Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => VB and the development of wizards => Topic started by: davidimurray on November 26, 2006, 05:25:27 AM
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Hi
Is it possible to have drop down menus in Mach? If so can this be
expanded to hierarchial levels of menus.
Why - well I have an idea (another one in my long list!) for a
threading wizard for Mach. The idea is that you have two drop down
menus. In the first you choose the type of thread, e.g. BA, BSF,
Metric, UNC etc etc. This then fills the second menu with a list of
common threads - e.g select BA in menu 1, menu 2 then has 2BA, 4BA,
6BA etc
You can then simply select the thread, enter the start point and
length and hit go. I imagine at this point that the thread data
would be stored in something like a CSV file so users can add
threads and build a thread library. You could also add the stock
dimension so it automatically turns to diameter and then asks for
the threading tool.
Well - thats the idea anyway!
Cheers
Dave
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Hello Dave,
I have no idea how to go about doing this yet. I'm an idiot when it comes to macros, Vb code, etc. but I think that would be one nice feature. I would love to see something like that for feed and speed. ;D
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You can but you are going to have to do the dialogs in VB :( check out cypress enabled and I think you can get docs from them :)
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You could make a wizard,
Have the first page have a button for each type of thread, then have each button take you to a second page that has buttons for the next options, and so on and so forth. On the last page you can have DRO's where you can set parameters for your threading.
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That would be a great wizard to have! The "Really Simple Lathe Threading Wizard" :D
I don't think most people have much need to make 1 5/27" NC 14.4 threads, so I would love wizard that gave you the cycles for some typical bar stock sizes (I'd be happy to prep the material as needed for the wizard). 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2" in standard NC threads would be super. It is obviously doable with the current wizard, but I have no idea where to look for the necessary values to fill out the existing wizard. Even putting a little chart of standard measurements on the existing wizard would be a huge help.
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I found a handy threading chart you might want, I posted it in the downloads area. It has everything I have ever needed to thread.
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Very handy tool, thanks for sharing!!
I will experiment with the Threading Wizard tonight! I looked at it before but gave up having no idea what parameters to use. I am assuming the Start X and End X are just the actual thread depth? It looks like they are the whole diameter in the wizard picture. I guess I'll figure it out doing some "air threading"