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Messages - John Grimsmo

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1
Quick update, more later.  I've been using the spindle timer on my Tormach (this is before BR's new updates on Apr 04).  It seems to work fine on my home computer when typing M3/M5, but on the Tormach it's not adding properly.  I've put at least 10 hours of spindle time on in in the past few days and it's only reading 0.8xx hours.  Sometimes it adds time, sometimes it doesn't.  Sorry I can't give any better debug details than that.  My codes do have definite M3 and M5 calls. 

BR I'm looking forward to your new code and date extraction, I'll try it out in the next few days. 

2
CNCAlex, this worked great!
If GetOemLED(11)=-1 then
   SetUSerDro(2000, (GetUserDro(2000) + ((GetTimer(10) /60) /60)))
End If
Now multiple M5's don't keep adding to the timer.  Which brought me to another thought, how can I "watch" the spindle LED GetOEMLED(11) so that when that turns off, it executes the same code as above?  That way an e-stop, esc key, Program Reset, etc will all turn off the timer so it doesn't keep running for hours or days because I never executed M5.

BR549, truly appreciate all the help.  I got the date to work as a label but just like you said Mach forgets about it upon restart.  What about this, instead of displaying the date, every time you hit the Reset Hours button it adds a note to a text document somewhere.  The line would say 42.2342 Hours on 04-04-13, and every time you clicked the reset button it adds another line.  This would be an easy way to log it without having to remember it all.  And it'll save us from accidentally resetting the timer halfway through the month without writing it down, cuz the file will have it all tracked.  So once a month, or just whenever you think about it, you can click the reset button and log the time since the last time you reset it.

Thoughts?  Hope I'm not asking too much here ;-)

3
Can't get it to work.  In my Reset Hours button I have this:

SetUserDro(2000,0)
SetUserLabel(15,"" &Date &Time)

What do I call my Label, 15?  Doesn't work.  I tried calling it (15), UserLabel15, UserLabel(15), no dice.  I can't get any action to it.  Thoughts?

4
If I put this in the reset button:
SetUserDro(2003,Date)
it will output a setting to my date DRO but the format is weird.  Using the default %+.4f format it shows 41368.00 and today is April 04 2013.  If I change my computer date back one day it will display one digit lower as 41367.00.  So it seems to work, I just have to figure out the format.

I'm reading this page 76-80 but it's not really helping haha:
http://www.machsupport.com/docs/VBScript_Commands.pdf

5
Looks like it's working great, thank you!  Not too difficult to implement, I used Mach3Screen.exe to edit the .SET file.  Leaving the format as the default %+.4f works great and shows 4 zeros.

One slightly weird thing is that if you enter M5 multiple times it'll keep adding the timer to the DRO, whatever the time has been since you started it with M3.  I assume that "SetTimer(10)" is an arbitrary 10th timer available, is there a way to turn it off with M5?  Like a code that does the opposite of SetTime(10).  Google tells me KillTime(10) but that produces an error.  This is sort of a pointless bug because when are you going to enter M5 more than once, but it got me curious.  Also, I want to edit the reset button, escape key, and e-stop button to do the same thing that M5 does, that way the timer isn't counting for hours or days after a crash.  

Otherwise it does work fantastically well.  Humm, to make it even slicker I wonder if we can add a date field.  As in, XX hours since MM/DD/YY, hitting the reset button triggers the date field to update.

Thanks for the help, this is fun.
John

6
Well aren't you just full of awesome today.  If it's not too much of a burden it would be very helpful if you could lay out the code.  I'm sure this could help a lot of people.  I did a bunch of googling and the only answer is basically your original one "It does not work, never has." ;-).

I think an on screen DRO/button would be slick, something small and simple enough that people can drop it anywhere using one of the mach editors.  Although I can see the appeal of an unobtrusive macro.  I want to set my e-mail calendar to notify me once a month and tell me to write down the spindle hours, so either way works for me.  

If possible set it to output "**** hours ** minutes", that should satisfy everybody.  Or just seconds and people can do their own math.  I'm easy, any help you can give would be awesome.  I've tweaked buttons and macros before but I'm not comfortable writing them from scratch yet.  

Cheers!
John

7
Doesn't LPT stand for the printer port?  So I don't get it. I've got a Tormach and am using the Tormach version of Mach3, but am not afraid to mess with it if I can get this to work.  Very cool that you can track your torch time.  Or is LPT a fancy screenset?

8
I would LOVE to know if anyone has gotten this working, I really want to start tracking my spindle on time.  One suggestion I read was to wire up a simple clock that starts timing when M3 turns the spindle on, might be tricky since the spindle is 230v, but there's probably something out there.  Or use another output to turn on the clock along with the spindle.

9
General Mach Discussion / Re: run from here takes forever
« on: March 31, 2012, 10:34:09 AM »
Yeah the part would be scrap but at least you wouldn't have to re-zero, I make lots of identical parts on fixtures.  Thanks for clearing it up for me guys!

10
General Mach Discussion / Re: run from here takes forever
« on: March 31, 2012, 10:09:16 AM »
That makes sense.  With my steppers if they ever stall they usually stall by a lot, so I keep things conservative.  It's usually because of junk on the ballscrew, hitting the limit without limit switches, rapids that are too fast, or just cutting too hard (happens on Z all the time while drilling).  I sort of assumed that servos would be able to read this error, even if it's like 1/2", and correct for it.  Good to know!

John

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