Messages

1

Tangent Corner / Re: Interesting ?

« on: March 29, 2011, 10:40:24 AM »

actually the PIC 18F4550 is a Microchip microcontroller specialized in USB communication.

There will be 2 different configurations

1 - USB and DB 25 input, one MCU to translate USB into Parallel, it feeds the drivers of 3 stepper motor axis.
2 - USB and DB 25 input, one MCU to translate USB into Parallel, if feeds 3 other MCU's where each generates a +10/-10 voltage signal to drive a servo motor driver and has one quadrature encoder each.

2

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 28, 2011, 03:15:10 PM »

I think that I get it now.
I'll discuss about it with my partners and try to figure out how to do it with the info we have in hands, thanks Jarekk

3

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 28, 2011, 01:58:55 PM »

Actually all I need is something to make my USB become a parallel port, I was thinking of making it using a PIC18F4550, so he would basically take the USB data and converto to all the 17 I/O's of the DB-25, the other pic's would just receive the signal and then turn pass it on, OR the signal will just be driven to the board outputs (there is no need for extra processing since I already have a working external steper motor driver, a working stepper motor driver that works with MACH3 paralell, the driver is controlled by a pic 18F4520).

basically wha I gonna do is a board with DB25 input AND one USB input, the USB input will work like an USB/Paralel converter and the DB25 will be the normal paralel input (in the case it have one).

The extra 3 PIC's MCU are to drive a servo motor driver and read the Quadrature encoders IF it ever gets implemented.

4

Tangent Corner / Re: Interesting ?

« on: March 28, 2011, 12:56:56 PM »

awesome, I'm actually developing a board just like this one, but instead of an Altera FPGA I'll be using 3 PIC's (one for each axis), each with one encoder input and axis output, mainly to decrease de learning curve (also, it don't add too much in the cost of the project, maybe 3 dolars more)

5

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 28, 2011, 12:53:48 PM »

Mach will *NEVER* send anything on USB - it has to be your plugin which takes Mach data and sends it itself.
Have a look at some my routines - PC side for FT245R chip ( USB-> Parallel FIFO) converter and LPC1769 code to get data from it.

If this is too complicated - then wait until you try to extract motion data from Mach....

Yeah, i know, thats way I asked how to make THIS plugin send data via USB :\
I'll keep searching how to do it, but the hardware is pretty much standar - usb input, control of steppers, etc...

Something you may find interesting.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,17992.0.html

Tweakie.

really interesting, actually thats EXACTLY what I'm trying to do, but instead of atmel MCU I'll be using a Microchip PICmcu and instead of an Altera FPGA I'll be using 3 pics mcu specialized on driving step-motors (to decrease the learning/development time).

6

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 27, 2011, 06:46:02 PM »

Actuallly, I develop cnc's using pic's, thats the first time I'll try to use the usb port to communicate with the pic instead of using the Parallel, the problem is actually making the mach3 send the data to the pic via USB :\

7

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 25, 2011, 11:45:00 PM »

actually I'll be using a PIC18F4550 to convert the USB into a LPT1 to run 3 stepper motors axis :\

8

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 25, 2011, 01:53:09 PM »

Well... I'm taking a look in your plugin but I don't get one thing - Where do you send the data trought the USB? I can't find any function that send's the data to the USB port, could someone please point that for me?

9

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Program works great on Vista/Seven... but when it's about the XP...

« on: February 21, 2011, 01:01:04 PM »

You hit the problem in its very roots! Literally!

The installer of the Mach3/4 was not creating a registry in the WinXP, no idea why... I just exported the register to a "*.reg" from my dev station and runned in the winXP test Station and it works

Thanks Steffen

10

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Program works great on Vista/Seven... but when it's about the XP...

« on: February 17, 2011, 03:04:29 PM »

Hello people,

I've started a project sometime ago and now its almost finished... "almost" because it was developed under vista and seven, but the final plataform is Windows XP

Today I tested it for the first time in the computer it will receive the program and for my surprise it didn't worked.

After some time crushing the head against the wall I realised the problem, when I call this specific and yet most important part of the code about the COM with the MACH4 the program was'nt answering:

                Mach = (Mach4.IMach4)Marshal.GetActiveObject("Mach4.Document");
                Script = (Mach4.IMyScriptObject)Mach.GetScriptDispatch();

Actually, it was... it was saying that I could not handle an HResult from this COM, but I can't even start to understand why, for real, the program/plugin works automatizing the Mach3 (entirely constructed in c#), but when I try to start a connection with the program so I can send the Script.Code( ) or any other procedure/parametre it get stuck in this ******Mach = (Mach4.IMach4)Marshal.GetActiveObject("Mach4.Document");********

Have anyone ever passed by this kind of problem? I just can't realize why this would happen. I even tried to compile the program inside the XP but it didn't worked as well.

Thanks in advance
Lucas S.Coppio