Messages

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Mill Wizard Heights Question. Correct Forum??

« on: April 20, 2023, 04:57:24 PM »

The last message posted in the Mill Wizard subsection here seems to be from 2018; I'm not sure where the current discussions are hosted.

My question has to do with a Rapid Height error message.

My inputs in the Job Settings screen are as follows:

Rapid Height 15.00 (Z15)
Clearance Height 3.00 mm (Z height above work surface)

My inputs in the actual job (Bolt Hole Circle) are as follows:

Z Top 5.00 (Z 5)
Z Depth 1.00 (Z 1)

So far, so good. However, if I raise Z top to 6.00 I get an error message "Rapid Height below Top of Work".

How can the Rapid Height of Z15 be below the Top of Work Height of Z6? My clearance, which the manual says is a distance and NOT an absolute value, is at 3.00mm, or Z6 (top of work) + 3.00 (clearance distance) = Z9.

Joe

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Wizard not displaying: wxLua error

« on: December 31, 2022, 12:28:33 PM »

Scanning the posts in the forum it looks like several people have the identical issue, usually with the rounding canned cycle. Anyone have any thoughts?

Joe

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Wizard not displaying: wxLua error

« on: December 29, 2022, 05:08:42 PM »

When I open the Rounding canned cycle on my Windows 10 laptop I find that after using the cycle several times I cannot open the wizard. I get an error message: "unable to show wizard 4: expected a "wxcolour" for parameter 2, but got a 'nil'.

I contacted ArtSoft and the response was that this is a rare Windows error and was told to download Mach4 Industrial in demo form and use the rounding cycle from there. I did that on another laptop (a Surface) but after a few days, I get the same error on that laptop too.

Shutting down and restarting doesn't make any difference. It is as the cycle code has been permanently corrupted.

Any suggestions?

Joe

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Physical home switches with linear encoders

« on: August 16, 2022, 10:24:08 AM »

Thank you for the response. Looks like this is a very complex process which ultimately seems to cause more problems than it solves. I'll shelve this in favor of the more practical, and simpler, physical switches. Too bad, it seemed at first an easy thing to do.

5

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Physical home switches with linear encoders

« on: August 15, 2022, 10:25:16 AM »

Thanks very much, Craig.

6

Mach4 General Discussion / Physical home switches with linear encoders

« on: August 14, 2022, 09:30:51 AM »

I have a new Chicago Lathe Bridgemill with linear encoders for absolute positioning of the axes. If the encoder knows its absolute position do I need physical home switches to home the machine? If no, is there a way in Mach4 to set home using these encoders?

7

Mach4 Toolbox / Wizard screen not allowing inputs

« on: June 09, 2022, 11:22:46 AM »

I've been using Mach4 wizards without a problem. However, now when I try to open a wizard (say, Rounding), I get a message saying "unable to show Wizard 4: wxLua. Expected a wxColour for Parameter 2 but got a nil".

Any idea what this is and how to fix this? When I bring in an older profile I seem to have the same issue now.

Joe

8

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Tool Table Import/Export redux

« on: July 01, 2021, 02:25:27 PM »

That would be fab! Thanks very much.

Joe

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Tool Table Import/Export redux

« on: July 01, 2021, 10:48:40 AM »

Hi Chad

I would like to enter tool data in only one place. If I choose Fusion 360 as the one repository for all tool data, as I understand it, you can use their post-processors to output the tool table, BUT it is only for the specific job being post-processed. Any tools not used in that Manufacture job will not be included.

The second option would be to output the library from Fusion 360 Actions tab, but that requires a LUA script to read and I do not know how to create or use LUA scripts.

Cbyrdtopper: you write that you have a Fusion360 post that uses G10 code. I have D and H offsets stored in Fusion360, and also turning tools that I would want to export. Does your post allow for D and H offsets?

Finally, I use Art Soft's Mill Wizard, and the default format for tools is *wtl NOT *tls. So, I cannot even load my Mach4 tool library into Mill Wizard since it does not recognize the *tls file in my Profile>Tooltables.

For now, I grind my teeth and manually reenter the tool data. Why does Mach4 not have the capability to import any of the Fusion360 tool output formats (*.json, *.tsv, *.hsmlib)

10

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Tool Table Import/Export redux

« on: June 18, 2021, 02:39:00 PM »

Hi Steve

Thanks for replying. However, after recreating the tool table in Mach4 mill from Fusion 360, I tried to Load the table into Artsoft's Mill Wizard from my mill profile. The default file format that Mill Wizard wants to load is *.wtl but the file in profiles/tooltables is *.tls. When I try to load the *.tls file, it doesn't load in Mill Wizard.

Joe