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Messages - Nicolas S.

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1
[...]
If you know your way around the registry then do a search for entries containing "Mach4.Document".  If they are absent then this feature will not work.

It is my experience that Mach3 will make these registry entries on installation to XP, but for some reason, it does not when installing to Win7.  Others seem to be reporting that they can be missing on XP as well.
[...]

Hi,
I got a similar problem on two WinXP/SP3 computers recently. On both, installation has been executed at an administrator account. I do not have VCarve/Cut2d, but the same seems to occure with SheetCAM and LazyCAM (where the preliminary is the important one, second one only has been installed to check this issue).

Would you please post where this registry modification is described?

Sincerily
Nicolas




2
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 01:04:37 PM »
Now what exactly are you expecting for $175 there are limitations.
NOW IF you need all those bells and whistles they can be had but BRING your checkbook full of $$$$$$$$ cause it is a little MORE than $175.
Mach is a good software for a good price. How much must a software be overpriced to give a reason for suggesting improvements?
Sorry, I'm not that expert in software development ethics.

Greetings
Nicolas

3
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 10:40:44 AM »
By the way: Does anyone have experience with feature request? What's the best: Using the that named category of this board or sending an email?

4
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 10:23:05 AM »
I suggest you contact him now and ask for that feature to be added into Rev4 as it will likely be easier to add it now rather than after Rev4 comes out.
But please do not ask for Hard Limits to be turned into Soft Limits :)
That's my plan. Nevertheless, this discussion is still a perfect source for justifying motivating arguments. :)

Better: That's the short form of my plan. I want my motivation being that good, that either
 - the feature gets added to Mach
 - the feature never gets added to Mach later, because no motivation never can be that convincing. Then I will develop a hardware filling that software gap. The only difficulty will be to make my first million before other axis controller hardwares include it :) .

5
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 10:03:15 AM »
Nicolas - maybe it's a language thing but "load" has nothing to do with this. But if what you mean is in the realms of the rate of change of acceleration i.e. "jerk" or "jolt" then in my view we're getting far too theoretical for the sake of it and I'll try to explain why. If we do what you don't want and just take away the pulse train from a motor, lets say it then skips 8 steps (which in a screw system for example is actually a lot). Now lets say that your deceleration curve can stop it without skipping steps in say 4 steps. That would mean you would have to fit a 3rd order S curve deceleration profile into just 4 steps... bit of a raggedy assed curve don't you think.


Hello Ian,
for me, "jerk" is a dimension for optimal control fetishists to have a reason for their optimality criteria  :). Especially in pulsed/time discrete systems.  And it's totally out of my scope. "Load" for me is always a "force" thing (second derivative to time, not third derivative to time like jerk :) ).

I only want a way to adjust acceleration - which is quite normal for rapid moves (G00 condition) - to limit stops.

Many greetings
Nicolas 





6
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 09:06:57 AM »
Nicolas

Going back to one of your reasons for asking this. i.e. being kinder to the machine.
Do you agree that IF a decceleration curve were able to stop the axis more quickly than simply stopping the pulse train, then the crash/bang/jolt whatever we want to call it, would be increased? I ask again because for whatever reason, you didn't comment the last time I asked.

Ian

Hello Ian,
I'm sorry when I missed the argument of your posting last time.
On the first glance, I would have said: "Yes, an improved deceleration would increase the load."
But on second thought: If you increase deceleration in a linear controlled process, you can chose if you want to increase, decrease or keep the load the same - the first profiting from shorter braking distance, the second profiting from less load and the third not changing anything. Of course, one never can have all at the same time. But one has the choice.

Many greetings
Nicolas




7
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 08:57:19 AM »
OK, let's make the question a bit more accurate:
"Why must the limit switch known by Mach be a last chance safety system?"

8
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 08:28:29 AM »
Limit switches are a last chance safety system.
Why must every limit switch be a last chance safety system?

