Mach 3 toolchange for dummies???

[Hood]

Ok, steps per will be divided by 360 as you are working in degrees, so if its 2000 per motor rev that will be 5.555555555555555555555 for steps per.

On General Config page change to Auto Tool Chnager, should now work from Code.


Not sure about position 1, what exactly does it do?
Hood

[natefoerg]

Gotcha on the steps per...

I have enabled auto tool changer on the config page. I will try again later today, but I am sure that it was enabled when I was testing yesterday...

Position 1= tool position 1 ie: 0 degrees. for some reason I can get the A axis to move to tool 2-8, but I cant move to 1. 

Is there a list of terms for the Vbasic program? I would like to be able to decipher what you have written.

Thanks!

Nate.

[Hood]

You are using a Turn Screenset? If using a mill screenset it wont work as that sets Mach to mill mode.

Ray Livingston wrote a VB manual http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,12730.msg83052.html#msg83052 there is also info on the wiki which may help.
Hood

[Hood]

Oh I also mentioned it at the beginning but better say again, you will need to home the turret when you start Mach or at the very least always stop in tool 1 so that Mach knows where it is. How you accomplish that will depend on whether you just manually want to rotate or whether you have a home switch and do it via the RefAll button.
Hood

[natefoerg]

Yes, i'm using the stock default mach3 turn screen set.

I will look into the VB manual..

Thanks.

[Hood]

If you cant get it working then attach your xml and I will see if I can figure out where the problem lies.
If you add a DRO and a LED to the screenset for A axis and Output 2 respectively then it will let you see whats going on and might help in troubleshooting.
Hood

[natefoerg]

I read through, and searched the PDF on macro language. (is this language called VB?) you can tell how green I am at this...

I found definitions for all the terms except-

WhileIsMoving
Wend
EndIf

I am guessing that they were so basic as programming commands that it was not deemed nessisary to define them?

[Hood]

While IsMoving()
Wend                       

   This is basically just telling the VB to wait until Mach has finished moving or doing whatever.


End If

 This is put at the end of an If staement so that the VB knows its finished with that part of things.

Hood

BTW notice the spacing, it needs to be correct or you will get syntax errors, I get them a lot

[natefoerg]

Alright "now we're cooking" american slang for- Things are moving right along now...

I found that I had saved the macro you wrote in the wrong mach 3 macro folder...

I can now index from G code to all 8 turret positions.

How can I add the DRO for the A Axis? I have never changed the standard mach3 screen...

Also, will that dro allow me to manually enter ********* number, press enter and have the a axis be then oriented to ********* number? 

[Hood]

Ha ha, we say that too, usually cooking by Gas is the term here
You can use one of the screen designers to add a DRO, quite easy to do, just make sure you save your new screen by a name other than standard, that way it wont be overwritten if you update Mach. Just use the View menu in Mach to load the new screen.

No the DRO will just be like an axis DRO giving the position. You can index from MDI or you can make up a VB button on the screen which can index the turret one place at a time.

Hood