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Messages - stirling

171
General Mach Discussion / Re: Safe Z Macro
« on: February 19, 2016, 08:26:47 AM »
something very strange going on here because doOEMButton 1004 is set single block mode

172
if you mean 100mm/s/s for your accel then it's very low. For plasma you really want to be running at least a quarter G so around 2500mm/s/s.

173
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: I messed up with my new bench: EMF
« on: February 15, 2016, 11:15:29 AM »
I'd be very happy to tell you exactly how I discovered it - if only I could remember  ;D

174
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: I messed up with my new bench: EMF
« on: February 15, 2016, 08:47:27 AM »
BUT!

I have my steppers set at a speed of 140ipm.
The DRO reads out 152ipm when I rapid move.

Turns out the frequency is actually 27,300 pulses (Not 25,000)

There's your answer right there in the numbers.

27300 / 25000 = 1.092

1.092 * 140 = 152.88

Unless your PC shows a rock steady exact 25000 pulse frequency (which I'd be surprised if anyone's does) then this is what happens.

Perhaps more curiously, when I FIRST start Mach, the actual pulse frequency is a rock steady 25,324. However if I close and restart, this drops to a rock steady 24,397. If I close and restart again it's rock steady at 23,674. Closing/re-starting from then on has no further effect and it remains at 23,674. If I re-boot then the whole (3) cycle will repeat exactly. Just one of those Mach3 things I suppose.

175
Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: VB6 Automation Sample
« on: February 12, 2016, 09:48:33 AM »
I think your contribution is great. I know quite a few folk have tried to sort the automation interface out (I'm one) and AFAIK you're the first to have done it. Certainly if anyone else has - they haven't shared it AFAIK.

Like you, I won't be using it every day as generally you can achieve a hell of a lot with just macros. However I have a couple of ideas that this may well be ideal for.

Any help you need - I'm sure you'll get it here.

176
Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: VB6 Automation Sample
« on: February 12, 2016, 05:55:19 AM »
I know the extra wrappers look like allot of typing and extra complexity initially, but they really make using the code latter almost brain dead simple and way less typing and way less error prone. it takes memory out of the equation and just shows you what functions it supports, what the arguments are , and in some cases like the enumerations lets you select the argument value you want from a list it automatically displays. Thats the real strength.

I have a lot of respect for what you've done. You clearly know your way around COM and the registry. I think you may be forgetting though that there are thousands of seasoned macro writers out there that know the existing calls and OEM codes and constants almost like the back of their hands. They SHOULD (IMHO) be able to use your automation without learning virtually anything new.

Example:

Your way

ReadDRO(axis_x)

The existing way

getOEMDRO(800)

So imagine one of these seasoned users. S/He's looking to read a DRO. He get's the dropdown and he scrolls through looking for getOEMDRO. It's not there. First thing he's going to say is WTF? Then eventually he realizes he needs to use ReadDRO. Second thing he's going to say is WTF have you changed the name for? We've been using getOEMDRO for donkey's years and now it's called something else... It's then going to get even worse because he's going to type 800 for X only to find it doesn't work.

It seems to me to be a real shame because I think what you've done has value.

So, FWIW - if you must have intellisense, I'd suggest you name the wrappers identically to the existing calls and don't introduce new symbolic constants.

Anyway - it's your gig as they say and these are obviously just my opinions and hope none of this p***es you off..

Thanks for sorting the version issue though - I think that's a great step forward. You obviously know your way around the registry - good work.

177
Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: VB6 Automation Sample
« on: February 11, 2016, 12:01:09 PM »
I've had a bit of a hack and changed a couple of things. See what you think.

Mainly I've changed the class to a module. The problem was that you had to access the methods and properties either via wrappers like mach.<helper> or via mach.oScript.<method>

As there can only ever be one instance of mach it seems easier to just access the object method directly.

So now you could do for example:

mach3.getOEMDRO(800) directly without the need for any wrappers.

Anyway - see what you think.

178
Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: VB6 Automation Sample
« on: February 11, 2016, 08:21:59 AM »
Assuming that the registry keys were not removed for a reason, we will be able to manually add them back in
so that it will work for latter versions. This is on my to-do list and should not be to hard.

I think that would certainly give it more legs

For the project I am working on I really want the Mach integration.

Thanks for the link of what you're up to. I'm not quite sure I understand why you need Mach-automation though.
Once you have your PC program create the gcode - why not just load and run in Mach normally? What am I missing?

179
Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: VB6 Automation Sample
« on: February 11, 2016, 06:01:19 AM »
Was just going to send you that - you beat me to it.

You might want to take a look at this http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,6657.0.html

and this http://www.machsupport.com/Mach3Wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

section 4 and 9 for things like symbolic constants and param strings etc.

Couple of questions:

I see in your readme you say that Mach3 versions after 3.042.020 dont properly register the COM objects in the registry.

As it happens I use 3.042.020 but is there any way to fix things for later versions? Otherwise although this is interesting to play with I'm wondering if it's of practical use as I guess most?/a lot? of folks will be using later versions.

180
General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 VB Script Help
« on: February 10, 2016, 12:19:03 PM »
@Terry - one post then I'll back out  ;)

@nissan20det - Can I make a suggestion: It's a classic beginner's mistake to try to code the whole thing straight off.

I'd suggest you do little test snippets at a time and test as you go.

test your

Code: [Select]
Code "G91 G31 X-7 F8"
While IsMoving()
Wend
Code"G1 X" & GetVar(2000)  & "F30"

I think you'll find it doesn't do what you think it does. (don't use your real probe to test this ;))