Instructions

Don’t ever press the green [Start] button on a CNC machine
unless you know exactly what the machine will do BEFORE you
PRESS IT!
Now let’s take a closer look at that minus change we made and we’ll see what happened
is really obvious. By changing the “i” to a positive number the center of the radius is
now moved to the positive side of our zero starting point, which in this case is a total
distance of 1". The g02 command still went in a CW direction and the only difference is
that the circle was generated on the positive side of the X plane. Are you up for your first
test? You better be because I didn’t write all this stuff for my own enjoyment.
From what I explained to this point, you should be able generate a 4-leaf clover on the
backplot screen. Don’t forget to use save and reload as you make these changes. You’re
on your own.
Figure 1
If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you passed the test, so now take your second test by
erasing your program with the backspace key and doing the entire exercise over from
memory.
Meet Millie
Think about what you accomplished at this point. You’re beginning to understand how
we humans can order our robot around. I think we should give our little robot a name.
Seeing it’s a mill we’re working with and I’m a male, I think I’ll call mine Millie. It will
be the only thing with a female name in my lifetime that I stand a chance of controlling. I
really want you to know the stuff I taught you blindfolded because we are heading for the
hard, oops, I mean interesting part.
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