9
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 07:41:53 AM »
Can you remind me why there is a need for this other  than forgetting that you have not enabled softlimits?
I looked back and I see this as your reasons.
Quote
1. Some machines stop faster when there is a controlled stop instead of killing the drive clock.
2. On stepper drives, hitting "stop" usually results in lost steps, causing the need to re-reference position. So operators usually ponder whether it's really necessary to hit "stop" but maybe "line feed" does as well. That's not the sense of a "stop" button to ponder before hitting it!
3. Sometimes, soft limits simply don't work.
  3a) Sometimes soft limits just are switched off by operator
  3b) Some machines do not have a rectangular working area!
  3c) Some machines have changing dimensions of working area.
  3d) If soft limits always worked, they would be useless.
4. At some machines (usually smaller ones), the impact on the machine by the abrupt stop when triggering the limit switch is even harder than that one caused by crushing into the elastic dead stop.
1. That may well be true but surely that would be up to the machine builder to provide a remedy for this? Especially when you remember that a Hardware Limit is an emergency situation so hardware means should be used rather than relying on software.
-> Of course, it's possible to add a hardware that will provide a "soft stop" when clock is interrupted. This would be a special hardware for dealing with a missing software feature.
2. Mach is open loop so there will always be the high possibility that you have lost position when stopping in an emergency situation (Hardware Limits or E-Stop) It is no big deal to re-reference again, in my opinion, in the rare instance that soft limits have not protected you.
-> No, it's no big deal to re-reference for many machines and situations. For other situations, it cost's you some minutes to re-reference. So operators ponder whether to hit "stop". Instead of "first hit stop, then think about if it whether it was necessary". This costs you some split-seconds in every maybe dangerous situation. So it's a security gain to make effort for a restart after "stop" as comfortable as possible.
3a. Operator error and could be overcome with some VB in the cycle start button or hiding or disabling or requesting a password on the softlimits button to stop an operator disabling the soft limits.
-> Better not. Constraining operators should have a very good reason. So better find another solution.
3b. Dont understand this, Hard Limits are placed at the extent of the axis so how would the working area come into play. Hard  Limits are a per axis thing and turning them into a software limit operated by physical switches is not going to help as far as I can see.
It's about soft limits. They are only one pair (min/max) per axis - so working area by soft limits is always a rectangle or a cuboid or some hypercuboid in higher dimensions for four to six axis systems. But if the mechanics do not allow the same extrema on each axis for every position or all other axes, soft limits will not work.
3c. That is the job of the soft limits or the operators programming responsibility. High End CAM and very expensive controllers have work envelope, fixture and tool awareness features but are complicated to set up and really only worth it if doing long production runs I would think.
Yes, of course. And on the other hand, moving limit switches is very fast and simple on some machines.
3d. Not sure what you mean by that, softlimits are there to do exactly what you are wanting and why they would be useless when working is not understood by me.
If soft limits always did that thing they should, you would not need any limit switches. Machines have limit switches, so there's need of them. (Friedrich Nietzsche would have good arguments against this opinion, but I'm quite sure he will not visit this board.)
4. Again use soft limits and only rely on your Hardware Limits for emergency situations when, in the unlikely event, Soft Limits fail.
As I said before: On many machines, limit switches told to Mach are no emergency situation. Limit switches for emergency situation are behind them and stop machine by hardware when Mach failed to stop machine.
Just my opinions of course ;)
Hood

Many greetings
Nicolas

[Edit: Removed some typos]

10
General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches
« on: September 16, 2010, 05:49:04 AM »
If you hit a limit then something went very wrong.
Hello,
That's one point of view. Other points of view I wanted to explain in this thread. Anyway, the first question was a "how"-question. So I can read between the lines that there is no chance to achieve this behaviour in the current version (e.g. by a script or something) and this would be a totally new feature to be requested to the programmer.

So there is a two step solution:
1st On my own machine I removed all limit switches.
2n Now it's on to  convince the programmer that this feature is absolutely necessary for a future release.

Thank you for this discussion.
Nicolas



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