Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: What type of game controller

« on: June 01, 2015, 02:05:55 PM »

Thanks for the suggestion, only just seen it.
As it happens I bought an Ipac2, which seems to do the trick, if a bit more expensive.

Regards

Dave

2

General Mach Discussion / No jog speed control

« on: June 01, 2015, 11:45:24 AM »

I have a machine running under Mach3.
Works perfectly using my home made interface board (six years old), but I decided to build another board for someone with an identical machine. As my board uses opto isolators on the motor outputs, but not on the inputs I decided to use one of the Chinese breakout boards for the new arrangement. I have 12 switches that interface through an HID/usb port.
I hook up the breakout board X output to the stepper controller/driver to test, leaving the breakout inputs disconnected. Sure enough the X jog control on my original switch works, but only at one speed. On my original input board I have 3 switches for fast, medium and very slow to determine the jogging speed. With this setup they are no longer affecting the speed. On the screen the speed is shown as 193mm per minute which seems the speed the machine is moving. The same happens if I use the tab jog control; nothing changes the speed even as shown on the screen If I set the percentage jog from 1 to 100 there is no difference to the jog speed shown. Can't be the new breakout board as it is only following what it seems to be told by the screen. So have I damaged something in my original input switch HID ? No, because when I take the new breakout board away and hook up my old motor drive circuits the machine jogs exactly as it should.
If anyone has been able to follow my version of events and can figure out what is happening I would be very grateful

Regards

Dave Hookings

3

General Mach Discussion / What type of game controller

« on: May 11, 2015, 07:51:53 PM »

Probably about half-a-dozen years ago I made an interface from a usb games controller for jogging etc. The controller I used was very cheap, a tall stick in the middle and some buttons. There were 13 simple momentary miniature switches wired to the electronics through plug and socket connections. I had momentary switches on the frame of my machine and I just wired them to the same plugs used by the controller, disposing of the controller's mechanical bits. This has worked perfectly through key grabber ever since.
I am now trying to replicate this on an identical machine, but am stuck with finding a suitable game controller. I had a Gamepad lying around with a couple of motors providing tactile feedback - they all look very similar. The problem with this one is it is not simply a number of switches passing preset key codes. They don't even seem to be wired to the same common line. With Key Grabber set to test mode, four switches will show buttons 1 to 4 but hit one of the other buttons and they show completely different numbers. I think there are mode, turbo, set and start switches that programme different outputs depending on how they are set.
Has anyone any idea of the name of the generic PC joystick that I would have used then? Or can suggest something simpler than the Game Pad? I don't want to fork out for one of those expensive emulators when a simple game controller would do the job for a fiver.

Dave

4

*****VIDEOS***** / Re: scripting

« on: September 12, 2011, 10:47:04 AM »

Thanks for the comments.

Would I do it again?

Funnily enough, the original voiceover had the end trimmed off somehow in my editing suite. The original gave the answer "No!"

But I suppose, given a similar situation, I would still dive in, headlong.

Dave

5

*****VIDEOS***** / scripting

« on: September 11, 2011, 07:48:54 PM »

something a bit different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag2DIZpWBHY

Dave

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Drilling holes using Lazy cam

« on: May 26, 2009, 08:48:25 PM »

Probably not a lot of help, but I had the same problem using Corel Designer. I had to export as HPGL to get LC to make any sense of the file.
I now use Visio. The drawing tools are a bit of a learning curve, but now I can do any drawing that I used to do in Designer and saving as a DXF is read every time exactly as it should be by LC.

Dave

7

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Can cycles

« on: May 19, 2009, 05:33:21 PM »

Thanks Chip,

Saves me time looking for something that may not be there.
Not really a problem, editing the G Code is simple.

Regards

Dave

8

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Breaking up chains

« on: May 18, 2009, 08:45:01 PM »

Bingo!!

I use Visio for my drawings, but have never even looked at the layers options. I revised my drawing using two layers and Lcam shows them as separate chains and layers. Even the layers in Lcam are the same names I gave in Visio.
I can see me using this a lot in future.

Thanks muchly.

Dave

9

LazyCam (Beta) / Breaking up chains

« on: May 18, 2009, 07:16:08 PM »

Must be missing the obvious here. I make a drawing of a box with just a bottom and four sides before it is folded, so a rectangle with another rectangle on each side. I want to cut round the outside of this shape, but want the inner rectangle to be a different layer as it just needs scoring to be folded.
LCam treats the whole thing as one chain, and one layer, so I can't apply different cutting depths. If I could break it up into two chains I could move one of them to a new layer.
Any suggestions?

Dave

10

LazyCam (Beta) / Can cycles

« on: May 18, 2009, 07:06:27 PM »

When I opt for circles below a certain radius to be can cycles, there is a drop down list to select G81, G82... etc.
I select G83 and LCam produces gcode with a G81.
Is this a feature or should I look for a solution? At the moment I edit the resulting G code.

Dave