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Messages - joeaverage

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1
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: 'Cannot initialise core instance'
« on: January 15, 2024, 02:37:08 PM »
Hi,
and a pic of the spindle:

Craig

2
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: 'Cannot initialise core instance'
« on: January 15, 2024, 02:36:10 PM »
Hi Swifty,
thanks, that was exactly correct. Found that Mach4Core.dll had been quarantined. Restored it and now I'm back in business.

I need to write some probing code so I can tram the vice in my new trunnion/fifth axis. I have come to realise that you need to set the A and C axes within
20arc seconds or better to tram the vice with the desired accuracy. Home switches with that sort of resolution are going to take a while to design and implement.
In the mean time I have made a plastic block that is 'keyed' to the vice with Ohmic contacts which allows use of a probing routine to tram it.
Using 'Home in Place' could probably use this a a temporary homing procedure.

I need to write some scripts to automate the tramming procedure, and have that procedure start from an on-screen button or buttons.

99% of my work is just regular three axis, and therefore being able to tram the vice (while sitting atop the A & C axes) is vital. Otherwise I would have to remove the trunnion/fifth
every time I wanted to run a three axis job....and that would be a severe drag....it weighs 85kg!

As time progresses I will explore the four and five axis uses.

For some months, before converting my fourth axis with a lathe chuck, to a trunnion table I have run quite a few simultaneous four axis toolpaths, using Fusion and Fusion Machining
Extensions to generate the tool paths. Works well. Now that I have converted the fourth axis into a trunnion to run a simultaneous four axis path requires that I set the trunnion to 90degrees
and now the the C axis is parallel to the Y axis. Provided I alter the Fusion Post to match then I should be able to run simultaneous four axis paths again.

Fusion has a Mach4 Post which is four axis ready. You have to edit the Post to 'turn on' the fourth axis...but its there and ready to go. The Post is not five axis ready.
I was of the opinion I was going to have to write my own extensions to the existing Fusion Mach4 Post, but apparently that is not actually required. In Fusion you can
create a 'Machine Definition' and that in turn generates a compliant Post WITHOUT me having to code it!!! Hoping that is correct, the Post is written in Java, and I don't really want to have
to learn yet another new language.

Mach4 has no kinematics and cannot therefore support TCP. In the first instance I will generate five axis paths without TCP, this was how five axis was done prior to TCO being available.
I want to see how that works out. I may thereafter be looking to write Mach4 five axis kinematics to give TCP ability. That could be quite some months or even a year away yet....but that's where
I'm heading.

Just before Christmas I bought a new spindle. It's in NZ Customs at the moment, and Customs are getting really hinky about it for some reason, so all I can say is that I hope to get it
sometime soon.....it would be a very expensive disappointment if I don't get it!!! It is 3.5kW rated, 6kW peak, 10,000rpm rated and 40,000rpm max with an HSK32 ATC tool interface.
The deal includes 10 HSK32 to ER20 toolholders.

I still have to buy a high frequency VFD, and an ATC carousel will pretty much follow that....so I have a lot of development work ahead.

Craig

3
Mach4 General Discussion / 'Cannot initialise core instance'
« on: January 14, 2024, 04:16:26 PM »
Hi,
I have just tried to fire up Mach4Hobby on my regular PC only to find this error.
Never seen it before. The only thing I can think of is that maybe a MS update has screwed something up. I have not done anything (I believe??) to the
copy of Mach4 on this PC???

Craig

4
Hi,
until a couple of years ago the only way Mach4 could do Ethercat was to use a motion controller like the Hicon, as the Hicon does the realtime Ethercat comms.

Kingstar have worked with Interval Zero and NFS and now you have a fully featured Ethercat solution that does not require a motion board at all.
Automation Technologies sell a re-furbished Dell PC fitted with a high end Ethernet card and loaded with Mach4Hobby, the Kingstar Ethercat software stack and the Interval Zero RTX64
realtime core code. Costs $1800USD for the lot, that is the Mach4Hobby license, the RTX64 runtime license and the Kingstar runtime license and the PC.

https://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/mach4-ethercat-system/cnc-ethercat-motion-control-computer

If you want genuine Ethercat and use Beckhoff IO nodes etc then this Kingstar solution is the way to go.

Quote
Is modbus fast and reliable enough to run 3 Axis + General IO Communication?

Not a snowballs chance in hell is Modbus up to that.

Craig

5
Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 demo "time out"
« on: November 06, 2023, 07:33:06 PM »
Hi,
I recall where at one time I had an ESS fitted and installed. Mach4Hobby determined because I had an operating motion control system the PC needed to be licensed in order to exceed
the Demo time out limitation.

I removed the ESS and deleted the plugin, but Mach4 now running the Simulator as motion control still required that the PC be licensed. I presumed that was an overhang
from having the ESS plugin installed, the license requirement persisted despite no longer having a physical motion controller installed.

Craig

6
Hi,

Mach4 is very much more flexible, especially the highly editable GUI, and this was done deliberately to get OEM customers. That power and flexibility does come at a cost,
and those whom do have the stomach for that sort of challenge seem to find any excuse to deride the advantages of Mach4.

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=42891.msg278176#msg278176

Download it and try for yourself.

Craig

7
Hi,
its a great big red stop button, its just that its a FeedHold rather than an Estop.

After quite some years I've found that there are actually not many buttons that I use regularly.

<CycleStart>, <FeedHold>, <GotoWorkZero>, <ZeroX>,<ZeroY>,<ZeroZ>,<LoadGcode>,<LoadRecent>,<CloseGcode> are the most common ones.

I've used Mach4 and an Ethernet SmoothStepper for eight years. I've made my own breakout board with all three of the ESS ports developed so I've plenty of spare
inputs. Probably more importantly Mach4 has a a really strong set of GUI editing tools. If I really wanted I could make a stripped down Mach screen. That would allow
the use of bigger screen buttons and that would in turn allow the effective use of a touch screen.

Truth is though the just standard Mac4 is perfectly usable as is....I really don't need to fiddle with it. What I do need to do is finish my fifth axis and convert my fourth axis
to a trunnion table. Always something to do......but you have to prioritize what you want to do ....or you just go around in circles.

Craig

8
Hi,
I don't have an Estop on my machine, I have a big <FeedHold> button. I don't like that Mach loses reference when you hit <Stop> or <Reset> or <Enable/Disable>,
so I have a <FeedHold> button instead. Sure, it takes up to an extra 180ms to stop (draining the motion buffer) and the spindle does not stop, although you can
have the spindle stop on <FeedHold>. I fid it perfectly adequate and have done for ten years.

Craig

9
General Mach Discussion / Re: program micro injector 12 nozzles
« on: June 26, 2023, 04:59:48 PM »
Hi,
it rather sounds like your project will require quite a lot of custom code.

You can do so in Mach3....but its not easy. The scripting language is a variant of Visual Basic, and that in itself has shortcomings. So much so......that is why is
changed to Mach4 all those years ago.

Mach4 is a highly structured and modularised application. It uses Lua as a scripting language. Lua is not especially easy to use, but it has a very lightweight software
footprint and runs blazingly fast. The two combined means that Mach4 is a vastly better proposition for customisation. Having said that there is a distinct learning curve,
all that flexibility, power and speed don't come free!

In Mach4 there are two main areas to put custom code.

The first is a a macro within the Gcode interpreter/trajectory planner. For example you might wish to write a macro to change injector from one color to another:

m150() changes to Red
m151() changes to Blue
m152() changes to Green
etc.

These macros are small blocks of code that you would put in the macros folder of your profile. If you need a different color, Blue say, then you would write a line of m151 in the Gcode.
When the job is running and Mach encounters an m151 call it will execute that code.

Another area where you can place custom code is the 'Screen Script'. This is large block of code that includes all the screen elements, things like DROs, toolpath windows etc.
You can add chunks of code to this script and that would provide a specific functionality which is generally available throughout Mach.
There are yet other scripts, like the PLC script that give you a place to put code that runs every few milliseconds, and the PMC script that gives you ladder logic.

All-in-all this modularity gives Mach4 scripting a great deal more power and flexibility than Mach3.

Craig

10
Hi,
one of the design goals according to smurph, was that Mach4 have strong GUI editing features that would allow customisation of the screen. This is particularly attractive for OEMs
who have a distinct look and feel that they are trying to achieve.

I would say 'have at it!' Make a screen set to suit you and your machine. If there is something about a later build that you really want or need, then excerpt that code and put it into your
screen set.

One thing about Mach4 is that the screens are 'feature dense' or cluttered....much like Mach3 which precedes it. I think the most likely explanation is that NFS wanted new Mach4 users
having migrated from Mach3 to see that all the same features are still available........but many of those features are un-used. I had the same issue with Mach3.
You could quite happily go through and remove 50% of a regular Mach4 screen and still have plenty to work with.

I wonder if you've noticed many of the industrial controller screens, Fanuc, Sinumerik etc....they are sparse, at least by comparison.

Craig

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