Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: nicad on July 19, 2006, 05:54:21 PM

Title: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: nicad on July 19, 2006, 05:54:21 PM
I love the Grex/G100, but one thing I have found hard to adjust to is the delay in axis movement when jogging from the keyboard in Mach.
I am wanting to build a pendant with MPG control (encoder wheel), axis select (X, Y, Z, A), and distance set (1, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001).

I am not sure if the current Mach3/4 (Grex firmware?) will support this, since the pendant will be using inputs on the Grex.
I would assume the pendant controls should directly drive the Grex, otherwise if the inputs from the Grex are fed to Mach, which then will try to step the Grex.. I would be back where I started with the delays in jogging axis movement, correct?

Anyone have any information on doing this?
Thanks-
Colin
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on July 19, 2006, 10:41:34 PM
It should be better when Steve get the firmware out  ;)
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: nicad on July 19, 2006, 11:49:17 PM
I had been running Mach4, and have been advised to try Mach3 1.90.065 with the G100 plugin.
I did that and the axis responce to jogging is SOO much better!!
An MPG/Pendant would stil be nice, but for now I can live with this.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on July 22, 2006, 09:20:25 AM
I have an MPG hooked up to the Grex here on my desk... I will have to look at the code and see if I can get it working :)
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: on7nh on October 23, 2006, 06:59:35 AM
is this now working?

i like to put a mpg on the standard inputs from the grex?

Carl
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on October 24, 2006, 11:16:59 PM
You need to put it on an Axis encoder and it should work.. I have not taken one out to my mill ... I need a bit more time!
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: on7nh on October 25, 2006, 03:01:39 AM
thanks...

how dit you the configuration of the MPG in Mach 2.0.000?

port /pin?


Carl
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on October 25, 2006, 11:40:38 PM
You don't need to have the ports and pins set up.. I just had it hooked to the X axis encoder... I know it was loading the values into mach3 butI never jogged the mill with it :(

we are goign to need new firmware becasue the old stuff that is in there now is only sending the data every 1/4th of a sec
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: wcarrothers on November 17, 2006, 04:47:59 PM
So you connected an extra incoder to the A and B incoder inputs on the G100 and could jog?  The G100 has incoder inputs I, A and B so maybe you connected to something other them B else I got something still wrong..  When I connect to A and B I can get the LED's on the G100 to blink and everything but no movement from the machine.  Maybe try connecting it up again or something else I'm missing.. 

b.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on November 17, 2006, 09:37:41 PM
Art may not have turned on the MPG code in Mach3 for the G100 :(  I hear there is new firmware, it is not ready for release but it is getting there! So I we will work more on it after it is done. all the code that is making it work now is going away and all new has to be made :( (I think Steve is doing that too :) )
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: wcarrothers on November 17, 2006, 10:43:21 PM
Rats..  well I guess i"m going to be glad I just branched the wires from my break out board over to the G100 so I could in theory go back to parallel quickly..

Guess I will live with out the G100 or something for a while seeing I don't think I can live with out my MPG's

Was fun trying to make it work though..

b.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: JB on January 09, 2007, 10:50:11 PM
Brian (or anyone that has got this figured),

  It seems from other posts after your last one here that others have managed to get an MPG going, but you mention in this thread that you think the code is not active in Mach3 at the time. I am now running 2.00.031 and cannot get this figured. Could you point me in the right direction?

  I am using a Tosoku brand MPG handle (used on Okuma sometimes and Fanuc type machines like Johnford and such) with OFF/resolution switch and another switch for axis selection. I'll worry about the resolution and axis selection later. The problem is that I can see the pulses on the Digital Input side of the G100 plug-in realtime display (I'm using ports 1 & 2 at the moment) but get absolutely no other response.?? This pulse generator uses a +5 volt supply and A and B side signal outputs.

Help and Thanks!
John B

PS: This wouldn't be that bad if I didn't have decades of time on a machine where I had a pulse handle to set work coordinates. I feel like I'm going to crash using the jog function.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: wcarrothers on January 10, 2007, 08:54:23 AM
the 1 mpg input goes in throughthe one of the other axis inputs (A or the other one of the 6 I think.)  would have to open my box to check..  It isn't inputed though the x y or z part of the Grex..

b.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: drew on January 10, 2007, 10:51:41 AM
How do you like your Grex so far?
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: wcarrothers on January 10, 2007, 03:20:29 PM
Seemed like it worked.  Some things did scare me about it.  Like if you clicked on a mach dropdown while jogging it would continue to jog and ignore estops as I remember.  Been a while since I've tried it again..

But I got it to solve another problem which was not caused by the pc but rather the bios setting I was running at the time.

Need support for 3 MPG's at the same time before I go back to it I think.

b.
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: JB on January 11, 2007, 11:02:35 PM
wcarrothers,

What input pin numbers would they be then that would act like MPG inputs but come in through the encoder inputs? As Art has stated many times, this is not (yet) a closed loop system, so I don't get how connecting an MPG to an encoder bank of an unused port makes sense.

THX,
John
Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: chad on January 11, 2007, 11:23:20 PM
An encoder and a mpg are basically the same type of device, or more specifically a quadrature encoder.

Art probably was testing the mpg input and the hardware already handles the quadrature decoding so it was easy to work with.

Chad

Title: Re: Mach + Grex + Pendant w/MPG
Post by: Brian Barker on January 13, 2007, 08:50:11 AM
The problem with the G100 and MPG's is not that it can't read the encoders. The problem is that the G100 only will tell us the position of the encoder every 1/4 of a sec :(