Messages

11

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need help with manual toolchange macro

« on: June 06, 2008, 10:53:23 AM »

Ta Brett,

I'll start from there.

Rick

12

VB and the development of wizards / Need help with manual toolchange macro

« on: June 05, 2008, 03:30:41 PM »

Hi All:

I have a new mill running under Mach3 and need to create a macro for manual tool changing, since it is a single tool machine. The g-code files that I am using contain an M998 call and this simply causes the machine to stop and wait for a cycle start press. I could change the tool then but usually the head is too close to the workpiece, and in any event, I still need to reset the Z offset for the new tool since they're not standard length.

What I want to be able to do therefore is to have the machine move 'home' and pause so that I can manually change the tool and set a new Z offset for it. Then I want to hit cycle start and have the machine return to the point where it originally stopped (and then hit cycle start again to recommence machining).

It's not complex, but I am tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to do this. I'd like to be able to 'trap' the G998 call in some way and modify the behaviour. VB is no problem for me but I cannot find where this macro is coded in Mach3 or how to modify it (the documentation is kinda sparse here, as far as I can see).

Any pointers as to where to get started (and to Mach3 programming docs) would be appreciated, as will any existing examples or code skeletons that I can 'borrow' from or modify.

Regards,

Rick