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Messages - stirling

621
General Mach Discussion / Re: Touch Probe Problem
« on: January 19, 2014, 08:39:38 AM »
LOL - Hey Kolias it's your gig, your free to do this however you like.

You posted a link to your manufacturer's manual and refered to page 9 fig 8. For some reason you've decided to ignore it and come up with your own scheme - that's cool - nothing wrong with that per se, but here's a couple of questions for you.

Q: In THEIR scheme what happens if you accidentally earth your clip or if your tool is grounded (which they often are and worse intermittently)

A: The probe input is activated, Mach lights a LED and it gets better - if you're probing - Mach stops.

Q: In YOUR scheme what happens if you accidentally earth your clip or if your tool is grounded (which they often are and worse intermittently)

A: Absolutely nothing (to alert you) and it gets worse - if you're probing OR go on to probe (because remember you've had no sort of indication) - Mach just carries on and probes it's way through your table. Sh1t you say to yourself as you race for the E-Stop - maybe I should have listened to that tosser Stirling.

Personally I do it slightly differently - I reverse the scheme in your manual and ground my spindle with the clip and I put my plate onto the input. Why? because then I don't care if the spindle is grounded by itself or worse intermittently grounded because I now KNOW it's grounded. Of course this only works if your table and work are not metal and grounded but that's the case here. Anyway - even if you have a metal table, you can't have the plate AND the tool at ground if you want any "ohmic" contact scheme to work so you're going to have to insulate at least one of them and the plate is usually easier.

The point is, EITHER way you do not need a resistor - you're better off without it. In yours the only reason you need a resistor is (IMVHO) to bandaid a poor solution.

But like I say - do it any way you like - it's your gig.  ;)

622
General Mach Discussion / Re: E-STop & Limits Wiring...
« on: January 18, 2014, 07:22:38 AM »
or you could go the external controller route and do away with the parallel port all together.

Well this depends. At one time not so long ago the ONLY motion device that fully and correctly supported THC was the parallel port. I have heard anecdotally that the ESS (not USB SS) and some/all (I don't know) of the CSMIO controller(s) now also support THC.

I have had one customer of my THC use it with a CSMIO but not everything was as it should be - unfortunately he decided things were "good enough" so we never got right to the bottom of it what was different between the PP and the CSMIO's THC functionality.

Anyway I contacted CS and Warp9 to try to get some definitive answers but unfortunately neither replied. Well Greg replied to my first email and said the ESS DID support THC but advised against the USB SS but when I posed further detailed questions I didn't get a reply.

So I think you pays your money and you takes your chance with regard to external controllers and THC.

FWIW my THC can be configured to only use 2 inputs - this free's you up 1 to use for IHS. ;)

623
General Mach Discussion / Re: Touch Probe Problem
« on: January 18, 2014, 06:17:29 AM »
That resistor is a complete red-herring and is doing NOTHING except taking your nominal 5V (logic 1) down to around 4.8V (still logic 1) when you touch the clip to the plate. EDIT: but see my edit below.

It is doing this because together with the pull down resistor you've selected with your dip switch it's creating a potential divider on your input when you touch your clip to your plate. Incidentally - if you did as advised and changed it to 1K it would make things even worse and drop your input voltage to around 2.5V which is neither logic 1 nor logic 0. (this is because your pull-down will be around 1K also)

In the absence of more detail I suspect the reason it's now working is simply because you've changed from pull-up to pull-down.

If you had it wired before exactly as you have it now EXCEPT you had pull UP selected then I'm not surprised it didn't work.

With pull UP selected, the pullup was holding the input at 5V (logic 1) and then when you touched the clip to the plate it TOO was applying 5V (logic 1 again) to the input. i.e. you were effectively taking a logic 1 to logic 1 - result zippo change.

Without changing anything else, remove the resistor - it is completely pointless - it's also completely mis-labeled - it's neither current limiting (well not in any way that's remotely useful) nor is it pulling anything up.

EDIT: I just re-read your first post again. If you have 5V on your clip and you're attaching this to the spindle you're asking for trouble. You're VERY likely to short your 5V supply. In this case your 1K resistor would prevent that short (and your 33 ohm mitigate it) - BUT everything I've said above still stands. This is NOT the way to do this. I suggest you stop for a moment and describe your system again otherwise I think you're going to have problems sooner rather than later.

FWIW I think this is why your E-Stop was triggering earlier - you were shorting your logic supply and thus taking EVERYTHING down to 0V.

624
General Mach Discussion / Re: Entering Data Query Ports and Pins
« on: January 17, 2014, 04:47:07 AM »
a feature

625
General Mach Discussion / Re: Entering Data Query Ports and Pins
« on: January 16, 2014, 12:09:38 PM »
Yep - I get that sometimes - The Signal labels randomly change when you try to set them so your setting (say) Output1 and as soon as you enter the port or pin number the label changes to (say) Enable3. Happens on every version I've ever used. Also the scroll bar disappears sometimes and then the whole dialog scrolls all the way to the bottom all on its lonesome. Only happens on Outputs - never on Inputs. A tip to try: don't double click in a port or pin cell - on mine a double click is sure to cause it to have a hissy fit.

626
VB and the development of wizards / Re: PoppaBear Question SCott??
« on: October 14, 2013, 11:41:22 AM »
kinda missed what you guys were up to... whack this in your macropump

If Not isProbing() And isActive(DIGITIZE) then
  doOEMButton(1021) 'hit the panic tit
End If

Cheers

Ian

627
Mach Screens / Re: screen designers
« on: October 04, 2013, 06:08:16 AM »
Don't get over there much these days but thanks for the info.

Yes, a new designer would be great, but I think it's usefulness may be soon coming to an end, as Mach4 will have no use for it.

Depends I suppose on your definitions of "soon" and "Mach4" ;)

Anyway I'll give this thread a couple of weeks or so to see if there's any interest in a new designer - I've bashed out the basics but before I do any more... etc. etc.

Ian

628
Mach Screens / Re: screen designers
« on: October 03, 2013, 03:33:34 PM »
are you saying Mach4 won't have customizable screens?

629
Mach Screens / screen designers
« on: October 03, 2013, 02:45:19 PM »
I'd be interested in your views about the currently available screen designers. What do you use? what do you think? Is there a place for a new kid on the block? or are you perfectly happy with what you have?

Cheers

Ian

630
General Mach Discussion / Re: Can't MACH3 execute faster??? Please help
« on: October 01, 2013, 05:44:48 AM »
I suspected from the start of this post that something didn't add up and now it's clear. You're using a pirate license.

You'll get no more help here. If you feel this is in error then you should contact licensing. Until then you're banned.