Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: Sage on February 19, 2015, 08:13:46 AM
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I purchased Mach4 back in the early days of the pre-purchase program and I've been keeping up with the updates but I simply cannot use it (or Mach3) without my Shuttle Pro pendant.
When will the plugin be created for Mach4. Not having it is a show stopper for me so I continue to use Mach3.
Sage
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I think that request is right behind getting the AC unit working in hell.....
Seriously, there is a lot of work that goes into a plugin, and the SDK keeps changing at present.
When the SDK changes it breaks plugins, and you have to go back in, and figure out where/what
the issue is, all takes time.
I suspect that once the SDK calms down a little, then you may see more movement in that area.
Scott
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>> I think that request is right behind getting the AC unit working in hell.....
Hmm. Typical
A lambo with no wheels. Looks fantastic but you can't drive it.
Oh well hopefully my donation will help the project progress - however slowly.
Thanks
Sage
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You need to remember that the Shuttle plugin was NOT written by artsoft. It was written by an individual who kindly donated to the Mach3 family.
If memory serves me, (;-)TP
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the "individual" you mention is Art Fenerty (as in ARTsoft) and Scott Shafer. And yes they were very kind to donate it to the group. And I REALLY appreciate it. I'm hoping they'll be so kind as to update it for Mach4. I know Art is pretty busy with the parallel port driver too.
Just asking. ;)
Sage
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It was ART and Scott (;-) With M4 still changing at the core level Don't count on it unless Scott wants to take a stab at it. HUM I remember more people working on it. Maybe it was the Xbox controller.
Just a thought, (;-)TP
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I'm not is a hurry. Although it would be nice if I could somehow make a complete usable package with a pendant so I can really give M4 a good workout. They say it's really great :-)
But I really hate using the keyboard.
I'll go back to sleep again for a few months and see what's up later.
:-)
Sage
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Art did ALL the work, I just added a few more button function choices to his work.
Scott
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So, Some time has passed.
When I was at NAMES, Ron Ginger indicated that Brian (or someone) was about to release a Shuttle Pro add-on (or whatever it's referred to ) for Mach 4. Has there been any action on that. Mah4 will be a waste of money for me unless I can extend my operating capabilities away from the keyboard.
If pendants (of any sort) aren't going to be supported any time soon then I'm mot wasting any more time on Mach4.
Sage
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When most of the motion control plugins are still in beta, and a lot of Mach4 features are not yet implemented, I can't see anyone working on pendant plugins, other than pendant manufacturers.
From what I see, most of the serious Mach3 users don't feel that Mach4 is even ready for use yet.
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I guess it's a catch 22. I can't see manufacturers of pendants losing money writing interfaces for something is still in beta either. I would have thought the user interface would be quite a ways along and well defined such that pendants (most of which just emulate keystrokes) would be able to move ahead. Perhaps not. The Shuttle Pro interface was never written by the manufacturer anyway.
I know Ron was quite excited about how easy it was for Brian to add some screen controls to do some thing or other on a demo version of Mach4 at NAMES. I wasn't too impressed because I have no use for operating it with a mouse and the screen (for the most part) because my screen and mouse are not near the machine.
Perhaps it's a sign of the overall feeling about Mach4 that people are not jumping in to make it useable. If I had any knowledge at all about how to program a pendant interface I'd be all over it.
Oh well. Back to sleep for a few more months I guess. :-\
Sage
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vistacnc are doing a plug for there pendants
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So it is possible.
I guess gone are the days of the users jumping in to make the product better. We'll have to leave it to the entrepreneurs I guess and just pay the bucks.
Sage
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you can do it your self it just depends on what type the pendant is modbus, keysniffer, other.
what brian did with the mouse was just one way to do it
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Shuttle Pro is what we're talking about.
Easy for you I guess. I can do lots of things but writing device interfaces for Windows programs is not one of them.
