Cutter path outside/inside line

Hi guys,

I am a complete newbie on CNC and programming although familiar with (manual) machining principles and highly capable with electronics and software development. I am just getting to the point where I want to make some first cuts using my machine. For starters to validate movement, I want to cut on the outside of the path for a square path and make sure it's as expected.

I see that LinuxCNC supports toolpath compensation for either the outside or inside of the path. Presumably I could set G41 to cut on the outside and also set G42 and create a pocket.

Is it correct to use toolpath compensation for what I am asking? Or is there some other way? At present I am writing this simple CNC program by hand so I don't have the benefit of CAM tools to process this for me (part of my learning curve - start simple and build from there).

I have read: [linuxcnc.org/docs/2.6/html/gcode/tool_co...:cutter-compensation] and understand the principles but not sure it's applicable to what I'm asking.

Thanks for your patience.

Scott

Normally I use g41 for climb milling and g42 for conventional

So depending how you plan the cut you can use either

Thanks guys, I figured it out. It pays to read carefully as the cutter compensation documentation. I ran two simple files in simulated Axis, one CW/G42 and CCW/G42 which demonstrated to me how it works. It was all in the docs.