Machine control

Open the machine control with M, the Machine button at the top right or the Machine tab of the right panel. Hold, Resume, Stop and Disconnect are always at the top.

Jogging

The jog pad moves X and Y, the buttons next to it Z. Choose a step of 0.1, 1, 10, 50 or 100 mm or Continuous: the axis moves while you press and stops immediately when you let go. Downwards, Z moves at most 10 mm per step.

When the machine control has focus, the arrow keys move X and Y, Page Up and Page Down move Z. After homing, all moves stop at the edge of the work area.

Move here: with Pick target on the canvas or right-click → Move machine here, the machine moves to a point of the drawing, first Z to safe height, then sideways. Corners and centre of the material snap.

Setting zero

1. Move the bit exactly above the point that is the project's zero (usually the bottom left corner of the material).
2. Click XY zero. If the bit is above another corner or the centre of the material, the app moves the project's zero there and tells you (undo reverts it).
3. Set Z on the surface: with the touch plate (Probing Z) or by hand with a sheet of paper, then Z zero.

On the canvas the zero symbol turns blue once it is set on the machine. Go to zero returns there at any time.

More buttons

• Home and Unlock (Homing).
• Park: Z all the way up and to the park position, for example to change the workpiece. The small button next to it stores the current position as your own park position.
• Spindle: on and off, with speed depending on the control type.
• Feed and Speed: overrides in percent, also while cutting. The tempo in the job display goes up to 500 %.

Macros: your own buttons

Create your own buttons for commands you use often, such as “move to tool change”, “dust extraction on” or a fixed measuring move. The pencil next to Macros in the control window or Machine → Macro buttons opens the editor: the button's name, icon and colour, and below it the commands, one per line. The preview shows the button as it appears in the control window. Insert adds common commands such as homing or dust extraction at the cursor. Change the order with the handle on the left: drag it or use the arrow keys.

• A click sends the lines to the controller one after another and waits for its “ok” each time. The button shows which line is running.
• If the controller reports an error, the macro stops and names the line.
• $H runs homing, $X unlocks. Only a macro that starts with one of these two also runs in an alarm state.
• Comments with ; or in brackets are not sent.
• Macros are locked while a job is running. Stop also aborts a running macro.

Macros belong to the machine profile and are stored with it in your account, up to 12 per machine. For fixed positions use G53 G0 … (machine coordinates), so the button always reaches the same spot wherever the zero point is.

Macros before and after the job

Under Settings → Machine → Macros before and after the job you create two command blocks that the app sends itself with every job: Before the start (for example M8 for air assist or dust extraction) and After the end (for example M9, a message or G53 G0 … for parking). The milling and laser assistants show in their last step what will be sent; while a block runs, the control panel shows the line.

• Placeholders {projekt} (project), {dauer} (duration), {datum} (date) and {werkzeug} (tool) are filled in before sending, for example (MSG,{projekt} done in {dauer}).
• If a block moves an axis, the machine first raises Z to a safe height. The laser keeps its focus.
• After the end also runs after a stop or an error while its checkbox is ticked (default). It does not run after reloading the page or a lost connection.
• When resuming, the app sends Before the start again before moving to the start point. The pre-check checks both blocks too.
• Tool changes (M6, T…), pauses (M0, M1), $ commands other than $H and probing (G38) are not allowed in the blocks. Such a block is not sent, and the job does not start.

The blocks only apply when milling and lasering from the app. For saved G-code files there are header and footer under G-code files.

Large control

The button with the arrows at the top of the machine control enlarges it to fill the screen, with a large position display and large buttons, ideal on a tablet next to the machine. Esc returns.

Coordinates always in view

While a machine is connected, a small display floats at the bottom left of the canvas with live coordinates: large the work coordinates (from the zero point you set), small next to them the machine coordinates (from the homing corner), plus the state. Drag it by the handle on the left; the arrow on the right collapses it to one line. The browser remembers both. When the pointer comes close it turns transparent, so corners and the zero point underneath stay visible and clickable. During a job it moves to the top left, above the job display.

Program and Console tabs

Program shows the loaded program with duration, warnings and the “fits the work area” check. This is also where you open other G-code files. Console shows every line between the app and the controller.

Command line

Type commands at the bottom of the machine control. Up recalls earlier commands, ? lists them all.

The short commands are German words: NULL = zero, AN/AUS = on/off, H/R = up/down.