Messages

1571

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Zero X +Y button?

« on: June 15, 2010, 08:29:18 AM »

There's useful info for things like this in the WIKI including a Cypress VB manual such as it is.. There is I believe a newer version of the (Mach specific) VB reference written by (I think) HimyKabibble but I'm not sure where it is. Maybe a sticky at the top of this topic would be an idea?

Cheers

Ian

1572

General Mach Discussion / Re: Plasma Initial Height sensing - perceived wisdom?

« on: June 15, 2010, 07:39:48 AM »

Hi Scott - personally I'm not against any method of doing this at the moment. I just want to see if it can be done. Actually I have a couple more ideas that I will try but any help is much appreciated. Without going into all the ins and outs of using either G31 or G28.1 for inital height sensing here's a short version of your mission should you decide to accept it. Imagine an axis with a home switch at each end. Now if you command a G28.1, it homes to one switch and sets that position to be 0. If on the other hand you press the RefAllHome button, it homes to the other switch and sets that position to (say) 100. i.e. you have two homes, one at each end of the axis.

Cheers

Ian

1573

General Mach Discussion / Re: 4th Axis Steps per Inch?

« on: June 14, 2010, 10:53:02 AM »

say for example you're using 200 steps per rev stepper motors and 8 microstep drivers. It would take 1600 steps to turn your motor 1 rev or 360 degrees. So 1600/360=4.4444444444444444444444444444444 steps per degree. So that's what you'd enter into "steps per" in motor tuning for your rotary axis.
Then if you command say G1 A360 your motor will turn exactly one rev or 360 degrees by Mach sending out 1600 pulses. Of course you may spot that the steps per is not an integer, therefore if you commanded say G1 A1 to move 1 degree, Mach could only send out either 4 pulses or 5 (actually 4) so it would be as near as it could get to 1 degree but not spot on.

Cheers

Ian

1574

General Mach Discussion / Re: edge finding/2.5D probing

« on: June 13, 2010, 05:11:12 PM »

Hi grisuzone - welcome to the forum

Hai provato a usare le opzioni di italiano regionale. Pannello di controllo / Opzioni internazionali e della lingua.

In alternativa, è possibile contattare Andrea al http://www.robotfactory.it Ha le routine di lavoro bene.


Have you tried using the Italian regional options. Control panel / Regional and language options.

Alternatively, you could contact Andrea at http://www.robotfactory.it He has the routines working just fine.

Cheers

Ian

1575

VB and the development of wizards / Re: how to use macropump

« on: June 13, 2010, 04:50:48 PM »

Terry and Amir - well no I'm not sure. Up until today I allways thought that Mach ran the macropump at 10Hz and therefore the macro - macropump.m1s - was run at 10Hz. (which seems to be the popular opinion). I'd therefore assumed that if macropump.m1s took longer than a 10th of a sec then it seemed logical that there would be "issues" as I've read countless times here on the forum that Mach can't run more than one macro at a time. I know the macropump macro is pre-compiled (I read that here too - maybe that's bollox as well  ) as opposed to interpreted at run time but anyway.

With regards this OP I was going to just advise that ALLEN watch the macropump video. But having first checked it was still there and watched a bit myself I decided to not just do that as it's obviously a bit out of date regarding how to turn it on. BUT Art clearly says right at the beginning firstly that the macropump runs 5 times/sec and that if a macro takes longer than a 5th sec then it will finish naturally and then a 5th of a sec later will run it again etc. etc. I assumed the 5th has at some point changed to a 10th. But anyway - take a look at the video. Maybe I've fallen foul of yet another piece of outdated info on Mach but there you go - You guys tell me.

Cheers

Ian

1576

VB and the development of wizards / Re: how to use macropump

« on: June 13, 2010, 12:40:03 PM »

are you sure ?

Well according to Art's video - although he says the wait is 1/5th but I think that's changed since he did the vid. If you're asking because of what I told you in your previous thread - I've corrected myself there.

Ian

EDIT: Terry - to be fair not least to myself I think there's a bit of confusion around this not least because Art I think contradicts himself a bit. The general view is that the macropump runs 10 times a second. Well it DOES if the code in the macro lasts less than a 10th. If say the code lasts a second (to take an extreme to make the point), then the better description is that Mach then waits a 10th before running it again. i.e. Mach will not run a second copy of the macro whilst it's still running the existing one.

1577

VB and the development of wizards / Re: how to use macropump

« on: June 13, 2010, 04:44:03 AM »

Hi Allen - I was going to point you at the tutorial video for using the macropump but it's way out of date. You may still want to take a look at it though. But here's the basics.

1) write your VB macro
2) save it as macropump.m1s in your profile. (take a look under c:\mach3\macros)
3) Tick (main menu) Config/General Config/Run Macro Pump
4) Restart Mach (you may need to do this a couple of times. I've known Mach to not run it first restart)
Now your VB macro runs automatically when Mach starts. After it finishes, Mach waits 1/10th of a second and runs it again. etc. etc. forever.
A basic rule of thumb - don't use the macropump to command machine movement.

1578

General Mach Discussion / Re: 4th Axis Steps per Inch?

« on: June 13, 2010, 04:25:49 AM »

Hi Warhorse - Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question - but if not - what you want is physically impossible.

Cheers

Ian

1579

General Mach Discussion / Re: Plasma Initial Height sensing - perceived wisdom?

« on: June 13, 2010, 04:21:03 AM »

Hi Scott - tried your suggestions and a few ideas of my own but haven't been able to get anything that works. I can home down with G28.1 and up with RefAllHome but can't set the position right. i.e. home pos is home pos so it's zero (or whatever) at the bottom and the same at the top - so no real use. I'm stumped I think. Looks like if you want a "proper" homing action then G31 is the only way to go for IHS.

Ian

1580

General Mach Discussion / Re: Struggling to achieve 4 Decimal Positioning Accuracy for Mach3

« on: June 12, 2010, 11:13:24 AM »

Absolutely agree with everything you say Jeff regards *real world* accuracy. BUT why is Mach giving the results it is? His steps/per *must be* integral denominators of his units otherwise his 2nd, 3rd, etc moves would not be EXACTLY 100.0000 units apart in Mach.

Ian