Step / Velocity mode

[DMBGO]

Hi again,
I was just wondering how Step / Velocity jog mode is designed to behave. I have one of Peter Homann's excellent MP-03 pendants. When I select step / velocity mode I seem to get straight velocity mode.

I have spent a lot of time calibrating the mpg, and have experimented with doubling and halving mpg values to see what happens. I can easily alter the way velocity mode behaves by doing this, but step / velocity just follows whatever behaviour I get from velocity mode.

While I haven't read this anywhere, my concept of step / velocity is that when you turn the mpg under a predefined rpm the axis would behave as if it was in multi step mode, and as you break the predefined velocity rpm threshold it would switch to velocity mode.

This seems to me to be a very useful (imaginary?) l mode, if indeed this is the way it's meant to work, since it would allow both coarse and fine manual axis adjustment, without having to change jog modes.

I have done a bit of searching and have read through the thread below, but step / velocity isn't mentioned
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,13531.0.html#lastPost

Cheers
Dave
 

[HimyKabibble]

What you describe is exactly the way it does work.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Hood]

That is the way it is meant to work but as far as I know it never has worked correctly although I have not tried it for probably 6 years.
Hood

[DMBGO]

Thanks Ray and Hood,
Ray when you say that is the way it does work, is it working that way for you?
If it is just one of those things that should work but doesn't I'll drop it, but  if you have it working, I'd really like to know what might be wrong.
Cheers
Dave

[Hood]

I am 99.99% certain it doesnt work. I can remember when Art was trying to add it in and during all the testing it was never great and I am almost certain it was removed.
 I have just tried to get it working on my mill and it just stays in Velocity mode where as years ago  it would change from Step to Velocity, just not very well, so looks like it was taken out but just the screens not changed.
Then again I use the SmoothStepper so that may  also have a bearing on things.
Hood

[DMBGO]

Thanks Hood, I'll give it a try with an mpg on the PP, since I'm using a SS as well.
If that doesn't work I'll move on. I will let you know the result on this thread. If anyone reads this and has it working with a current version of mach3 please let us know, although I'm pretty sure now that it doesn't work, since if Mach can detect the velocity of the MPG, then it should just be working

[RICH]

allow both coarse and fine manual axis adjustment

I just use my MPG's for positioning mostly, sometimes for machining small things. They are not calibrated and 1 turn of the knob
gives about .010" so i can easily adjust position to .0001" when turning it slowly yet on fast turning you can move the axis
rapidly for rough. Two different MPG's are used as one has a higher encoding than the other so the in the case of the lathe the lower
resolution one is used on the Z axis. Velocity mode is checked. The Xbox 360 is really great for moving around with a lot of flexibilty,
 such as a crawl to full rapid,but only use it when  tracing out a contour in Copycat.

A little off thread, but FWIW,

RICH

[DMBGO]

Hi Rich, sounds like you've got a good system that works. I've only just got my lathe cncing, so I have been experimenting to find the best way of positioning etc. Part of the process is finding out what does and doesn't work, so I appreciate your comments
thanks
Dave

[RICH]

Dave,
 To each their owne i guess. I had considered mounting the mpgs on the carriage like a mannual lathe which would give a natural feel in their use
but i didn't. As far as the lathe goes, use the standard screen to get familar, then use Phil's screen set, and you'll appreciate the difference.
 Now way off thread .............got to go......
RICH

[Hood]

Dave
 I use the MPG on both Mills and Lathe and really only for positioning. I use Velocity mode and multi step mode and find it works well. I have a button on my panel which changes between MultiStep and Velocity mode on the lathe and on one of the mills I have a rotary switch which has 4 positions, one is Velocity, Two is MultiStep at 0.01mm MultiThree is Step at 0.1mm and Four is MultiStep at 1mm. I find the rotary switch the best method and I will eventually do that on the lathe as well.

Hood