Messages

1301

General Mach Discussion / Re: Image Editor Software For Creating Transparent Buttons?

« on: February 26, 2009, 02:29:42 PM »

Depends what you mean by transparent buttons, if you are wanting to have a totally invisible button then just choose Image Button in Screen4 and dont asign an image to it, it will be seen in screen4 as a green outline but will be invisible in Mach.
Hood

Hood,

Not quite.  An example of what I'm doing is the SpindleCW button on the ProgramRun screen.  It is composed of the button itself, labelled "Spindle CW F5", and an LED, assigned to OEM code 11, which is Spindle CW.  The LED image is a .PNG which consists of an opaque border, and a transparent center, so that when the LED is active, there is a blinking yellow border around the button, with the button itself unchanged.  The LED image actually contains two different images, one of which is used when the LED is off, the other when it is on.  If this .PNG is replaced with an identical (looking) .BMP, the opaque center of the BMP obscures the button when the LED is active.  The RESET button  is implemented the same way, but in this case the LED blinks from RED to GREEN.

Regards,
Ray L.

1302

General Mach Discussion / Re: Image Editor Software For Creating Transparent Buttons?

« on: February 26, 2009, 02:18:36 PM »

I use RealDraw v4.0

Graham

Graham,

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Regards,
Ray L.

1303

General Mach Discussion / Image Editor Software For Creating Transparent Buttons?

« on: February 26, 2009, 11:52:07 AM »

I've completely lost my mind, and am designing my own screenset for Mach3.  I need to use transparent buttons, but am not at all up on image/bitmap editing tools.  What formats can I use for this (looks like maybe only .png?) and what is a good editor for creating the images?

I'm making an all-in-one milling screenset, containing all the functionality I've ever used (aside from one-time setup stuff) on a single screen.

Regards,
Ray L.

1304

General Mach Discussion / Re: New error message: "Radius to end of arc"...

« on: February 24, 2009, 12:28:02 PM »

But, only utilizing M3 for the spindle (with M5) and controlling spindle direction with an external switch or controller, why could you NOT utilize M4 for another totally different function? Ray L. eludes to the ability to change M4's function in the main directory and writing another macro to perform a function that includes M4. Looks like a fault would occur only if the established function were not modified. The same for flood and mist M codes. Why waste an output for mist when you only use a flood coolant system? This would require some diving into the workings of Mach but can't it be done? You can always reload Mach if it gets too crazy.

Thanks,
Bill C.

Since you can define the functionality of M3, M4, M5, M7,M8 & M9 through the corresponding macros, I think you can make them do whatever you like, but I don't think it's a great idea.  If nothing else, it will be completely confusing to anyone looking at your code, or using your machine.  You'd have on-screen buttons whose functions are quite different from their labels.  I would instead define completely new M-codes, and use those instead.  The resulting functionality will be the same, the effort will be the same, and it'll make sense to others, so you might as well follow established standards. 

Regards,
Ray L.

1305

General Mach Discussion / Re: Oval pockets

« on: February 23, 2009, 09:08:59 PM »

well to be honest, I tend to do things the old fashioned way (pencil and paper) then type it out by hand. So I dont even have a drawing to import for it. What do most people use to draw up simple shape drawings like that anyway, Something I could pick up real quick because a full blown CAD program isnt really worth the effort or money for what i would use it for.

I use QCAD (about $35 from www.Ribbonsoft.com) for CAD, and SheetCAM (about $150 from www.sheetcam.com) for CAM.  Both have downloadable pretty much full-function (limited number of lines of G-code output on SheetCAM) demos.

Regards,
Ray L.

1306

General Mach Discussion / Re: Output turning on when Mach3 shutsdown

« on: February 23, 2009, 12:26:01 PM »

Are you using a Breakout Board (BOB)?  If so, which one?  Does it have a charge pump?  Are you using it?  This is exactly the type of problem the charge pump is supposed to preclude.

Regards,
Ray L.

