Messages

41

Modbus / Re: ModIO Expansion Limit

« on: November 24, 2010, 06:24:16 AM »

Awesome, thanks for the answer.

So pretty much anything but step/dir signals for drivers, and home/limit switches can be connected. You'll be seeing an order from me in the near future.

Thanks for making a great product.

42

Modbus / ModIO Expansion Limit

« on: November 23, 2010, 11:19:54 AM »

I'm getting into the world of PLC's for my current job and was recently turned on to Homann Designs ModIO board for Mach3. I've watched the videos on setting up the ModIO and I have to say I'm really impressed with the amount of versatility you can achieve with this setup.

I'm left with two questions though.

First:
I'm assuming since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, you can't use ModIO to send step/dir signals to stepper/servo drives. Is this correct? If so why not?

Second:
What is the limit on expansion ModIO boards?

Thanks

43

General Mach Discussion / Rapid OverRide

« on: July 22, 2010, 09:48:10 AM »

Why do none of the lathe screen sets available have the ability to change the rapid speed. Only Feed Rate and Jog%, am I missing something here? I'd like to have what the Mill screen has with the slider. I don't really like going at full speed when running a part for the first time. Help?

~Scott

44

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 30, 2010, 10:07:40 AM »

Yeah I understand they are a little different but the whole layout of the program and how different statements are used is generally the same. If I understand how a program is suppose to flow then I think I can work it out from there.

Again thanks for the tip on taper.

~Scott

45

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 29, 2010, 06:40:12 AM »

Rich- There is nothing wrong with the wizards, they work great but when you have to do multiple ops its a real PIA to patch everything together. Also the programs are MUCH shorter when using the canned cycle G77 (Turning/Boring) & G78 (Facing). You can pretty much sum up an entire cycle in one line.

I picked up a book on Visual Basic. The plan is to learn the language and see if I can't fix the Macro myself.

BR549- I omitted the "T" in the code and now everything works with tool changes. Thanks for the idea.

~Scott

46

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 25, 2010, 05:11:49 AM »

I never thought of that. Mach is seeing the T0 (zero deg taper) as a tool change for Tool 0. Clever thinking. I will post the results. The only weird thing is that there is no M6 initiating the tool change.

Lets see what happens.

~Scott

47

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 24, 2010, 01:00:06 PM »

Also I found another BUG with the G77 Macro. When you call a tool say M6 T101 and then run the G77 code, the Macro turns off tool offsets and goes to Tool 0. This is kind of deadly, thankfully it moved away from the part and not into it.

Somebody please help me fix this. I'm not a VB programmer and I don't really have the time to learn the language.

48

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 21, 2010, 03:06:01 PM »

No I'm not talking about threading. Just a normal turn cycle. They are not covered in the manual.

the Macro is M1077.m1s

49

VB and the development of wizards / Need Macro Help.. G77 MachTurn

« on: May 21, 2010, 10:20:31 AM »

Hello, I've been toying with G77 in MachTurn and I came to find that the one supplied with the download of Mach3 does not work properly. I found an edited Macro  Here (Post #6) I replaced the stock Macro with this one and everything seems good. Except for one small issue. The new Macro doesn't do a spring pass, only when written in a program. If you type in a G77 blah blah blah into MDI then it works properly. Seems odd to me but I'd like to see if it can be fixed. Spring passes are great especially when boring.

~Scott

50

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Smooth Stepper Port2

« on: March 13, 2010, 01:29:25 PM »

Before I decided I was going to disconnect the BOB, and try your idea, I hooked everything up on port3, and sure enough everything works flawlessly. I really think it's the BOB causing the issue. Everything that I need is working now, SO if the time comes where I need more inputs I will bite the bullet and try again.

I'm having some issues with noise on my MPG and switches causing false triggers, axis selecting/deselecting etc. The noise filter under the SS plugin has boxes to fill in values. I'm assuming this will solve my problem but I'm unsure what to put in the box as a value.

Can you dawn some light on this? The Smooth Stepper manual needs some serious revisions and more information.

~Scott