Messages

31

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: August 05, 2014, 09:06:25 AM »

Not a bug ...

When loading a licence file, Mach4 asks for .dat, while the licence file delivered is a .txt file. Would be nice to have same file extension.

32

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: July 25, 2014, 04:39:59 AM »

Your (rather old) Rad 9250 should implement OpenGl 1.5. Maybe it only does partially, cannot say.
The card on the link you posted supports version 4.2. Please check that your computer supports PCI-Express 2.0 interface as described in the product listing. The 9250 seems to require AGP interface.

OpenGL is a graphics standard to implement hardware-independent drawing operations (like the drawing of your toolpath). The version number describes the OpenGL capabilites which have been implemented by the graphics card. The higher, (usually) the better.
I cannot say whether it helps with your problems, but 31 bucks is nothing I'd think twice about.

33

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: July 17, 2014, 05:10:19 AM »

Additional information on previous posting "Wrong handling of file operation result code":

The reason for not generating mcLua.mcc had been a wrong mcc file, which had been generated with an earlier (now outdated) Lua version. My bad!
Still, the error messages are there, although everything works now as intended.

34

Mach4 General Discussion / Actually, there's no error

« on: July 17, 2014, 04:50:27 AM »

version: build 1900
output plugin: Sim

Wrong handling of file operation result code

- Create a new M code script with valid code in your Macros subfolder. Open Mach4.
- expected behaviour: The macro gets compiled to some .mcc file without any errors.
- resulting behaviour: Though the macro gets compiled, an error message is displayed on screen. The message translates to something like this "Failed to open MACROFILENAME for reading (error 0: the operation returned successful)." Also, because of this error message, Mach4 won't generate mcLua.mcc.
- possible reason: Maybe type in error code checking routine?

35

Mach4 General Discussion / Endless running script / barely visible G code editor window

« on: July 16, 2014, 02:33:15 AM »

version: build 1900
output plugin: Sim

Endless running script

- Create new script with single line "G1 X1" and empty 2nd line[/li][/list]
- Run the script
- expected behaviour: Script stops running after X hits 1.
- resulting behaviour: In some cases, script stops, but Cycle Start button is not re-enabled. In other cases, the line counter keeps increasing. In both cases Mach4 crashes after some time.
- possible reason: M30 (or some other stop code like M2) is omitted in script. The script will run fine, if M30 is put at the end of the script.

Minimum-sized G code editor

- Open an existing G code script.
- Hit "Edit G code"
- expected behaviour: Editor opens with default window size (or with last size).
- resulting behaviour: Minimized, barely visible editor window in center of Mach4 screen. Please see the attached image below.
- possible reason: Saving window position to C:\users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\gcedit.ini fails, because width and height are set to minimal values after closing GCEdit (w=112 and h=27, see attached .ini file). Editing those values manually helps. While parameters x, y and s get updated on closing the editor, width and height never do.

36

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 - COM Object

« on: June 10, 2014, 01:51:25 AM »

It's possible to create a plug-in (.DLL) which links and calls the Mach4 core library. This requires the Mach4 SDK.

Beside the API (listed in this thread: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,27141.0.html), Mach4 can actively call your plug-in to notify it about state changes.

37

Mach4 General Discussion / Macro file generation

« on: May 20, 2014, 04:13:58 AM »

build 1767-2 (Win7 x64)

1. Error message when compiling macro files.
Steps:

• Delete all pre-compiled .mcc files in macro folder of Mach4Mill profile. There should be 4 macro files remaining (M3, M4, M5, M6).
• Start Mach4
• Mach4 complains with a error message that it cannot open/stat precompiled files.
• All *.mcc files have been generated by the time the window shows up.

Expected behaviour: Mach4 compiles all macros and keeps silent (no error message, because files are generated anyway).

Please see screenshot below. As you can see, path does not contain any special chars or spaces.

2. Unable to use macros in recently created profile.
Steps:

• Create a new profile called "test", screen is "wxMach.set"
• Close Mach4 after successful start.
• Copy all macro source scripts (*.mcs) from Mach4Mill profile to test profile (subdirectory Macros).
• Start Mach4
• Cannot use any of the macros, nor are they compiled into .mcc during start-up.

Expected behaviour: Mach4 compiles all macros in test profile.

38

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: May 16, 2014, 02:40:24 AM »

In build 1767 there is still a bug with metric conversion.  I have my profile configured as Metric and the motor speed set to 10,000mm/m but G0 or jog show a feed rate of 254,000.

Calum

The bug goes deeper than that (experience based on build 1767-2):
Motor configuration does not depend on mm or inch. But whenever I switch to metric system (and restart Mach4), feedrates are magically lowered by factor 25.4 (inch to mm conversion factor) both with Simulator and real device plug-in (ESS).
This is also the case for the output steps on my motor, which doesnt do a full rotation anymore (when in "inch mode"), but only a small fraction of a circle (~ 10 degree).

The only workaround atm is to keep Units mode to "inch". I can live with that

Seems to be regression, because metric system worked fine in previous version(s) like in 1529 and 1593. It also seemed to work in 1646, though there the feedrate is multiplied by 4. (Those three versions haev been tested with Sim plugin.)

39

Mach4 General Discussion / wxLua scripting references and manuals (links)

« on: May 08, 2014, 01:14:34 AM »

Please be aware that you have to deal with three different things, when programming wizards or shiny UI stuff. Main documentation overview can be viewed here: http://wxlua.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

1. Lua
Replacing Basic, this is the new scripting language used in UI callbacks, scripts and wizards. API documentation: http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/

2. wxLua
This UI library was originally built on C++. It makes you able to build windows, frames, input fields, buttons and has been ported to Lua (not all of it, but most). You can either refer to wxWidget original API documentation (starting at http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.8/) or to the sparse wxLua doc (http://wxlua.sourceforge.net/docs/wxluaref.html, please scroll down for partial API).

3. Mach4 API
No functionality without a CNC... You can connect to Mach4 core by using its API in your scripts. The API commands are listed in Mach4 documentation file Docs/LuaCalls.txt. For further info, please read this thread: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,27141.0.html


Where to start?
Mach4 comes with some example wizards in Wizards subdirectory. Click Wizard -> Select Wizard to start them. The (so-far-default) UI also contains some scripting examples (see Operator -> Lua script for an overview).

40

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: May 07, 2014, 01:48:09 AM »

build: 1754 (demo)
system: W7 x64, working on a local drive (no filenames longer than 80 chars)

occurrence 1:
- start fresh instance of Mach4
- click "Open G code file"
- enter non-existant filename into "File name" input box (e.g. testme)
result:
- error box "Load error" containing A general failure occurred while loading testme.tap.
- file testme.tap is actually created in file system
expected result:
- file is created and, if successfully, loaded into system

occurrence 2:
- repeat scenario 1 with different file names so that a few new files are created
result:
- program silently crashes back to desktop after next click on "Open G code file"

occurrence 3:
- start fresh instance of Mach4
- click "Open G code file"
- navigate to directory containing valid G code files (e.g. GcodeFiles subdirectory)
- enter the name of valid G code filename including its extension, e.g. ArcTest.tap
result:
- program reports a "General failure loading" error
expected result:
- file gets loaded if user enters a valid filename including a valid (known) extension
- furthermore, Mach4 could try loading the file by the name entered by the user, then try to attach one of the file extensions