Messages

1

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: January 01, 2022, 12:16:48 PM »

I'm still using the plugin from 4746, copied into my production install. I've yet to find a later plugin that works unfortunately.

2

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 16, 2021, 08:33:47 PM »

Just realized what you meant wrt latest dev. It's a fix to the core program, not the plugin. Any idea when that fix might hit the release?

3

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 16, 2021, 05:10:45 PM »

Start works to begin a program. Just not to resume after a mtc. Are these different operations in the stock configs?

Can you elaborate on the suspected soft limits issue? Why would that cause an eratic jog? Some kind of arithmetic underflow? They certainly look correct to me and I've never seen this before.

Also, i cant update to latest because Step does not work after 4746.

4

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 16, 2021, 02:00:58 PM »

I've been using the pendant for real work over the last few days. The limits issue is very strange...

On several occasions I've seen a refusal to jog below WORK position 0. Mach tells me the jog would violate the soft-min of the axis. But i am way down the axis. Jogging the other way and then coming back fixes it.

I wonder if these are all symptoms of the same underlying bug?

Hitting the limit switch is proving more of an issue than i expected. I seem to have a neuron miswired, and constantly jog Z the wrong way, hitting the limit switch. Home machine - jog to WCS lication ready to touch-off - jog down - oops wrong way - limit hit - home machine again ...

Also, START doesn't resume after a tool change. This could be Avid's customizations. I see the START button in the gui toggle, but nothing happens.

And, just once, immediately after powering on, and homing, a single jog in Y sent the gantry off to the back of the machine at high speed. I had to jump on the estop to catch it. *Be alert*.

Still, i am really enjoying the new pendant despite these teething troubles.

Jon

5

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 13, 2021, 08:11:02 PM »

I found some time to work on this today.

First the good...

I was having some issues with my PC, which was interfering with Mach4 and causing it to lose steps. I've switched out to another system, temporarily, and I am now seeing the steps track perfectly. In fact all 3 axis show clean 1mm steps, matching the GUI jogging behaviour. So I am guessing that Mach does indeed show the commanded position, not the actual achievable position.

I am also not seeing any extra steps in STP mode. I can even use fast moves, spinning the wheel from 30 to 60 rapidly, and the axis settles to exactly 30mm from the start position. So, I think all my previous issues were the PC getting in the way.

Then the  bad, for Steve ...

Neither build 4758 or 4759 work in step mode for me. This seems to be utterly repeatable. I get no motion at all. Switching to 4746 works every time.

Also, I can trigger the limit switches with with jog wheel, even with SoftLimits enabled. I would guess this is the related to the issue reported by EricSchenk, although the exact opposite symptom, since he was seeing a refusal to jog to the limit. Not the end of the world, but maybe something to look into.

Still, I have a working pendant Now I jut need to buy a new PC:-(

Jon

6

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 13, 2021, 12:24:09 AM »

I bet we're not the only large format Avid owners who have been itching to break free of cables 😁

I've been distracted by some non-cnc work over the last couple of weeks so havent had a chance to do any more digging yet.

I did check the motor config though. The x/y motors are indeed inch based as you say. The machine units are actually set as metric though, so x/y are defined in mm despite the imperial rack&pinion geometry. But z is true metric - 10mm pitch ballscrew and 2000 microsteps per rev gives us exactly 0.05mm resolution. So we really should see exact .1 and 1mm steps on z with G20 but do not.

Hoping to get some free time on the cnc this week to test a bit more.

7

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 02, 2021, 10:20:38 AM »

No encoders on my machine. Just steppers. I get your point though. It's possible it's just innacuracies caused by translating to mm in an inherently inch based system (which Avid cnc's are i think).

I didn't see any issues with jogging through the gui yesterday though. Maybe i just got lucky. I'll do some more digging.

Thanks

Jon

8

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: October 01, 2021, 08:42:50 PM »

Hmmn. Strange. I tried 4758 and the step jog didn't work. Then I went back to 4746, which worked. But now when I go back to 4748 it seems to be working! So, there's something random going on - could be the crappy FW of course.

I will see how it fares over a longer trial period.

That said - The step jogging is not always precise. I have the increment set to 1mm, and it randomly affects the fractional component too. Not always. I get sequences where the step is exactly 1mm, but then a series of fractional steps.

I can grab some logs if you tell me what you need (and how) - I tried the debug log, but it didn't look useful as it simply shows a jog event taking place with no additional details.

9

Mach4 Plugins / Re: Mach4 Plugin-Development

« on: September 30, 2021, 02:29:12 PM »

Steve replied in the other topic thread here:
   https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=37581.msg288936#msg288936

that build 4746 might be better for Step mode. I just tried it and it seems to work perfectly 

So, might be better to avoid the later builds for now.

10

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: September 30, 2021, 02:24:31 PM »

Awesome. Thank you Steve. Build 4746 does work correctly in Step mode.

You've made my day 

I still see % values in the display for STP. e.g. STP: 10% when I have the 0.1 step size selected. Really not a big deal as I can read the switch legend directly. Not sure if that's baked into FW or something you can control.

Also, a very minor typo in the RF Reset config tab. "In the even" instead of "In the event".

Thank you so much for working on this. Maybe not many people commenting on the Forum. But I bet that's just because most people don't know this support is available/coming. I only found this thread because I noticed a comment in the Warp9 FAQ that there was now direct support and so made a more concerted effort to track down some details.

Jon