Dynomotion Forum

Hey, I very new to the whole CNC thing and this is probably a pretty wild question.
Long story short someone(We'll call him Dave) found out I love programming in my spare time and they gave me a very expensive unit.
It's function is to use pneumatic nailers to nail plywood to pre-fabbed frames.
Each nail gun moves separately from the others(there are 6 of them) to nail the walls as efficiently as possible.
As far as I can tell I've got to program this thing from the ground up.
Obviously this is a massive project but I guess my question for now is, is it even possible to do this with G-Code?

Hi Josiah,

How many axes total are there?

Can you describe the operation in more detail?

GCode is not well suited for parallel independent operations. However if you just need to move all 6 heads to new locations, stop, then nail, it should work.

Another approach might be to use custom MCodes. The MCode operation might be to trigger a move of some head to some location and nail (without waiting for completion).

Wow, thanks for the quick reply!
I'm still in the planning phase, I'd like to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle can do what I need and work together.
For now there will only be 2 axes as the nailers are on wheels that roll on the wood to where they need to go.
Eventually I'd like the operation to be continuous without the need to wait for each head to get to its position so I'll take a look at MCodes.
Would you have any good resources for programming a CAM program or CNC program if/when I need to go those routes?
Thanks for your help!

Hi Josiah,

I'm not familiar with CAD/CAM systems. Fusion 360 seems to be popular and I believe is free for personal, non-commercial use.

All good, The only issue is that the drawings are all pre-made and exported as a .ehx file so I've got to read the .ehx file and then determine the path for the heads from that. I'll do some research into fusion360 though.
Thanks for your help

Reading the .ehx file and finding the paths might be a bit tough, but Fusion 360 can help you next.

Did you find any tools that can read .ehx files and help with path planning?

Can you mention please?