Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Can you pass a lathe tool change number into a G code subroutine?

« on: March 18, 2013, 11:26:31 PM »

I've got my new Mach controlled lathe up and running and its working well and thanks for the help from forum members here to get it running.

I've got a nice set of canned macros I wrote for a different lathe that I want to get running on this one.

Unfortunately the tool change format Mach uses for lathes, ie, "T0202 M6" is different than the other lathe.

The macros depend on being able to set a parameter to do the tool change, ie

#101=10

and then accessing that parameter in a subroutine that makes the tool change to tool 10.

So far efforts to execute something like:

T#101#101

aren't working.

Is there any way I'll be able to do a lathe tool change in a subroutine based on a parameter setting?

Thanks,

Paul T.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach jogging got disabled, how do I get it going again?

« on: March 17, 2013, 07:37:09 PM »

No, its not a numlock issue, I've tried both the default hotkey's and reassigned ones.

Something strange is going on, perhaps its a bug in the 057 version I'm using but I've got the jogging with the extra buttons so I'm going to let the hotkey problem slide for now.

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach jogging got disabled, how do I get it going again?

« on: March 17, 2013, 07:12:15 PM »

My screen has a jog enabled LED and its definitely on.

Dinking around I discovered that in addition to the Hot Key based jogging there are OEM button values, 307 and up, that also do jogging.

After making some buttons for those values jogging worked with them and so I assigned my hotkeys to "push" those buttons.

I still can't figure out why the standard HotKey based jogging won't work, even running without keygrabber, just straight from the keyboard with the standard hotkey vals.

It was working early on for me but something got it in a bad state and Hotkey based jogging just won't work any more. Oh well, I got it working with the button approach.

Paul T.

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to do a conditional pause in a Mach tool change

« on: March 16, 2013, 01:56:18 PM »

Hi Hood-

Thanks for explaining the auto tool change sequence and suggesting the code, I plopped it in to my M6Start macro and its working well.

I'm now pretty close to making some chips with the lathe, the only remaining issue is I still can't get jogging to work so I'm going to try to sort that out now.

Thanks,

Paul T.

15

General Mach Discussion / How to do a conditional pause in a Mach tool change

« on: March 15, 2013, 11:03:15 PM »

I'm uisng Mach3 .057 to get a lathe running.

The lathe has a gang tool holder I made but sometimes I will also use quick change tools on it.

So the plan is for tool numbers less than 10 to have it do an automatic tool change and for tools 10 and greater (the manual tools) have it pause for manual change.

I've got the config option checked for an auto tool changer and I'm trying to put code in m6Start.m1s or m6End.m1s to pause when the tool number is 10 or greater.

I've tried putting the code below in both the m6start and m6end files but it doesn't do the pause.

Does Mach in lathe mode do the tool changes in a different way or are M00 commands ignored in these tool change macros?

If currenttool > 9 Then
Code "M00"
Message "Change to Tool Number " & currenttool
end if

Thanks,

Paul T.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Switch "direction" of an MPG in a macro?

« on: March 15, 2013, 07:42:48 PM »

Jeez, so close yet so far.

I thought I had this, making a second MPG with the pin assignments reversed worked.

And I can assign MPG1 directly to control an unused axis so that the "reversed" MPG2 can control the Z axis in the direction I want.

But unfortunately for some reason you don't have direct assignment control over MPG2. You can't assign MPG2 directly to an axis, you can only increment it between axises and it only will switch between live axises so there is no way to shut it off while the "normal" rotation MPG1 controls the X axis.

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Switch "direction" of an MPG in a macro?

« on: March 15, 2013, 11:21:08 AM »

The MPG is currently counting correctly, ie positive counts are increasing both X and Z when they are selected.

However what I'm after is having this apron mounted MPG function in the same manner as the crosslide and carriage handles on the machine.

This will make it nice for quickly "manual" jobs using the MPG instead of these handles.

For this to work I need the MPG in Z control mode to increase the count normally but when controlling X to be reversed. This will cause it to act like a normal cross-slide handle where clockwise turns decrease X.

Last night when I should have been sleeping but was staring as the ceilng instead I realized it might work to in Mach setup a second B MPG but assign the same input pin numbers to it so my single MPG controls both the "Mach" MPGs. Then I can tell Mach to reverse one of them and assign that one to control X.

I'll use my current control buttons with macros to turn on the correct MPG when X or Z is selected.

I'm going to try this now and I'll report back how it works.

Paul T.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Switch "direction" of an MPG in a macro?

« on: March 14, 2013, 11:27:03 PM »

Hi Russ-

The macro is below. I wrote it almost 10 years ago I think, time flies, that when I was setting up my mill.

It had a workaround for something in Mach that wasn't working correctly back then, perhaps thats fixed now.

Paul T.


Rem Turns on MPG Jog mode, specified axis, specified Jog Increment

ToggleJogMode = 245
SetJogModeStep = 275
SetJogModeContinuous = 276
SetJogModeMPG = 174
ToggleJogOnOff = 103
JogOnLED = 83
SetStepValue1 = 265
SetStepValue2 = 265
SetStepValue3 = 265
SetStepValue4 = 268
SetMPGAxisX = 259
SetMPGAxisY = 260
SetMPGAxisZ = 261
MPGxLed = 1100
MPGyLed = 1101
MPGzLed = 1102
JogContinuousLed = 1103

Axis = SetMPGAxisX

If Not GetOEMLED (JogOnLED) Then
  Call DoOEMButton (ToggleJogOnOff)
End If

Rem 174 is supposed to directly set MPG but broken for now, use hack below
Call DoOEMButton (SetJogModeStep)
Call DoOEMButton (ToggleJogMode)

Call DoOEMButton (Axis)
Call DoOEMButton (SetStepValue1)

SetUserLED(MPGxLed, 1)
SetUserLED(MPGyLed, 0)
SetUserLED(MPGzLed, 0)
SetUserLED(JogContinuousLed, 0)

19

General Mach Discussion / Switch "direction" of an MPG in a macro?

« on: March 14, 2013, 09:53:34 PM »

I'm just getting a Mach3 driven lathe up and so far its working really well.

I have an MPG mounted on the carriage front and have X and Z labeled switches there also. The switches are setup to run .m1s macros that switch the MPG between the X and Z axises and that is working well.

But since I am sharing the same MPG, right now the X macro works the way I want, clockwise moves the tool towards the part like a normal crosslide handle.

However with it set that way, when I select the Z mode thru the macro, clockwise moves the carriage to the left, opposite the way a normal carriage handle works.

Is there a parameter change I can make in the Z macro that will switch the direction of the MPG moves?

Thanks,

Paul T.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach jogging got disabled, how do I get it going again?

« on: March 14, 2013, 08:35:22 PM »

I've been going thru all the settings and still can't figure out why jogging stopped working.

If anybody is willing to take a look to see what I've done wrong I've attached my .xml file.

Thanks,

Paul T.