Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. => Finished Plugins for Download => Topic started by: cd_edwards on November 30, 2011, 10:21:44 PM

Title: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on November 30, 2011, 10:21:44 PM
Here's a LCD DRo plugin which works with the Gravitech LCD board. There is NO setup, you will need to edit the XML file using the XML reader in the General Mach3 forum. Please READ the LCDDRO.txt file before doing anything though, as it explains what you need todo.

Updates to the display are almost realtime and are MUCH faster than using the chargepump.m1s file and mach3's builtin serial routine. The currect exec line from the running program is displayed along with 3 axis's. An option is availble to display the 4th A Axis. Display will show the value of ESTOP when estop is enabled.  I might change the display output slightly so that DRO's are displayed at all times by moving ESTOP into another place and not clearing the screen.



EDIT: Added updated version of the LCD Plugin and removed old version.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 01, 2011, 05:01:48 AM
Thank you for posting this. I will try to get to try this as soon as I can to give some input.

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 04, 2011, 02:05:49 PM
Hi, Colten,

Ok, tried out the plugin a bit today and it is indeed smoother and faster than the macropump. I do agree that if you could put the estop message to the right side of one of the lines, that would be nice instead of the whole screen black except for the estop message. Not a big deal, just agreeing with you.

Just because you asked if there was anything we might like to be different, I would like 4 places after the decimal point as I use "inches".

Will try some more testing down the road on an actual running machine but I'm swamped here right now.

It's really seems to be a nice plugin and I for one, appreciate it-
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 04, 2011, 05:53:46 PM
Ask and you shall recieve. Here's an updated version of the plugin. Has the ESTOP change already and it was simple to change the format of the display to 4 digits. I would have edited my original post, but I don't see that option anywhere.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 04, 2011, 06:03:11 PM
Thanks so much, Colton, that was very kind of you  :)

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 04, 2011, 06:10:44 PM
Ask and you shall recieve. Here's an updated version of the plugin. Has the ESTOP change already and it was simple to change the format of the display to 4 digits. I would have edited my original post, but I don't see that option anywhere.

I have edited your original post to reflect the updated file for you.

Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 04, 2011, 07:03:24 PM
Hi, Colton,

Unfortunately something has changed this time around.

Please see the picture of how the format is looking as there's an extra set of zeros and the Z axis has no Letter designation.

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: Chaoticone on December 04, 2011, 08:20:08 PM
Thanks Colton, that looks pretty handy.  :)

Brett
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 04, 2011, 08:55:25 PM
I suspect this might be some overrun from the runtime display. I'm not seeing this on my end at all, but then it could be that your setup is slightly differant. I noticed that the runtime display has several differant lengths to it. This variable is actually formatted by Mach3 internally. unfortunately is not available as a number so I could format it myself. I've modified the source so that only 4 digits plus : are displayed. I'll email you a copy of it to see if fixes the problem your seeing.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 05, 2011, 09:40:14 AM
Good morning, Colton,

The Estop works correctly now thank you.

There are other characters showing ( zero on the top line to right on top line, and "00:00" to right on second line) so are these possibly for future use?

In any case, it works very nicely, thank you-
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 05, 2011, 05:59:00 PM
0 in the top corner is the line counter on the currently running program. and the 00:00 is the running time of the program. I wanted to use the estimated time, but that variable is not used by Mach3. I also believe it might be highly variable and I wouldn't be able to calc it.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 05, 2011, 06:26:56 PM
Ah yes! I loaded a code up and away she went  :)

Thanks so much, what a nice/handy little plugin you have made.
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: Chaoticone on December 05, 2011, 06:49:09 PM
Thanks Colton, is that the latest plug-in posted?

Brett
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 05, 2011, 06:58:02 PM
Thanks Colton, is that the latest plug-in posted?

Brett

Hi, Brett,

It isn't, the latest Rev is LCDDRo11a, but I will let it up to Colton to let me know if he'd like me to replace the previous version in his first post in this thread.

Colton, maybe it would be good to add the other features that you now show in the DRO in your text file? (mostly for idiots like my self that don't fully test things when we should   ;)  )

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 05, 2011, 07:17:21 PM
hehe. yeah it would be :)  If you like, you can update the first post for me. It will save me an upload and someone editing it for me :)
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 05, 2011, 07:55:15 PM
Done and done  :)

You're going to love me for this next thought though  ;D  

Possibly the running time should include hours instead of just minutes and seconds?

I've been running a test for over an hour now (1:22:31 seconds in Mach 3) and noticed it only says 22:31 on the LCD which might be misleading to someone thinking it was only 22:31 to run the job if they weren't watching closely?

Just a thought  ;)

Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: Chaoticone on December 05, 2011, 08:06:37 PM
Thanks Colton and Dave.

Brett
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 05, 2011, 08:20:09 PM
And therein lies the problem with the wrap around :) my version of Mach3 only has 2 possibilities for the runtime display. 00:00 and 00:00:00. Yours on there other hand has a third option it seems. 00:00:00:00.  anyways I'll make a programming change and include hours again.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 05, 2011, 08:32:38 PM
Actually I just have 00:00 on the LCD DRO, not the 00:00:00 that I have in Mach 3. Is that an easy switch? I don't need the 00:00:00:00.

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 05, 2011, 10:06:26 PM
It's more of a pain than anything. Mach3 outputs all 3 versions of that string in the same variable alternating between them I believe. That's what it does with the 00:00 and 00:00:00 on my setup and I assume it does  similar with yours. Just a matter of cutting the string at the appropriate place or placing it correctly.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on December 06, 2011, 04:51:13 AM
Understood.

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on December 06, 2011, 07:52:18 AM
And I just discovered my dead LCD display this morning. going to be a few weeks before I can get a new one from china. although I see gravitech is having a sale on them right now. Maybe I'll order one of their's.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on March 04, 2012, 11:16:47 PM
Here's a new LCD Dro. The older versions had a problem with saving/replacing the comport value in the XML.  Now if we could just get Mach3 to stop hanging on shutdown while the DLL is loaded.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on September 29, 2012, 05:05:10 PM
Colton,

Any chance you may know what's going on here?

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,22545.msg157304.html#new

Thanks,
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: cd_edwards on September 29, 2012, 07:20:09 PM
Kinda odd. I've just recently installed a new computer and had no problem with the LCDDRo. I'd check the serial port settings in the General Config to make sure it's not conflicting.
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on September 30, 2012, 12:11:34 PM
Yep, already checked but thanks for looking in-

Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: budman68 on October 01, 2012, 06:12:27 PM
UPDATE:

Nevermind, I figured it out. My XP version was too old as I needed the SP2 upgrade and also 3.5 NET install as well.

Hope this helps others someday-
Dave
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: matteeboy on July 17, 2013, 03:46:27 AM
I may have a problem with using the plugin
If I use the macropump method it works fine so I know the board is OK. I have changed the com port with the xml viewer. When I open the xml again it is saved correct. If I then open mach3, the com port number reverts back to -1. Am I doing something wrong?
Title: Re: LCD DRo plugin Gravitech board
Post by: matteeboy on July 17, 2013, 03:47:55 AM
Just read a reply that appears to address my issue - cheers