Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: SkyMoCo on April 24, 2012, 08:04:50 PM

Title: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: SkyMoCo on April 24, 2012, 08:04:50 PM

Is there such a thing as a hour meter DRO in Mach?   I generally do PM work when my router gets really dirty or stops doing exactly what I tell it to but I have no idea how many hours of running time I have logged?

It would be an interesting feature to be able to tell how long (and maybe even how far) my machine has been running.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: Overloaded on April 24, 2012, 08:26:05 PM

look under Operator / Maintenance Hours.
Might also find the oem dro in Hoods list.,,, will look.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: JohnHaine on April 25, 2012, 07:53:13 AM

Further to this query, I noticed last week when running a long milling job that the elapsed time DRO stopped, at 1 hr 12 min IIRC.  Is this normal please?

Not that it matters very much!

John.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: SkyMoCo on April 25, 2012, 10:23:45 AM

However, this has the hours mach has been running, not necessarily how long it's been doing anything.   But I can get a good feel for things by looking at the distance traveled.

Thanks.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: JohnHaine on April 30, 2012, 11:38:31 AM

Actually the manual says...

"The elapsed time for the current job is displayed in
hours, minutes and seconds."

But my query as to why it stops at 1hr 12 min stands!

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: Vogavt on May 03, 2012, 08:20:27 PM

I seeing the same issue and have been asking around but it appears to be an issue with Mach3 for sure.  The odd thing is, at least what I've discovered is the run time is almost identical to the simulated time yet on my runs the time is actually much longer in real time.

To clarify a little more, the simulation time appears to be way off and that number is also about where the clock seems to be stopping during the real run.

One other thing, if this is the case, how can we be certain the runtime on our tool life or other metrics we should be keeping up with.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: ger21 on May 03, 2012, 08:58:40 PM

Are you guys with the stopped DRO's using subroutines in your g-code?

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: JohnHaine on May 04, 2012, 04:34:30 AM

I'm using largely wizard-generated code at the moment.  Noticed this behaviour when surfacing a block using the "surface in Y" (I think) wizard - don't think there were any subroutines in the generated Gcode.  Vogavt, do you see the same number as me, 1 hr 12 min?

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: Vogavt on May 04, 2012, 11:06:01 AM

@ger21,
Yes to Subroutine question

@JohnHaine,
No, mine stopping at different times depending on code being used.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: HimyKabibble on May 04, 2012, 11:21:14 AM

I have NEVER seen the timers in Mach3 operate reliably.  They seem to start and stop on their own, with no relation to whether the machine is actually running or not.  I ended up buying a $5 digital Kitchen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Miller) timer, and using that.

Regards,
Ray L.

Title: Re: Hour Meter DRO
Post by: softselect on May 05, 2012, 05:05:59 PM

hi guys go look here http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,7328.0.html
i use it and it works great
Friedrich