Messages

31

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 20, 2011, 11:24:12 PM »

Or....I can use a "cut from black" transition in the slide show but right now the transition is too fast even on the slowest setting. I'm trying to get some help with PowerPoint to see if this is possible. If I can make a 5 second transition between each slide, that should make the screen black long enough to make the Z axis move before the next slide appears. Any PowerPoint experts out there?

32

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 20, 2011, 06:18:14 PM »

Sterling. I forgot one thing. Can you adjust the macro to do the Z move every other slide? I forgot that there needs to be a blank(all black) slide between each image slide. So instead of moving on each slide, we need to move on every other slide.
So...Would you do this where it says "For s=1 To numSlides",  would you make it "For s=2 To numSlides"? Would that make it move every other slide?  Sorry I forgot this detail earlier, hope it's an easy fix. Thank you! 

33

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 19, 2011, 01:28:35 PM »

Thanks again Stirling. I will run this script this weekend to test it out (I still need to install PP on my "garage" machine which currently runs Mach & my CNC router. I will set up a simple 10 - 20 slide presentation to test it out. I will let you know the results. I wasn't thinking the macro would run for each slide, I just thought the Z would go back to start for each slide which is good that it doesn't.  I'm not real good with code or scripts yet so I am just applying common sense to what I see in the script. I know, I'm still a bit "script ignorant" right now but I'm learning.

So basically, I just change the values in this section?  Do I insert any values below this section or is everything below good to go?

Code: [Select]

'*****************************************************************
Const ppFileName As String = "my documents\your PP folder\your PP.pps"
Const numSlides As Integer = 10 'number of slides in the show
Const exposureTime As Integer = 2000 'exposure time in milliseconds
Const ZStartPoint As Double = 0.0 'where Z starts from
Const ZIncrement As Double = 0.005 'the Z increment
'*****************************************************************
  Thanks again,
Jon

34

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 19, 2011, 09:40:41 AM »

Thanks Ian. One question I have is ZStartPoint can't be a constant unless it is only implemented at the start of the job. Z will always start .005 higher for each slide and Z cannot always return to zero between each slide, that would crush the object being made. I'm no expert when it comes to code so I could be way off here. For each slide, Z would have to start from where Z ended up from the previous slide and Z can never go back to zero at the end. It has to stay where it is or raise up a bit then stop, end of job. Just trying to understand. Thanks.

35

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 18, 2011, 12:00:59 PM »

Thank you Stirling!  Ok, this looks good but have no idea what I'm looking at. lol  If you can give me a quick tutorial on how to load this and run it, that would be great! I use Mach but only from the interface, I've never used any custom scripts or macros. So will this locate PPT, open the slide show and run it, while executing the g-code? If so, that's exactly what I need!
I'm assuming that the "G91" is where I insert the Gcode for the movement? I.e. raising the Z .05 then back down .045?  I want the Z to move past the mark then back down into the actual position, this will ensure a fresh, even layer of resin to flow over the build. Also, the code will be the same for each slide because I don't need the Z to return to zero each time, it needs to keep moving, one little bit at a time. So the movement would be (in non code form) raise Z .05, lower Z .045 = +.005 increments for each slide.

Is the sleep in pulses, seconds, steps?? what is this value? 

Also, will this section of code load & execute for each slide? Or does this need to be copied and pasted for each slide (this could be thousands of slides depending on the job)

Code: [Select]

For s=1 To numSlides
  Code "G1 Z" & ZIncrement 'lift Z a tad
  While IsMoving()
    sleep 10
  Wend
  objPresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.GotoSlide (s) 'show the next slide
  sleep 1000
Next
Any additional help would be appreciated. Thanks again! 

36

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 17, 2011, 02:06:34 PM »

I think I figured it out. I will use an input on my breakout box to add a switch (optical or audio). Brian from Artsoft told me I can monitor the input with the Macro pump, which when it sees the input trigger, will run the G-code. Now I need to make an optical trigger that will attach to the monitor and between every slice slide will be a blank slide with a graphic shape, say in the top right corner, that will trigger the optical sensor. This should do the trick.

37

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 17, 2011, 01:19:25 AM »

Well if you have any insight on controlling PP with Mach, please let me know. I would be interested in trying anything. Also, I'm not exposing the resin with the computer monitor, I will be using a DLP video projector which is sufficient to expose photo-polymer.

38

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 16, 2011, 02:28:15 PM »

True, either way would work as long as you can trigger Mach externally like that. I have an email into them to find out. I'm sure you could use one of the inputs from the breakout box to feed the signal to Mach. It would really only have to repeat the same line of code each time. Instead of raising the Z by .005 each time, I would like to raise past that and then back down into position, this will make it more accurate and allow the resin to flow over the build table evenly before the next layer is exposed.

39

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 16, 2011, 02:20:21 PM »

Good idea and I was also contemplating an optical sensor to do the same thing. An image can come up in between the slice images with a small graphic in the upper right corner of the screen where a mounted optical sensor can pick it up and send a similar signal to Mach to advance to the next position. This would alleviate any external noise that might false trigger the audio sensor/microphone.

40

General Mach Discussion / Re: Controlling Mach with Powerpoint? Is this possible?

« on: May 16, 2011, 01:40:06 PM »

Maybe there can be a plugin or wizard written to call up the images one by one and display them while Mach runs a couple lines of code each time an image is displayed, that would be ideal but I'm not a software engineer so I'm clueless when it comes to programming.

Remember, Mach only has to run a few lines of code, basically to move the Z axis up or down a few thousandths for each image displayed. Mach is doing very minimal work here. It just has to be in sync with the images as they are displayed.