Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: Chaoticone on April 02, 2016, 03:55:16 PM
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If your interested in giving it a go let me know.
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Looking good ;)
DazTheGas
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Thanks Daz!
So far it has been working very well.
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Congratulations on the announcement of your upcoming new baby.
We all look forward to it entering the world and appreciate that it
has been a long and tedious journey.
Now wait, you do know that it is April 2nd, not April the first, right?
;D
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Thanks Steve!
Yup, this is not a joke. All the input you gave really was being listened too.
Brett
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Brett, that looks good.... pity the ESS is not playing ball with G31! (yet)
Bit OT.... but anyone know if g28.1 is going to make an appearance in M4?
Thanks
Rob
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I would be very interested in trying it out and giving feedback.
This is just what I need to go with the Mach4 upgrade.
Mike
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Bit OT.... but anyone know if g28.1 is going to make an appearance in M4?
Not that I know of but I will ask.
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Got it all installed and I really like the UI.
This is installed on a DSPMC/ip V2 machine. Win& 32 bit.
These are the problems I have seen so far.
1.Jogging with the UI up is not smooth
2. Motion during probing is not always smooth.
3. The center finder works but once it is done it runs off in a random direction and then faults out with an unexpected trip of the probe because it trips the probe.
I am off to bed. If you want I will post which versions of Mach and the plugins that I am using.
I would like to see it do a double touch for extra accuracy.
Another nice feature would be for it to increment the tool number every time that you do a tool touch off.
More testing tomorrow
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Thanks Mike,
Neither jogging nor motion smoothness should be effected. The only reason I can imagine it would be is if the host PC is maxing out its resources. What are the PCs specs and have you ran it while monitoring resources?
When finding the center it should end at the center of the feature your finding the center of. Is your touch plate height and tool diameter set correctly?
If probing is working in your motion device plugin I think it will be OK. If your not running Mach4 version 2.2914 with all things default, you should be (the ReadMe that was included elaborates on this if I am not mistaken).
I would like to see it do a double touch for extra accuracy.
Since this is meant to be used with tools or probes, your Probe Feed Rate needs to be as slow as necessary for your machine to touch and stop before hurting the tool or touch plate or part. Since there is no intent for it to ever touch at a higher rate than this, double touch is a moot point. However, you can edit the module to add this option if you like.
I doubt I will ever add the bit to increment through tools with each touch. Hopefuly if anyone wants this it will easy enough for them to add that option.
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Thanks Mike,
Neither jogging nor motion smoothness should not be effected. The only reason I can imagine it would be is if the host PC is maxing out its resources. What are the PCs specs and have you ran it while monitoring resources?
Could be the problem because the computer is not the fastest. It is a P-IV 2.8ghz with 2gb ram and an onboard video card.
When finding the center it should end at the center of the feature your finding the center of. Is your touch plate height and tool diameter set correctly?
I will have to check but Can't see how the probe height would affect the circle center probe.
If probing is working in your motion device plugin I think it will be OK. If your not running Mach4 version 2.2914 with all things default, you should be (the ReadMe that was included elaborates on this if I am not mistaken).
It was spelled out in the read me and I thought that I had the latest stuff but I will check and report back.
I was able to run the built in probing routines with no problems but since your touch routines are another GUI it might just be because of the onboard video/lack of resources.. This is a SFF Dell so I can't add a separate video card.
I would like to see it do a double touch for extra accuracy.
Since this is meant to be used with tools or probes, your Probe Feed Rate needs to be as slow as necessary for your machine to touch and stop before hurting the tool or touch plate or part. Since there is no intent for it to ever touch at a higher rate than this, double touch is a moot point. However, you can edit the module to add this option if you like.
If I need to feed at 2"/minute to get a "good"measurement but I probing between 18" it will take quite awhile to probe which is a big reason for a double touch probe routine.
I doubt I will ever add the bit to increment through tools with each touch. Hopefuly if anyone wants this it will easy enough for them to add that option.
Someday I will take the time to learn LUA but right now I want to run my machines. That being said I am very appreciative of all the work everyone is doing and if I can add to it I will.
Mike
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Well!
Looks like my computer is not up to snuff. It is a combination of the tool path and your GUI. With them both running the computer CPU is near 100% all the time. With neither running the CPU sits around 10%. With just your GUI open it runs about 35%. With a toolpath up on the screen it runs about 50%. Add in the resource monitor and the windows overhead and I am surprised it didn't lock up.
I will move the activation button to a different page so I will not forget and run your GUI on a page with a tool path display.
I am running a newer version than 2914 but I will do more testing with what I have to see if it is just computer related.
More to come.
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I suspect that your video hardware does not support OpenGL and it is being emulated in software.
Hardware OpenGL version 1.5 or greater support is listed as a prerequisite for a machine running Mach4.
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Hi Steve,
That may be but I have run 60 parts on this machine with no problems during the run cycle. I will most likely be upgrading the computer in the future but right now it runs the machine pretty well.
Looks like my computer just can't run this even without the toolpath display up and running. I tried increasing the buffering on the DSPMC but that slowed the response to the keyboard.
Just for comparison I was able to run the stock screen probing without any problems. The stock probing also does the double touch with a high speed and then a low speed with nice fast moves when it is safe to do so.
Mike
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Thanks Mike,
If I need to feed at 2"/minute to get a "good"measurement but I probing between 18" it will take quite awhile to probe which is a big reason for a double touch probe routine.
This is what the prep distance and prep rate is for. But, if you do hit something in a prep move it will stop motion as fast as the axis tuning will allow but the touch will fail with an unexpected touch. Keep in mind, this was mainly designed for those using a tool as their probe in conjunction with a touch plate. However it should work equally well for probes. That is not the same as saying that it will work as well as dedicated probe functions with a probe though. Generally probes are forgiving. They have give built in. This is not true for tooling. You try to touch something with a carbide end mill at a fast rate and chances are you will at least have a chipped or broken tool to things much much worse.
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I will do some more testing as time allows but right now I am going to wait until I have a different computer setup. Just too much load for my old SFF Dell.
While it runs programs well, probing and tool height setting are the big reason I am moving to Mach4.
Thanks for all of your hard work in getting to this point. Like you said anyone can take what you did as a starting point on make it their own..
Mike
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Thanks Mike,
Did a little testing yesterday. The reason the find center function is moving to some random location at the end is because changes to Mach4s core (test versions) broke something. I bet the corner touch functions do not update your work offsets either. If you do play with it anymore I would do it in version 2914.
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Its a bugger when u got a custom plugin and something in the core changes and breaks it, like ive always said its nice havin access to the sdk but without a changelog its a case of figuring out whats been changed in order to repair plugins.
DaTheGas
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I would also be interested in giving this a try - at least in a week or so when I get my machine all back together.