibot in bursts. So if the Handibot is in the middle of a burst of commands, the "STOP" command needs to "get in line" so to speak.

In my experience, when I'm cutting a straight line, I've had to wait a spit second or two for the machine to respond to a stop request....

Okay,
worked today, long press really is looong press. ><

Nice!

How long should it take the red button to respond? I had to use it this weekend and it was very slow to respond (>5 sec) and stop the machine. Does it need to be held down like the green button?

The comands that are already sent will be executed before the stop, so the red button is not intended to be an emergency stop. If you need to stop NOW, the best practice is to turn the machine off using the switch, or unplug the power cord.

It's also worth noting if you kill the power you'll lose the machine position. I've had good success if I've started a job with zeroing the machine using the C3 command, but there are no guarantees. You can always just lift the machine up too if you want to get it off the work, but keep it running so you don't lose your spot.

Those are all good things to consider. In my case I ran a bit into a hold down screw. I should have just killed power to the machine to save the bit. I was machining a 3D part (walnut pump grip for an air pistol) using a toolpath generated in Cut3D. I had flipped the part over to machine the other side, but at the time did not understand that it needed to be flipped along the other axis. So the machine went where I did not expect. I could see it coming, but not in time to save the bit using the red button.

Let me see if I understand your problem... You needed to do a double sided milling, you did the first side, and then you flipped it but you didn't flip your toolpath so it milled on the opposite side you were expecting it to?

If that was the case, what was your method for "flipping" your code in Cut3D? Maybe we can come up with a good way, or an easier way to do this...

It was purely a lack of understanding on my part. Cut3D generates separate tool paths for the top and bottom. I just choose the wrong axis to rotate the part around.

Ah ok. I thought maybe you had some weirdness in the way that you did your file or something...

The easiest way to remember is to look at your bot, X and Y are marked on the acrylic dust shield.