Messages

4621

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mache4 Lathe-pmdx411 incremental move problem

« on: May 07, 2018, 08:43:57 PM »

Hi,
thinking a little more about this may I suggest some experiments to find out whats going on.

First just set up a script to rotate the C axis in discrete steps... something like

local s
Local for i=1 to 100
s=s..'g0 h5\n'
end
mc.mcCntlMdiExecute(mc.mcGetInstance(),s)

The next question I have is 'is it possible that the lines of Gcode presented to the interpreter are returning
before being executed and being lost?'

Maybe something like this

local i,s
for i=0,100
s='g0 h5'
mc.mcCntlMdiExecuteWait(mc.mcGetInstance(),s)
end

Craig

4622

General Mach Discussion / Re: Guidence Request... Surface probing with Mach3 & a Gecko G540.

« on: May 07, 2018, 03:15:53 PM »

Hi,
I regularly probe PCB blanks for a software auxillary program to 'flatten' the PCB. You might be surprised how long it takes to probe two hundred points,
Its going to be a loon long day if you want 500 or worse 2000 points.

Presumably if you are patient its achieveable.

Craig

4623

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mache4 Lathe-pmdx411 incremental move problem

« on: May 07, 2018, 03:09:29 PM »

Hi,
kool, learn something new every day!

That still leaves the original question unanswered. The code looks good.
When you say the incremental version doesn't work....what does it do?

Craig

4624

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mache4 Lathe-pmdx411 incremental move problem

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:59:37 PM »

Hi,
OK but why then are you using 'h' in one but 'c' in the other. Is 'h' equivalent to incremental 'a' or.....?

Craig

4625

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Out-Of-Band Axes in Hobby vs Indusrial

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:55:57 PM »

Hi,
no not really. That's why I was asking about how you'd go about getting motion from those other out-of-band axes. I was hoping that someone who had Industrial
could shed some light on it. I downloaded Industrial Demo but saw nothing to indicate how all the out-of-band axes work.

Craig

4626

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Spindle at Speed

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:49:55 PM »

Hi,
as previously explained the numeric range of signals for which mcSignalWait() will work is limited to 5bits ie 0-63. That is what it is.

I stumbled over it and you are right there is no notes or documentation covering it, I have asked NFS to add  one line to the API.chm but to no avail.
For this reason I have commented before that NFS does not appear to act on specific documentation suggestions.

Remember I have a Mach4Hobby license and for a Hobby User I can expect some out of the box functionality.

Good luck with that! In this instance NFS is not to blame however, the modern programming paradigm is that an object and its action are separate and
Mach4 follow that paradigm. What Mach4 is very very good at is being programmatically flexible but that in turn requires that you program it to suit
your particular needs.

Everything I have done so far was by trail and error or by looking in the forum

I agree, I've had exactly the same experience.

The documentation is for sure rubbish

I would not put it that strongly but certainly the documentation is out of date. smurph has explained that generating technical documentation is a very
resource/time intensive excerise. NFS has not taken up that challenge yet, but have persued further development....things like PMC, the probing module, the Zero Brane
editor....all of these things are new. They would not exist if NFS poured its resources into documentation say.

Craig

4627

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Out-Of-Band Axes in Hobby vs Indusrial

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:24:27 PM »

Hi,
trying to remember where I read it but yes in Mach4Hobby you have only one out-of-band axis and it is always the spindle.

Craig

4628

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mache4 Lathe-pmdx411 incremental move problem

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:18:03 PM »

Hi,
is it a typo but in the first piece of code:

\ng0 h'..tostring

Whereas in the second:

\ng0 c'..tostring

What's the 'h' axis?

Craig

4629

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Macro works in MDI but not during program execution

« on: May 07, 2018, 07:36:40 AM »

Hi,

these are the return codes for mcSignalWait():

MERROR_NOERROR No Error.
MERROR_INVALID_INSTANCE The mInst parameter was out of range.
MERROR_INVALID_ARG sigId or wiatMode is out of range or timeoutSecs is negative.
MERROR_NOT_ENABLED The control is not enabled.
MERROR_TIMED_OUT The timeout period was reached without a change of state.

Your code tests for MERROR_TIMED_OUT but what about the others? I've had trouble with this API as well because I didn't appreciate that ther are circumstances when an unexpected
return code is generated. Without some means of catching it it will screw up the logic of your script.

Could the return codes be put in a table?

Craig

4630

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 spindle behaviour

« on: May 07, 2018, 07:21:01 AM »

Hi,
my spindle can do 24000 max, I have to set feeds to match. If my speed was out by 10% then  my chip load would be out by 10% as well...so what, I'm never that close to the absolute limit.
With the small tools I often use I would like to go faster but I can't and I'm not spending the bucks to do it either. The job will complete somewhat more slowly at 24000 but it will complete
and I'm happy.

Likewise with my high torque spindle (max 3500 rpm, 6Nm cont) if my feeds and speeds are within 10-20% of theoretical best that usually enough.

Back in the old days before CNC that old Bridgeport had a number of  ratios, you selected the speed closest to what you required and got to work. Are you trying to tell me that all those jobs I did with manual mills and
lathes were compromised because I did not have the exact speed ratio available? Of course not, provided the surface speed is within 20% of the recommended for that material you can always find a feed that worked well.

I have found that using pressure coolant to clear the cut zone of chips to be a bigger determinant of success than having the exact speed and feed.

Craig