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581

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 22, 2014, 07:01:33 AM »

Sorry, at the moment the current release does not support XP so I cant yet verify Darwin works well enough
for release. Im hoping for a new release in a week or so.

Art

582

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 20, 2014, 07:57:27 AM »

Tweaky:

 Hard to say. It may not be noticed till now..but to me its a symptom of underlying issues with CPU loading, at least in XP, it may not effect other OS's. Im sure it will be found eventually.

Art

583

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 19, 2014, 01:49:18 PM »

I tried 1845 today, it wont run under XP as well...
Ive notified Brian of that..

Art

584

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 19, 2014, 11:46:16 AM »

Tweaky:

  I cant run latest version, my XP locks up hard. Are you using XP? (Just curious).
Ive spoken to Brian, he'll look into it tomorrow and we'll see why.

Art

585

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 19, 2014, 10:45:14 AM »

Ill ask Brian about that as well, its not seen on his other testing so it maybe a hidden item that affects performance..

Art

586

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 19, 2014, 08:22:08 AM »

Tweaky:

   This sounds like a Mach4 error similar to one M3 has a long while back. The Gcode should stop being interpreted and wait for something like an M3 or M5. It sounds like M4 is doing something strange with macros.

  Heres what I think is happening. When Mach4 sees the M5, it starts a wait thread. This thread wakes up every once in a while to see if all else is done up to that point. If it is, is does the M5, if it isnt, then it goes back to sleep.
For some reason it sounds like this is affecting job performance. Perhaps this thread waking up and going back to sleep doesn't affect external hardware but for screws up the program calling darwin regularly. Id report it to Brian and see what he thinks.. Things are still changing too fast for me to focus on the plugin, Im on other projects till M4 is further along.

Art

   

587

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 17, 2014, 03:47:34 PM »

Must be a small M4 bug, Darwin knows nothing of inches or mm's, it uses only steps/unit as its inputs. It understands frequencies , not distances.




Art

588

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 17, 2014, 11:46:02 AM »

Tweaky:

  Interesting...Ill have to take a look at the current code to see whats changed...

The J48-1 manual says wiring for CW is fine ( and seems to be here) but that you
get slightly less power than you do at 95% as the gas recovery rate is less. I dont think
its pulsing it when CW'ing.. the latest manual shows a pretty good explanation of the
method used , the waveforms seem convincing. Also, with a 10 wattt I doubt the
density gets high enough to hurt the mirrors or the lenses , though with 100 watt Id probably
worry about it. I did wonder about how they cool without water sufficiently, but then aluminum is a very
good conductor.

  I saw a photo of a J48-2 laser the other day mounted vertical, so failure in isuch a situation must be statistical,
your fine or your not..or your fine till your not.

  Very interesting world to play in..

Art

589

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 17, 2014, 10:31:20 AM »

Tweaky:

  I wasnt aware of the power issue, Im glad you mentioned it. Its surprising as they do allow a CW operation, youd think the power of 100% wouldnt be that much less than 95%, though I reliase its a matter of photon reovery allowing higher power at 95% than at 100%.  Ill keep note of that..

>>Mach3 engraving plugin allocates a set number of ‘dots’ per each individual pixel value and because for high pixel values the dots o

  Was it recoded since the original I wrote? As I recall I adopted a grey scaleing of the distance between pixels..but I wasnt sure if I put the code out for others to modify. ..

Art

590

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: June 17, 2014, 07:00:36 AM »

Wow, thats excellent Tweak..

   Question:

     I know the synrad ( and most RF lasers) requires a tickle of 1us at 5Khz.. The most Mach3 could ever do
at 5Khz was ( kernalspeed / 5khz ) was 5 power levels at 25Khz. The synrad has a pulse former in it that cleans up the 1us pulse so it probably worked fine for a pre-lase condition..my question is "Was 5 - 10 levels of power enough for you?" Looking at the situation with mine Im wondering if Id rather have 100 levels using a small micro hooked up and commanded by Mach in some way to produce the required levels.
  In chinese lasers you have only power, but RF lasers have so much more you "could" do. A maximum of 20Khz of control could be done..and still maintain the tickle properly if a small micro was used to control the trigger in conjunction with mach.

    Mach3's engraver plugin used a dithering grey code for photo's, this stretched any pixel by generating a grey code equivalent to the grey scale of the pixel involved. Does that work real well? Would it be an improvement if the actual power changed for each pixel? I never actually tested that grey code scale, I added it on faith at the time as a bit stream that alternated in a bresenham way as a function of photo density..

 Just wondering...

Art