Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards => Topic started by: Ron Ginger on February 09, 2007, 10:58:06 PM
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I have written a new wizard that runs as a simple power feed.
You can set a limit switch for X plus and X minus, then with a single button click you can feed back and forth, much like you could with a manual power feed option.
It also has controls for feed rate and can raise the Z axis on rapid moves.
Save the zip file to Mach3\Addons and extract the files to Power Feed X.
I think it might be useful, so its posted here. If there are no error reports it will go into a future release of the complete wizard set.
ron ginger
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I gave it a try. I don't quite understand the controlls. I hit the one of the arrow keys to start, but how do I stop? If I hit the reset button, I loose my possition depending on how fast I was feeding.
Vince
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There is a DRO for X minus and one for X Plus. You set those to be your limits. The wizard loads them both to zero to start with so there is no mistake with an old value, but you must set at least one of them to some other value to get a move.
The keyboard arrow keys are your normal jog keys, and there is a button to turn jogging on or off.
Do you see a better way to label the keys to make this more obvious?
thanks for trying it.
ron ginger
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I went back and tried it some more, paying more attention to the X limits. It's even more confusing. Next to the X minus limit value there is a feed plus feed button with a similar set up on the X plus value. Shouldn't it say "FEED NEG" next to the X minus value? I would also have a big "STOP" or "FEED HOLD" button between the two X limit buttons that does a contolled stop as apposed to a estop. A note that says "enter X limits then click on feed direction buttons" should make it clear what to do.
Just this last week I was doing something using the MDI page that this wizard would have done much better. I will definitely use it in the future.
Vince
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Ok, I was going to make the Feed buttons in an arrow shape but I dont have a good tool to do that. The idea is that the button by the Xneg limit is the one to send the table to the positive limit. So the button my each limit assume you are at that limit and want to go to the other limit. Ill see if I can make better buttons.
Good idea on the feedhold button, I will see if I can make that work.
thanks
ron ginger
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I added some arrow buttons to make it more obvious which direction the moves will make. And I added a Feed Hold button with the Space Bar as a hot key like it is on the Mach main screen. The feed hold is a bit slow in acting, I suppose its because of the Mach buffer.
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Ron,
Will that wizard work with Mach2? Tormach won't be releasing Mach3 for their mill for another month or so or I'd be using it now.
Mike
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Sorry, I don't know about Mach2. I have not run that for a couple years. I dont even recall the structure of the wizard folder in Mach2. I will have to find another system here to test that, but I'm trying to finish several other wizards now so it will be a while before I can try.
You could not hurt much by trying.
ron ginger
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I added some arrow buttons to make it more obvious which direction the moves will make. And I added a Feed Hold button with the Space Bar as a hot key like it is on the Mach main screen. The feed hold is a bit slow in acting, I suppose its because of the Mach buffer.
OK, now you have me really interested. Each time I play with it I find something else I like, this time was the Z to safe height on rapid. The space bar works plenty fast enough. If it's not fast enough someone can just hit the estop. My next request would be, can you duplicate the same thing for the Y axis? Just an hour ago I had to cut out a square in piece. It still was not worth my time to write a g-code program for it so I just used the MDI screen, G1 Z-0.05, G1 Y-3, G1 X11, G1 Y0, G1 X0, G1 Z-0.100 etc. With your wizzard I could have just set the limits in the windows and keep pressing the direction arrows.
Thanks
Vince
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Ron,
Thanks for this wizard.
tested it here on my office computer and found it works OK.
No machine at present to test with but hopefully I will have within a week.
John S.
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Ron,
I have sent you a personal message.
Brett
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Sorry, I don't know about Mach2. I have not run that for a couple years. I dont even recall the structure of the wizard folder in Mach2. I will have to find another system here to test that, but I'm trying to finish several other wizards now so it will be a while before I can try.
That's OK - don't bother testing as I can do that pretty easily myself and your time is better spent on other activities.
Mike
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Ok, its a slow morning and I felt like programming so here is a new version of the power feed wizard that lets you feed either X or Y axis. It also has a help screen. I think it could use some improvement on the graphics to make it more intuitive, but that might just clutter it up for experienced users.
have fun.
ron ginger
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I like it!
Vince
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Thanks for the new wizard Ron!
Very useful wizard for my Acra Mill.
Maybe this wizard ought to be renamed something more fitting like "Smart Feed."
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Today I had a need to use my power feed wizard and found a couple things missing- I couldn't start my spindle, or control jogs. So I made some changes to the wizard to include these functions. It has made the screen more cluttered, but I guess thats the cost of progress.
New version is attached
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Maybe I have not looked close enough but I can't see any difference between this one and the previous one.