1307

General Mach Discussion / OEM Code Magic Decoder Ring...

« on: February 22, 2009, 06:18:15 PM »

I try to avoid writing macros, because writing a macro always means spending an hour or more tearing my hair out trying to figure out which OEM codes I need, and then figuring out why they don't work as it seems they should.  For example, in writing my recent tool length setting macro, I needed to know whether G91 or G90 are in effect.  Of course, there are LEDs for both (OEM LEDs 48 and 49).  But, only one of them actually works!  The other is ALWAYS zero!

Right now, I'm looking into writing a custom macro for loading the tool length offset table, using my touch plate.  Looking at the existing button macro, the first line reads:

Tool_Num = GetDRO (24)

Clearly, DRO 24 *must* be the DRO on the various screens that shows the currently selected tool.  But, referring to the (many) OEM code spreadsheets, they all tell me DRO 24 is the "PWM Base DRO".

It is incredible to me that there isn't a complete, correct, *official* list of OEM codes, and their meanings.  I've had so many occassions where the codes are clearly NOT what the documentation would suggest, or don't work, or are simply so vaguely defined, that it's impossible to even guess what the function is.  Add to that the fact that there are a bunch of functions that the Mach3 customization guides indicates are deprecated, and so should not be used, yet they *are* still used in the production code.  And, in some cases, it does not even appear to me there is any other way of doing what they do.  It all makes writing macros a real exercise in frustration.

Regards,
Ray L.

1308

General Mach Discussion / Re: Ah, Cripes! Not Another Tool Touch-Off Macro!

« on: February 22, 2009, 05:30:47 PM »

I just got off my lazy butt and made myself a VERY complex and sophisticated touch plate - a 1" x 2" piece of copper-clad FR-4, with a wire soldered to one side.  This, and the macro, work like a charm.  I touched off several times, and the machine position corresponding to the point of contact came out *exactly* the same, to the tenth, every time.  Very cool!

Regards,
Ray L.

1309

General Mach Discussion / Re: can you move the motors manually

« on: February 22, 2009, 11:23:37 AM »

By way of explanation for what I use the axis disable for :-

I have had occasion to make wooden signs that are longer than my work table and so they have to be routed in stages. When the progress of the work reaches near to the end of the table, I pause Mach, disable the Y Axis, reposition the work and table manually (with the cutter in exactly the same position on the work), re-enable the Y Axis then restart Mach for the next phase. As Mach knows nothing about this repositioning (DROs remain the same), the work progresses as normal. For this to be successful the routing on each part of the job must be complete prior to the move and this sometimes means some GCode editing prior to starting the job. It is perhaps a bit long winded and does require positioning jigs but this method does enable work that is longer than the cutting area to be undertaken.

Tweakie.

It's completely unnecessary to move the table manually - Move the part to its new position, jog the table to where it needs to be, and re-set the DRO.  This is the more conventional way of handling your problem.

Regards,
Ray L.

1310

General Mach Discussion / Re: dual arm control

« on: February 22, 2009, 11:20:17 AM »

Thanks for your new replies.

I'm glad you think it's do-able. I think Using 2 computers may be a way forward, and will simplify the actual drawing part significantly. As for the preparation of the GCode, this is something I will have to spend a bit of time thinking about. I understand that Lazycam can create Gcode from files such as JPEG or DXF. Perhaps this could be something I could look at (as the source image will most probably be a JPEG). If this is possible I could split the image during processing and generate GCode for each part. This could be sent to 2 computers to do the drawing.

As for the Z axis control, Tweakie, It only needs to be pen up/pen down as with a plotter.

Cheers

Benjamin

I don't think *any* off-the-shelf CAM program will do you any good, as it will simply output X/Y/Z moves for a conventional orthogonal axis machine, which is not what you have.  Or would you then post-process the CAM-generated G-code to do the coordinate transform?  That would work, but probably would be extremely inefficient.

Regards,
Ray L.