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Messages - PhilCNC

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1
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: ESS and Mach4 current status
« on: August 19, 2016, 02:12:27 PM »
I second this proposal.

2
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: CNC movements not smooth
« on: August 19, 2016, 01:54:40 PM »
Yeah, I think Pedio uses M03 and M05 between his G01 . Is M03 and M05 in the list of non-blocking M-codes? It would explain it.

Thanks,

Phil

3
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: CNC movements not smooth
« on: August 19, 2016, 10:09:04 AM »
Pedio,

This is really interesting. I am also using Vcarve Pro as one of my tools. Could you attach your post-processor to your post? Also could you attach an example of the G-Code file that results from your CAM?

I will see if its a Mach4 issue or an ESS issue.

Thanks,

4
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: CNC movements not smooth
« on: August 18, 2016, 01:15:37 PM »
Thanks a lot for you reply, you enlightened me.

So, if I understand correctly, changing the PWM output using an S code or even the state of an output using M11/M10 will break the continuous velocity mode and will force to wait between each movements?
I understand that this is required because, else, some S or M calls could be executed while the machine is not at the right position due to the look ahead.

Then, would it be possible to spawn a new independent process that would look at the current position of the machine and send commands to activate or deactivate and output in function of the position. We could pre-calculate all the positions at which an output needs to be enable or disabled and then this independant process would take care of doing it. Do you think we could do using the embedded LUA interpreter? Would something very similar to an infinite loop create problems with the G-Code interpretation? I think that the embedded LUA instance does not support multi-threading and thus, every other LUA part (the UI for example) would be jammed until our LUA loop finishes.

I know the concept is feasible in theory since other laser control programs are able to do it.

Thanks a lot for your time,

Phil

5
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 and ESS latest update issues
« on: August 11, 2016, 11:25:31 PM »
Hi,

How do you control the intensity of your laser? Also, what do you define as 'works intermittently'? Please give us more details about your particular setup.

6
Mach4 General Discussion / CNC movements not smooth
« on: July 11, 2016, 02:24:21 PM »
Hi,

Lately, I have been developing a laser engraving process which let me paint a picture on a piece of wood or other material. Everything related with the laser is fine and I am having a great time experimenting with it.
Originally I bought the PicEngrave 5 Pro software to generate my G-Code but I quickly moved on to programming my own software. So far, the software is great and I am having a lot of fun.

The software generates a list of lines (G01 X Y) and I am using the Speed control to vary the intensity of the laser and thus change the color of each line. This allows me to effectively create some nice greyscale engraving. So far, so good.

The problem I am having is the fact that the CNC stops for a brief moment right between two G01 calls. This introduce significant delays in the process because of the large quantity of G01 calls I am making.

I have set my motors to do a very high acceleration/deceleration before/after movements in the hope that it would fix the issue. It helped but the small delay between two G01 calls seems to be introduced by Mach4 itself.
I also tried using Constant Velocity (CV) versus Exact Stops but it didn't help.

I would like my CNC to make very fluent movement and not to pause for a brief moment betwen two G01 calls.
I have attached a copy of a typical G-Code I would run on my laser engraver, you will see the large amount of G01 calls.

Any idea what could fix my problem? I have not tried to use Mach3 to do the same job since I dont want to spend time setting it up.

This is my setup:
Mach4 2872 -> ESS (Old plugin) -> G540 -> NEMA 23 (30 Kg*cm)

Thanks,

7
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: M06 not working
« on: January 30, 2016, 08:13:13 PM »
Note that the official Lua Scripting manual does contains errors related to the name of the M6() function. In the manual, section 5.4 (page 22-23) , its shown that the tool change Macro can be customized using the m6() function. This is INCORRECT because Lua is has case sensitive functions. You need to use the M6 function name (uppercase).

It's really unfortunate that the official manuals still contains errors.

8
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Probe obstructed error
« on: January 30, 2016, 08:02:05 PM »
I suggest you read through the source code of Mach4Hobby\Modules\mcProbing.lua

The probing utility could be better documented and in some situations you will get these errors. Note that if you read the function Probing.CheckProbe() you will see that the "ERROR: No contact with probe" is not actually an error but an information.

Also, you dont need to configure AT ALL the Probing screen to use the G31 feature. Those two are entirely separated.

9
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: G31 and ESS
« on: January 30, 2016, 07:56:48 PM »
I have just been able to set it up correctly. The trick is that usually your Probe Input signal is pulled HIGH and thus is active in its LOW state. Thus, you need to set the input as Active Low. The thing is that it MUST be set in the ESS Configuration Panel and NOT in the Mach Inputs panel.

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