I notice that you are putting these wizards in the wizard tab and not the conversational button (new fangled). I paid for the new fangled wizards. Are they now static and all new wizard going into the general tab? I like the pictures of the wizard function in the conversational button.
Vince
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The new version has buttons for spindle on/off and flood and mist. These are in the upper left corner. Otherwise it is the same.
These will be part of the newfangled set, and will work with the newfangled license. I will be working on the set that was the original Newfangled package, Ive made some fixes and am working on a new screen for cutting a general polygon. But some wizards, like power feed, have no need to be part of that package, they work as stand-alone wizards.
So, there will be new stand-alone wizards, so far power-feed and Teach, and there will be changes and additions to the set called up by the conversational button. Brian and I have discussed a couple more new wizards, and I am open to suggestions of either enhancements to the current set, or totally new functions.
All of the new wizards will work with your Newfangled license.
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I must have either downloaded the wrong one or installed it wrong as mine does no have spindle on off or coolant options. Do I just place the zip file in the addons folder and unzip it there?
Vince
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Yes that should do it. Look in your zip file, the new version should have a date stamp on the .set file of March 7, 4:02PM. I should start to use a Version number as part of the name so we dont get this problem. I just loaded the version here and it is the new one.
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Do the Spindle, Mist and Flood buttons work? When I click on them the leds don't light. I am trying the wizard from my desktop, I have not tried it on my machine's Mach computer. I am using the file dated March 7, 2007.
Vince
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Yes, but only if you have them setup on the ports and pins pages. That one fooled me while testing it- I was doing my programming at my desk where I had not bothered to setup thing like spindle. I couldn't get the LEDs to go on, and finally realized Mach is smart enough not to act on the spindle or flood calls unless you have them configured.
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Ron ,I used the Power Feed Wizard today. Slick it works very well ,Thanks
Now if you need some more ideas for things we need just Hollar,(;-) TP
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Ron I was using the new wizard today and noticed a quirk. If I get too many moves ahead of where it is at it seems to loose track of itself. Sometimes it stops before it get to the total number of moves or stops short of the correct distance of the move. Almost as though there is a buffering problem?????
Other than that it works very good and is a great addition to MACH.
(;-) TP
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I guess the answer to that is 'dont do that'! why would you get ahead of the actual position?
Is there a need for a 'repeat' function, enter a number and have the feed move back and forth that number of times? Id think this would only make sense if it also did something with a second axis, like step over is Y between each X pass. But that would be better handled by the Surface wizard.
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Well to answer, when I am just using the power feed to do small segmant it doesn't make sense to set up the surfacing wizard for such a small amount in different parts of the total project. The PF works great but if I get several moves ahead say 1 feed 1 step over 1 feed and 1 step over add a jog, it may get lost and only does part of the total input of moves.
I do have high resolution servos and it may take a very large amount of steps to make moves. It gets worse if I use a lot of jogs with feeds
I can do the same things using the MDI and never have a problem, I can get 20 moves ahead with no loss of moves.
The PF is a lot more conveniant to use than the mdi but gets very clumsy if it looses track of moves.
If I just make a move and wait and then make another move every thing works ok, just clumsy to have to wait on the machine
A repeat is not needed just a way to hold all the moves.
(;-) TP
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FWIW, I'd like to see an option added to the surfacing wizard to limit feeding in a single direction for mutiple passes on a wide workpiece so that the tool would be fed along +X for the first pass, raised to Z rapid, returned to the starting X position and then fed along +X for the next pass, etc. It seems like surface finish on my mill is better if all surfacing passes are made in the same X-direction.
I'm using Mach2 on a Tormach mill but am about to upgrade to Mach3 and have just purchased the NFS Wizards, in case that feature is already implemented in Mach3 or NFS. I don't suppose it's a feature of the Power Feed wizard, is it?
Mike
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I think the loosing moves is a VB problem. Each time you press the button for a move a new VB instance is called. It generates the Gcode, then exits. If you press the button again, another Vb session is called. Mach and VB dont get along all that well- they barely tolerate each other. Look at some of the issues of a macropump that tries to run 10 times a second.
I probably should have added a While IsMoving loop to each command so that Vb does not return until the move is finished. Then you could not get ahead of VB.
I suggest you do NOT try to get several moves ahead of the machine.
Mike, you can do that kind of surfacing with the power feed wizard, but you do have to keep pressing the buttons for each feed and step over. It is for surfacing that I added the step over buttons in the lower right corner of the screen. To do a surface you would set up the limit values then press <feed> <Rapid return> <step over Y> then repeat the loop as many times as it takes to finish.
I realize thats not as nice as a wizard that simply generates one block of code then runs unattended.
