Messages

141

General Mach Discussion / Re: online tutorials

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:47:56 PM »

You still want em tutorials Keith? Have you got a ftp to upload too? Or email with at least 20 to 30mbyte space

Whacko

142

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to use Mach3 outputs?

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:41:03 PM »

Have you got the executable Mach3Screen.exe in your Mach3 folder? That's where you add buttons, edit screen layouts etc. Almost a bit like your Winforms in VB

Whacko

143

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to use Mach3 outputs?

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:37:08 PM »

Mach3 has a built in editor, and you can step through the code and check the results in realtime. It's under "Operator menu", select "VBScript editor".
That's the one, the textbox. But you can call macro's embedded in your Gcode too. I have modified my m4 m5 m7 m8 macro's too do what I want them to do. It's really nifty and enables you to tailor Mach3 to suit your own needs.

Whacko

Edit: The Macro's has a .m1s extension. Best to create them in the Mach3 environment.

144

General Mach Discussion / Re: Charge Pump Signal Hiccup

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:31:37 PM »

PIC from Microchip is great stuff! I use a whole range of them in automation. I like the 16bit ones. How is your electronic knowledge? I can help you with the chargepump decoupled signal, or there is a different version in the "download" section of art's website.

Whacko

145

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to calculate the kerf width for plasma cutting?

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:27:02 PM »

I put some visuals up, it should help.

Whacko

146

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to calculate the kerf width for plasma cutting?

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:16:49 PM »

No, the g54 is a tool select, with an offset parameter in the tables you save as I said earlier(the offsets are the G54 and onwards settings in the "Config" drop down menu under "fixtures). So you slect the tool at the start of your code, then you implement the g4X codes in the codefile as normal.

Whacko

147

General Mach Discussion / Re: Charge Pump Frequency

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:13:39 PM »

I think the consistency of the timing of the step pulses is only important if you are in cv mode! I have scoped a AMD Athlon 64 and a INTEL Celeron 2.4 now, both are on winxp pro, and I must say, that 12,5 khz signal was pretty constant and precise. On the Dell laptop it is a nightmare.

Whacko

148

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to use Mach3 outputs?

« on: September 10, 2007, 05:07:10 PM »

You can call macro's that you have created with your own custom numbers and your own VBscript. There is lots of options once you realise how you can implement them.
Do you know VBscript?
I have for instance a macro I named m330 and added this macro call to the initialization string in the config menu.

It reads:
DoButton ( 22 )
DoButton ( 23 )
DoButton ( 24 )
DoOEMButton ( 223 )


I'm tailing you cause your username says coyote! Just joking!

Whacko

149

General Mach Discussion / Re: Charge Pump Signal Hiccup

« on: September 10, 2007, 04:56:32 PM »

Ah! Now I know why we can't tune in on the same wave lenght. The chargepump is as Jeff said, a watchdog signal. Unfortunately, if you do not control all the Parallel port signals, and at start up, the states of the pins is unknown, and with my breakout boards which has led indicators, I can see unvoluntary activety on the port pins on all PC setups I've seen. But having a signal at some khz is very unlikely to be coincidental uncontrolled port pin activety. I have worked with the Rofin Sinar lasers and Messer Griesheim CNC machines some years back when Messer Griesheim was still a good company to work for (sorry to folks at Messer) and believe me, a watchdog is necesary.
The best way and the only way I've seen industry specific implementation of the watchdog signal, was a constant frequency similar to Mach3 on a decoupled circuit. Mostly inductive decoupling. If you don't mind, how were you going to implement this signal?

Whacko

Addon:
I see you did answer that question, your post slipped by whilst I was typing mine.

150

General Mach Discussion / Re: Please help me

« on: September 10, 2007, 02:13:15 PM »

I propose you download the "Customising Mach2" document in the download section of Art's website. It is very well explained. There is also video tutorials you can watch or download. You'd need a broadband connection to download, they are quite big. Also check out the Wiki.

If you still battle, let us know.

Whacko