Hi all. I just want to intrduce myself. I have a small 3018 pro that i am playing with. I am 87 years old and this hobby is keeping my brain alive! I live in Great Britain, in Leeds West Yorkshire
I understand basic g-code, but there is a lot more for me to learn. I would like to set up some macros, both to centre on a file, and to follow the outline of a file, which is usefull when setting up, Can anybody point me in the right direction please.
Welcome Keith!
I agree, CnC is a great hobby and so fun =)
Hello Keith glad you are here
@keithmart Welcome to the group, Keith.
Can you elaborate a bit on the macro that you would like to centre on a file?
gSender has an Outline feature, so you do not need a macro if you are using gSender.
Hi from across the channel. Welcome to the wonderful world of awesome learnings. Hope to see some of your work here soon too.
for example, if I have a circular, or square piece of wood, that I am engraving a picture on that needs to be centred, I can mark the centre on the wood, and a centering command helps to line up the machine.
For what it is worth, lasergrbl which is a very good free laser program has a centering button, but that code does not work with g sender.
@keithmart @keithmart I’m curious. Have you tried the lasergrbl centering button? I ask because I just watched 2 youtube videos showing how to use it. Both involved a great deal of manual movement of the material. One was funny as the guy talks about how to accurately centre your material in lasergrbl. He has created custom buttons to do that. However, he then talks about moving the material “a little bit” and that the new position is “pretty close”. Accurate??
Both of these tutorials depend on the material being square or rectangular. They will not work with a round or irregular size piece.
If you have used this feature, I would appreciate if you could point me to something that shows how to use it.
One solution is to look here I created a macro to probe material to find center to see the macro that @iuliancalin created recently. This may do what you want.
Wouldn’t it be easier to draw two lines from corner to corner and set x/y zero at the intersection ???
@Jens I do that frequently, but that only works for rectangles. I have other way for circles. Weird shapes are “estimates”. 
I use a crosshair laser to show the mark since that’s easier than trying to accurately jog and end mill into place. Then I run a macro to accommodate the offset.
give my macro a try, it works on any shape as long as you probe on similar edges, you can’t have a circle on on side of x and a triangle on the other, a circle works too, since it doesn’t matter where you start on X as long as the edges are similar, the Y is probed after x so you are in center already, just dont forget to set the material size iin the macro. also i recommend a 3d probe thats is calibrated with a dial indicator in the spindle , any run out can trow you away from center
i posted the macro on github as well take a look GitHub - iuliancalin/-GSENDER-G91-STOCK-PROBING-MACRO · GitHub