Messages

1

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Activating/Deactivating E-Stop from within VB?

« on: August 03, 2010, 04:17:24 PM »

Dave - you're right, I was using the wrong terminology.

I'm looking to change the state between read & not-ready from within a script.  I know you can create a standalone button to do this, but I haven't been able to write the code to do it within a script.

2

VB and the development of wizards / Activating/Deactivating E-Stop from within VB?

« on: August 03, 2010, 03:43:46 PM »

I'm trying to find a way to temporarily activate the E-Stop during the execution of a script.

I want to do something like:

code...
activate E-Stop
more code...
deactivate E-stop
finish code...

Seems like it should be easy enough to do, but I haven't been able to find anything after a fair bit of digging around, so I'm starting to wonder if this is something I can do.

Any thoughts?

-Matt

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Making a DRO read-only?

« on: April 24, 2009, 10:27:12 AM »

I haven't tested this yet.... but you might try to put a transparent button over the top of the DRO 

Thanks for the idea.  I'll give that a shot and let you know if it works.

4

General Mach Discussion / Making a DRO read-only?

« on: April 22, 2009, 12:45:02 PM »

I'm trying to find a way to make a given DRO read only.  I'm populating the DRO with the results of a formula using values input from other DRO's and it seems that allowing this particular DRO to be edited just causes confusion for users - it doesn't really harm anything, since the user-input value is just overwritten, but for usability's sake I'd love to make the DRO non-editable.

Is this possible?

Apologies if this one's obvious - I've tried searching with a few different terms, but the results of a search for DRO and edit aren't exactly helpful in this case.

-Matt

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tangential control bit - buggy behavior?

« on: January 19, 2009, 12:31:48 PM »

You say it is keeping the setting just not executing it. Why not try cancelling the setting after the 1st arc and calling it out again after the G1 you execute.

Thanks Scout - it's a good idea, and I've tried it - it just doesn't work.

I'm cutting fairly thick paper reasonably quickly- so G1 moves are just not an option - it winds up looking awful and the machine just about shakes itself to death.  I still haven't gotten around to trying the phantom axis idea- maybe if I get some free time this week.

What I wound up doing is just cutting a small straight line to lead into the circle - it's not perfect, but it's acceptable for now.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tangential control bit - setting rather than flipping?

« on: January 15, 2009, 05:26:47 PM »

OK,

I came in halfway through this project and it seems that this issue wasn't adequately explained to me.  Setting the tangential bit is fine - I can do that in a VB script. 

Now that I have that squared away though, I think I've come across a bug in the way tangential is handled by Mach.

If I have two g2 moves in a row, tangential will only work for the first one, but it'll stay set for both of them.  If I do some other move in between there I then the 2nd move will again have tangential working fine.

I'm cutting paper with a blade, so I need a lead in to a circle - I'm cutting a 2nd circle inside the first for the lead-in, but I tangential won't work for both moves unless I do some other move in between which defeats the purpose of my lead-in.

7

General Mach Discussion / Tangential control bit - buggy behavior?

« on: January 15, 2009, 02:57:31 PM »

See 2nd post in thread for description of buggy behavior.

I'm cutting a circle and using using tangential mode to make sure my cutting head is aligned properly.

The problem I'm running into comes down to the fact that I only know how to flip the tangential bit - I have been unable to figure out a way to test it or say "turn on"/"turn off" and it sometimes get flipped without my knowledge.   This leads to situations where I a piece of code winds up turning it off when I meant to turn it on. 

I'm afraid I'm missing something here - is there some way to turn this feature on or off, rather than just toggling it?  Alternatively, can someone suggest a way to test it in code so that I can determine whether or not it needs to be flipped?

Here's  a snippet of the code I'm using

Code: [Select]

G1 X6.5 Y5
M1000
G4 P.1
M1020 (macro to set tangential bit)
G17 G2 X5 Y5 R.75
G2 X5 Y5 I1.5 J0
M1001
G4 P.4
For reasons that are entirely beyond me, the first G2 command uses tangential perfectly, but the second doesn't.  The first M1020 command brings the knife direction indicator up onto the toolpath screen, and the pointer (and the actual knife) move perfectly.  When the 2nd G2 move starts, the direction indicator stays up, but it no longer moves.

I'm stumped.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt