Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Pokeys57E dead battery

« on: December 05, 2022, 09:35:18 PM »

I have been using a Pokeys57E for several years to interface between Mach3 and a custom control panel I made. It was working perfectly for a long time.  The other day it stopped working and it seemed like the shared messages between Mach and the 57E were not happening. I should mention that I have a bunch of logic that I uploaded using PoBlocks several years back.

My first thought was that the little coin cell on the back of the 57E is probably dead and the 57E has lost its memory. I contacted PoLabs or whatever they are called and they stated that the battery was only for the real time clock and would have no effect, and that my 57E was probably pooched and that I should purchase a new one. Tried a bunch of stuff nothing worked, however using the view mode in PoBlocks I could see all the logic working as it should when I exercised the inputs, finally I ignored their advice and changed the battery, it was near flat, and now everything is working like a champ again. So it appears that the battery does matter. YMMV

2

General Mach Discussion / How to trigger either a message, or a pop-up when input 2 is activated?

« on: December 05, 2022, 09:13:25 PM »

I have several brains working, so I can add another for this purpose, I'm just not sure how to trigger either a message or a pop-up (anything to get the users attention)

If I can't do it with a brain, is there some other way?

I tried adding the following to macropump.m1s, but it does not work (macropump is enabled in cfg), so not sure what's up with that approach?
If IsActive(INPUT2) Then
message"abc"
EndIf


I can see input 2 changing in the diagnostic page, so the hardware is okay.

If I open macropump.m1s in the VB editor and then hit the play button, it gives syntax errors for just about any valid code that I put in the script


Thanks

3

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Pokeys57e index (speed) signal not displaying in Mach3

« on: January 09, 2020, 04:58:41 PM »

I hope someone can help with this....

I have a sensor next to my spindle and the signal is connected to a Polkeys57E. The pin is configured as the Index input. I can see the signal pulsing in Pokeys when the spindle is running. However the spindle speed always shows 0 in mach3. So somehow the link for that particular signal is being ignored. I have many other signals that are being passed back and forth between Mach3 and PoBlocks and they are all working just fine.

I have tried issuing the M03 command, no difference, and in Mach3 config, the index signal is set 0, 0, 0 and emulated, and reverts back emulated even if I uncheck it, so it appears Pokeys is forcing it to emulated likely because it's smart enough to know that this value is linked to the 57E

Any ideas?

What is the correct DRO # for the displayed spindle speed?

Thanks in advance

4

Machscreen Screen Designer / Re: Custom button, Hotkey not working

« on: April 20, 2018, 05:50:57 AM »

FWIW, I changed the hotkey to Alt-B and it now works.

5

General Mach Discussion / No Feed Ovrd when using MDI

« on: April 18, 2018, 05:54:37 PM »

I'm just flushing out the last of the bugs in my custom control panel and found this one........

I have a quadrature encoder connected to a Pokeys 57E, this is configured as MPG0. I have a brain that redirects the output to Feed Ovrd (821)

This seems to work just fine when Mach is not moving anything, however if I enter say G01 X5 F2 into the MDI  so the table is moving and I then try to tweak the feedrate using the encoder, no change. Further if I open the brain the MP0 Velocity DRO displays 0 while I'm moving the encoder as if MPG0 is either locked out or being ignored while the G01 command is executing. As soon as the table stops the barin starts showing activity again and I can adjust as desired.

Using the GUI I can adjust the feed rate up and down with the +/- arrows above FRO, but attempting to enter a new FRO value from the keyboard is ignored.  

Is there possibly a configuration selection that enables/disables changing the FRO while in motion?

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber ---> Brain

« on: April 18, 2018, 09:09:10 AM »

I have solved this problem, thanks for the suggestions

This is what I did:

I'm using a Pokeys57 board as part of this system and it allows me to share data between it and Mach3. I already had some programmable logic in the Pokeys device that enabled the jog display whenever a hard button on the external control panel selected Con-SS or MPG.

So I used the keyGrabber to effectively block the Tab key from getting to Mach and instead send Alt-B, I added a custom button in Mach that gets pressed when ever it receives Alt-B. I then shared the data from that button with pokeys and OR'd the input to the existing logic that controls the Con-SS-MPG counter. So now the display stays in sync with the external button. Works like a charm, with the added benefit that pressing Tab repeatedly sequences through Con-SS-MPG mode and the 4th press disables jogging and closes the Jog display.

7

Machscreen Screen Designer / Custom button, Hotkey not working

« on: April 17, 2018, 02:07:42 PM »

Newbie to screen modifications......

Please see image below

I added a button JTO Ctrl-B and a LED.

If I click on the button using the mouse, the LED besides it turns green, so far so good. However if I Type Ctrl-B, the button does not get selected. What am I doing wrong?

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber ---> Brain

« on: April 16, 2018, 01:51:25 PM »

I think the number needs to be between 1000 and 2254.

Try:

If Getpage() = 50 then
SetUserLED(1500, 1)
Else
SetUserLED(1500, 0)
End If

Well I managed to display the active page with Getpage(), and it correctly reports the various pages, 1, 2, 3 etc. if I change pages, however after selecting page 50 with tab, GetPage() still reports the page number of whatever main screen to the left of the jog tab was active prior to typing "Tab", so I don't think GetPage() is going to work.

It seems near impossible to detect if the Jog(Tab) screen is actually active (other than actually seeing it).  There must be a method???

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber ---> Brain

« on: April 16, 2018, 11:25:00 AM »

Put a User LED on the Jog Flyout page.
Use the macroloop to check the page number, and toggle the LED on if the page is current.
Use GetPage()

(If Getpage() = 50 then .....)

Have the Brain monitor the LED.

First time adding a LED, I used machScreen.exe and managed to add a LED to page 50, for the LED function, I could not find a user defined, so I selected the most benign sounding function OEM 851 Enable 6 LED, not sure if that's okay?

I also created  MacroPump.m1s

This is my first macropump, so I'm not sure on the correct syntax, is this even close to being correct?

If Getpage() = 50 Then
   SetOEMLED(851), true
Else
  SetOEMLED(851), false

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber ---> Brain

« on: April 16, 2018, 09:04:26 AM »

What if you set up an input to "emulate', which uses a keystroke you can assign?
I think the emulate option is only available with the parallel port driver, though.

Hmmm.... that seems promising.

I tried as follows, I selected Input 4 on port 1, checked Emulated and then selected the HotKey cell, a SetHotKey pop-up occurs that states Press any key, so I press Tab (my desired key) and the HotKey cell changes to "9".

I was expecting Tab not 9, but I carry on and create a brain with the first cell being Input #4, save, enable and view the brain.
Press tab, and the jog display opens as expected, but the brain does not see the emulated input (I also tried "9" same thing nothing).

Did I do something wrong, or do I need to look for another approach?


Okay I tried changing the HotKey to something other than "Tab" (I used the letter "F") and this does trigger the brain. The problem is that I'm trying to notify some Pokeys logic when the Jog (Tab) is open so I think I have no other option than to use "Tab"

Other ideas?  that was a good one, just does not want to work with "Tab"