Overview

Purpose

You can use CIMCO Edit v7 to make changes and check CNC programs for your CNC machines. If you have a serial communication line from the PC to the CNC machine, you can send and receive programs directly, even when working with other CNC programs.

CIMCO Edit v7 is designed for editing CNC-programs. CIMCO Edit v7 is able to distinguish between several different formats including ISO, APT and Heidenhain to name some.

User interface

CIMCO Edit v7 has a standard Windows user interface, having one or more windows for every open file. The functions in CIMCO Edit v7 can be activated through the Ribbon Bar, which helps you to quickly find the commands needed for a task. The commands are organized into logical groups under tabs.

CIMCO Edit v7 User interface.

Functions

You can undo and redo (almost) all operations you have done since the file was opened. You can find the position of a tool change, a spindle speed change or feed rate change, or display the range of the X/Y/Z axes.

If you are not sure if two CNC-programs are equal, the File Compare functions of CIMCO Edit v7 help you to pinpoint the differences. File Compare lets you choose two files that are put into a two-frame window. The differences are shown by coloring the line. You can step through the files, stopping at each difference.

You can customize the colors used to display coordinates and NC commands, renumber block numbers, and add/remove spaces to increase readability, or decrease program size/transmission time.

The DNC part of CIMCO Edit v7 lets you send and receive NC programs to your CNC machines in the workshop. The file can be sent from a window in CIMCO Edit v7 or directly from the harddisk. The file transmission is done while you are working with other CNC programs.

Setup

CIMCO Edit v7 offers you a lot of possibilities to control the behaviour of the editor. The Ribbon tabs let you select functions and configure settings. You can access the configuration dialogs using the icon .

Using the Editor tab, you can configure the Global settings for General, Editor, and Printing.

In the General dialog, the appearance of the windows can be modified. You can choose whether a file should be displayed in more than one window, or if alterations to a file inside CIMCO Edit v7 through another program should be indicated. Further you can choose whether to share settings between users, or protect read-only files. You can specify the tab width, as well as the size of the recent files list. The language used for viewing Editor menus and a Color theme can also be selected.

In the Editor dialog, you can set the speed of the keyboard and choose if you want scrollbars or not.

The appearance of the printed CNC programs is controlled in the Printing dialog. Here, you can define a header and/or a footer. If you have a color printer, you might mark the color option.

CIMCO Edit v7 has 5 different templates for different CNC machines. You can set up how the NC functions behave and how the NC codes appear in the editor window. The Find function in the Editor menu needs a definition of Tool change, Feed rate change, etc. This definition is made here.

Further information

In the section Program Tabs, all CIMCO Edit v7's functions are described. A lot of functions can also be accessed through one of the icons.

The setup of Machine Types is described in File Types.

If you need help on how to set up a serial communication line, you can refer to DNC Settings and DNC-Max User Guide.

The help system is accessible through the ? icon, the F1 key or the Help button. Section Using Editor Help gives you an introduction to the help in CIMCO Edit.