I assume what Brian did was trivial (for him) because he already had access to drivers for a mouse and he knows how the screen interface works because he wrote it. Making a connection to a device that Mach4 knows nothing about (yet), getting Mach4 to find and recognize the device much less talk to it is a whole other problem.
It is my understanding that you can't just load the factory ShuttlePro Windows driver and make it emulate keystrokes and Mach4 will be happy.
At least that's not how it worked for Mach3. Mach3 had a specific driver for ShuttlePro.
But then, like I say, I know very little about how it works.
Sage
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it would not be easy for me it took me a week to get tool height probing working,
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(;-) Most users that USED to jump in and do that DON'T know anymore about Mach4 than you do. Very little is actually published . The sample code are still extremely complicated compared to mach3.
Only TIME will tell the real story, (;-) TP
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You can count on one hand the number of users that wrote Mach3 plugins for the community, and none of those happened overnight.
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lua`s hard work there`s to many ways things can be done, to get the tool height probing working I had to add to the code, I don't know if what I did was wright or wrong or the way it was meant to be done by the person who wrote the manual, but it seems to work
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Nobody is talking about Lua. The discussion is about writing a plugin, which is probably 10x harder than Lua.
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I'm with Sage, I'm not yet willing to give up my Shuttle Pro for Mach 4. Every few months I quietly do a search to see if it's available yet. I for one would be willing to pay for this driver, perhaps if there were enough people willing to pay someone will write one? For now Mach 3 still works nicely for me.
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Rogerfries:
I think you'll find that the Shuttle Pro is supported now in Mach 4. I'm way behind in my updates but it was there several months ago with no additional drivers to install. Just look in the addon's menu. Brian did a nice job on it. The setup was easy and pretty comprehensive. You can define each button in the setup. Give it a try and report back.
BUT I believe last time I tried it, it didn't support touch-off / Z-zero so it was a no-go for me. I won't use Mach4 without touch off. I believe I also had trouble with the DRO's acting odd (not resetting to exactly zero or something). Eventually I might give it another try and see what's been corrected. It was just easier to avoid the frustration and stick with Mach3.
Sage
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Thanks Sage! I'll give Mach 4 another try. I think I can live without auto touch off. I normally use my Haimer anyway for manual touch off.
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I have been using the shuttlepro for the past several months with M4. Works fine. The jog wheels increments are set by the jog increment in M4 so if you change the increment in M4 it will change the jog wheels on the ShuttlePro.
Also, be careful that you do not have anything programed for M4 in the ShuttlePro control panel or both commands will execute. You might want to run ShuttlePro as administrator. there are some flukey things that can happen if you do not.
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Does the inner jog wheel work for you on m4 with the shuttlepro?
Latest m4 version (2914), with ESS.
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The shuttlepro is working under Mach 4, but the inner jog wheel is not. Do I need to configure that some how?
Thanks
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Check to see what jog increment you have Mach 4 set to. I had this same problem. It was jogging just not fast enough for me to see. The inner and outer wheel look to see what the jog increment is set to and then takes a % of that increment.
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I thought the outer jog wheel was 1 increment per click / notch, but I thought that the inner wheel was 1 increment per revolution?
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The outer wheel is spring loaded. You should be able to hold it in a particular direction and the axis should move accordingly. The farther you rotate it the faster the axis is supposed to move.
The inner wheel continuously rotates and gives you one jog increment per click.
(At least that's the way it works in Mach3 and the way I want it). I believe I could not get that action in Mach 4 but I didn't play with it much. Keep me posted.
Sage
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Sage think you're right (see what happens when multitasking..
Errors are inevitable...)
I'll try again with m4 tonight and Shuttle, still did not think something was working as it does in m3
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My Shuttle Pro has worked fine also...since a long time ago. Both inner and outer wheels.
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Hi, I know this is an old thread but anyway.
Are you guys using the wireless Shuttle pro or..?
So absolutely no problems using it with Mach4?
I think I was reading somewhere that it has to be the original one, not a clone is that correct?
Thanks