Messages

1921

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Servo Spindle Question

« on: November 22, 2019, 02:43:16 PM »

Hi,
yes that can be done, I'm not sure that you would call it the 'proper way' though.

Because Mach can reassign motors to axes on-the-fly programmatically what I suggest is that you have two
axes defined, one your regular OB1 axis and the other a C axis.

Using:

rc = mc.mcAxisMapMotor(
      number mInst,
      number axisId,
      number motorId)

I believe you can assign your motor to each axis as required.
I would suggest you write two macros, m666,and m999 say.
m666 would assign your spindle motor to your OB1 axis, the normal operating condition. Thus m666 would need to be
included in all your Gcode jobs.
m999 would assign your spindle to the Caxis.

There may well be some complications that need to be worked through. For example the simple scheme I have sketched out would
require that the servo be step/direction in both modes with the same steps per rev in each mode. That data is stored in the ESS
and cannot, to my knowledge, be changed on the fly. I would suspect that the ESS would need to be power cycled to pick up
the fresh data.

What I did was to use two axes (OB and C) but with two permanently assigned motors. My OB axis is PWM and my C axis
is step/direction. When I wish to change mode I would have the ESS change a two pole relay and set an output for the
drive. I too use an AB3000 drive and I take advantage of the dual mode feature. In one mode (primary) its step/direction
and suitable as a C axis and the second mode its analogue velocity mode, all that is required is one digital input to the drive.
You've got to absolutely love modern AC servos!

You may recall I have just bought three 750W Delta B2 series servos for a new project and they have essentially the same
feature, namely dual mode operation with the application of just one input......so simple. I would guess that all new or recent
design servos would have the same feature or version of it. The competitive market requires that if one manufacturer does something
the others all do it too, just to keep up.

Craig

1922

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 demo "time out"

« on: November 22, 2019, 01:52:16 PM »

Hi,
with Mach4 each PC that runs it must be individually licensed using the unique PCID number.
Note that there are certain activities that change a PCs PCID, and once the PCID has changed Mach4 will become un-licensed on
that PC. If you install a new Windows OS or refresh a corrupted version of the same Windows OS both of these will
change the PCID.

A Mach4Hobby license allows up to five PCs to use the one purchased license. You could have both your office PC AND your
machine PC fully licensed without problem.

Should a PC blow up or otherwise be destroyed you can, using the on-line license management system, release the license
for the faulty PC and get a new license issued for the new replacement PC. You are allowed up to seven such license transactions
in a two year period.

All-in-all Mach4Hobby licensing is pretty generous and will allow a hobby user full access to his/her purchased software
WITHOUT being the open slather type licensing of Mach3 which resulted in so many pirate copies.

Craig

1923

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: cutting MDF on the CNC

« on: November 22, 2019, 01:37:27 PM »

Hi,

Copper does not machine well with laser, especially not with CO2

Copper is an almost perfect reflector of laser light at CO₂ wavelengths, in fact it is used as the reflector in
CO₂ tubes.

To machine copper with a CO₂ laser is a great way to destroy your laser and/or reflect laser light around your machine
wrecking things or burning/blinding the operator.

When making circuit boards, particularly the boards with really thick (0.42mm) copper it needs to be cut....not etched and certainly
not melted and blasted away with a laser.

Craig

1924

Mach Screens / Re: Fanuc Look-a-like screen

« on: November 21, 2019, 06:53:31 PM »

Hi chuck767,
I notice that you have posts on the Mach4 Disscussion board. If you are indeed using Mach4 or wishing to, then this board will be
of no help to you. This board concerns itself with Mach3 screens and its screen editor, none of which apply to Mach4.

Mach4 runs as Mach4GUI.exe and so the screen is editable without recourse to a separate program as is the case with Mach3. Indeed the
ease and flexibility with which you can edit the screen and its underlying scripts is perhaps the single biggest and most useful change from
Mach3 to Mach4.

Craig

1925

General Mach Discussion / Re: No movement on new computer.

« on: November 21, 2019, 06:40:48 PM »

Hi,

Got it figured out....kind of. Downloaded an older version of mach 3. Installed it. Everything works it appears. Pretty disappointed in Mach 3 overall at this point. Very finicky and unstable platform for CNC work.

Mach3 is now an old program, its been unsupported for six years. Mach4 is the current and supported product by NFS.
Depending on your previous experience you may well find Mach4 to be 'finicky' also, certainly by comparison to Fanuc and Siemens say.
Then again a hobby licence for Mach4 is $200 whereas a high spec Fanuc or Siemens controller will be $20,000 plus.

Craig

1926

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: S curve

« on: November 19, 2019, 02:21:26 AM »

Hi,
I'm well aware of what an S curve controller looks like. Its called third order because of the cubic term in the motion equation,
per the sample extracted from your link (attached).

If you read Arts explanation the Tempest Planner is a third order planner with 'extra bits'.

I believe the upshot was that the developers of Mach4, Art at that time had already sold to NFS, saw Arts work as interesting
but were more focused on producing a working CNC solution and the complication presented by a third order planner would
only delay that. The third order planner was never adopted by NFS.

Smurph has from time to time mentioned that he would like to revisit that decision. Now that mach4 is very definitely a working
CNC solution the intellectual investment in upgrading to a third order planner might be very welcome indeed.

Craig

1927

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: S curve

« on: November 19, 2019, 01:48:20 AM »

Hi,

its strange no any one here refer this question

That's not quite correct, at the time that Mach4 was being planned and talked about the possibility of including
a third order planner was discussed and experimented with. Historic now ....but:

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?board=83.0

Enjoy...all 142 posts of it!!

Craig

1928

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Running Mach 4 ver.2 on Windows XP

« on: November 19, 2019, 01:39:43 AM »

Hi,

There was no need to be offensive in your reply

My apologies, it was not my intention to offend, maybe customs are different in your part of the world but this sort of
comment does not ruffle feathers here.

Haven't you as an engineer wanted to resolve a problem you may have had, before going on to the next job in hand.

By all means yes, if, and the operative word here is 'if' there is a reasonable learning outcome to be had in pursuing a particular
idea to its conclusion however difficult that may be. In this instance even if you get Mach4 to work on XP....so what.....what have
you gained?

I have been using Mach4 for four years and I can assure you there is a wealth of stuff to learn, APIs, how Mach is structured, coding in
Lua, APIs, and Oh, have I mentioned APIs yet? My suggestion would be choose an OS like Windows 7, being Mach4 ready, and save
all that brain power for the real stuff yet to come.

So if I ask a reasonable question in the future I hope it would be reasonable reply.

Not withstanding the gybe in my reply....my reply IS reasonable, not necessarily palatable but reasonable none the less.

Craig

1929

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: "Go To WorkZero" doesn't lift up Z axis.

« on: November 19, 2019, 01:20:59 AM »

Hi,
in Lua the '--' signals that ALL text thereafter, on the same line is a comment.

This line:

--mc.mcCntlMdiExecute(inst, "G00 G53 Z0\nG00 X0 Y0 A0")

does absolutely nothing, Lua/Mach ignores it as a comment. If you remove the '--' then the code3 becomes active.

Craig

1930

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Running Mach 4 ver.2 on Windows XP

« on: November 18, 2019, 12:45:06 PM »

Hi,
by the way......if you need to explain to your husband why XP won't work and need an Engineering argument
to support migrating to Windows 7 or later its 'don't be a bloody plonker....get  up to date!'

Being an engineer myself I am delighted to be able to use such precision language with just a hint of emotion....

Craig