Fixed TLS With Multiple WCS?

gSender ❓ Question
1

Hello! Hopefully I’m in the right place here. I’m running a newish Altmill Mk2 4x4 with gSender version 1.5.7, Fusion 360, and (for now) a Carbide 3D Bitsetter as my fixed TLS. Tool changes are currently run through gSender’s fixed TLS wizard, with which I think I’m finding some limitations.

I’m attempting to run a 2-tool job in multiple WCS and order my operations by tool. What I’m finding is that the wizard applies tool length offsets only in the active WCS. The rest run with their original probed Z and no offset applied. This seems to be pretty well documented now that I’m starting to look closer. As you might expect, everything about this works great if I eliminate the second tool and cut only with the tool I probed with.

I’m in the early stages of getting this machine and process set up, and I get the sense it will take a deeper familiarity with gcode, macros, and maybe my Fusion workflow/post than I currently have to get it running smoothly. I’m comfortable enough with the physical machine and in CAM but have very limited experience peeking under the hood in this way. I have a vague idea that G43.1 could be used to apply a global offset, and/or that maybe a more hacked-together approach might be to use a macro to copy the offset to all of my WCS using G10 L20, like I’m pretty sure is already happening with only the active one.

Is anyone aware of a documented approach to solving this problem that exists out there somewhere already? Otherwise I’m happy to do some more legwork, but any nudge in the right direction would be very much appreciated!

2

I guess a better way to summarize this would have been that using a fixed TLS for tool changes seems to not mix well with jobs in multiple WCS, or maybe even with any WCS other than G54 altogether. I am trying to run a job today in G59 only, and it looks like at tool change (using the stock wizard) the offset is applied automatically to G54 instead. So as you’d probably expect, when the machine goes back to cutting it is either cutting air or jamming an endmill into the work depending on the difference in length.

On a machine/control that allows you to easily switch between WCS and includes a baked in tool-change procedure this seems like an issue people would run into pretty frequently but I’ve found very little talk about it.

Has anyone else run into this problem or come up with a workaround? I’m feeling like a custom tool change procedure is the solution but I’m a little surprised there isn’t some logic in place to handle this.