This is kind of a fundamental distinction of my view of conversational. As its implemented here it means generating a block of gcode, then running a program. In my view of the world, one I was calling 'Interactive milling' instead of conversational you would actually run the code under the screen where it was generated. as you do in the PowerFeed wizard.
A long time ago I did a program like this, but I was never able to get a motor driver module I could call from VB. When Art started Master5 there was supposed to be a callable ocx to do moves, but it never really worked. I eventually quit working on my code. If you are interested in what I was doing its at http://plsntcov.8m.com/CNH.htm Someday I may revive that idea.
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AH, the old VB, I understand now(;-) The wizard still works great I can live with the input buffering.
Could you possible add an input to set the spindle speed.
Could you add a button to go to safe Z then return to origin( X0Y0)
Ron We appreciate your hard work on this (;-) TP
Would it be possible to convert this wizard to a page in mach?
Thanks TP
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A spindle speed button is easy, I will add it. Only concern is the screen is already to crowded.
The return to origin is easy, but a bit strange in logic- the wizard makes no assumption about an origin, and either limit could be Zero, with the power moves either plus or minus. you could even have limits both is negative region, then a GotoZero would be outside the range. I think it might cause some confusion.
Making it a mach screen is possible, but there may be a conflict. I use a number of DROs and Leds, with numbers I selected- they might overlap with DROs already in use on another Mach screen. It would not be technically hard, just tedious to get all the numbers right and no conflicts. That would also cause some logistical problems, since Art controls the rest of the screens, Id have to make sure mine got linked in on new releases.
Nice idea, Ill think about it.
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Ron, the return to origin is to allow a quick way to return to the starting point. THe wizard basically works on the XY grid moving across the planes. THe idea is to be able to return back to the starting point easily. To do it safely you need to assign a safe z and a reference point
When I use the wizard or MDI to do simple tasks I always assign a reference point as x0y0 to make it easy to keep track of where I am at.
THat way when I need to come back to the starting point it makes it very easy to remember where it is at. With my simple brain I have to keep it simple(;-) TP
The screen is not really crowded, you could scale the features down a bit to make more room if needed. If I can see it ok it must be really big features (;-)
You also need to keep thinking on a coordinate rotation screen using the probe for the reference points.
I also use several buttons for Circle of circle, center of Xplane, center of Yplane. They can be super time savers on setup and doing simple CMM. NOw there is you a project a MACH CMM using the probe and the recording feature to map out a 2d object. I do it manually all the time with pen and paper to record the points. a screen would be nice.
Thanks for your time. (;-) TP
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Hi RON, I recently install a spindle sensor to let mach show the spindle RPM and NOW, my POWERFEED is busted. THe lefthand direction DRO (X+ I think) shows the spindle rpms???????
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Wow, thats a weird one. I suspect it is caused by duplication of the DRO numbers, something I have worried about. But Art says he saves and restores all DROs before starting any wizard.
Im on a long road trip now, and have limited debugging ability. I will try to look at this, but cant promise a fix until Im home in about 2 weeks.
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It is not a problem RON, I just wanted to let you know about it. It can wait untill you return. Be carefull out on the road.
(;-) TP
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Im home, and starting to look at some of the wizard bugs.
This one is very strange, my own machine has a spindle senor and shows the speed, but it doesnt get mixed.
I use DRO numbers 1100 tyo 1108 and none of those are speed.
Does anyone else see this problem?
I need to update to the latest Mach and then re-test all the wizards. Ill be doing that in the next couple days.
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Ron I rechecked my machine, Using the latest version of Mach it still does it. I think it is tied internally somewhere.
If on the pulley settings page, the ratio is set to 1 then the Wizard displays the correct spindle rpm in the dro. If you set the ratio to 9 (bridgeport Lowrange) then the Dro still displays a version of the spindle speed that has had a divisor applied.
Hold on????? Now that I think about it. "Before" Art added the ratio in the pulley setting. I had to devise a way to get the corrected spindle speed to display. I may have modified the screen DRO to apply the divisor. LET me check something!!!
(;-) TP
DANG RON, It was me all along. I had to replace the screen dro with a DRO that had a divisor running in the background. Can you guess which DRO I used. YEP 1101. SORRY (;-( TP
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I thnik there is a Mach bug here. Let me be sure I understand what happened.
Did you define DRO1101 on one of the top level Mach screens? Then when you call the PowerFeed wizard your DRO value shows, instead of what the wizard wants?
Mach is supposed to save all the user DRO (and LEDs) before it calls a wizard, and restore them when the wizard finishes. It sounds like that does not really work.
Do you have a macropump running to do that divide by 9 and update the DRO? That would then update the value in the wizard.
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That was it in a nutshell. (;-) I don't have to use that piece of Macro code any more so I just removed it from the Pump. and all is well.
(;-) TP