Messages

3201

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: PMDX-414 motion coms error

« on: January 24, 2019, 01:19:16 AM »

Hi,
I think you will get more help if you ask PMDX directlty. They have an excellent reputation for helping their customers.

You might also try an Email to Steve Stallings, a regular on the forum and one of the head honchos at PMDX.

Your description is the classic description for a glitch or electrical noise interfering and/or crashing USB communications.
USB can be very sensitive to such problems.

Craig

3202

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Jog buttons are not activated

« on: January 24, 2019, 01:05:24 AM »

Hi,
just a quick question, do you have the Keyboard Inputs plugin enabled?

Craig

3203

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Jog buttons are not activated

« on: January 24, 2019, 01:01:48 AM »

Hi,
I assume you mean that when you first start Mach the arrow buttons on the keyboard don't work?

That is normal, its not so much that jogging doesn't work but that the keyboard arrow buttons are by default disabled
on start up.

If you go to the jogging tab and click the <Keyboard Inputs Enable> button and try again.

Craig

3204

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Can't set machine position in script

« on: January 24, 2019, 12:54:09 AM »

Hi,

I use the mc.mcAxisSetMachinePos but it doesn't seem work.

Have a closer look at the API.chm for msSetMachinePosition, note that there is no 'description' which certainly doesn't
help but look at the usage example. It is of course using C syntax....

Code: [Select]

Usage:

// Set axis 0 fisxture offset.
int mInst = 0;
mcAxisSetMachinePos(mInst, 0, 0.0 /* set part zero */);

Note that it says 'Set axis 0 fixture offset'.....that implies that it does NOT set the machine coordinate. This may seem
strange or contrary to your expectation but my experimentation concludes that you cannot use this API to set the machine
coordinates.

With any sort of luck smurph will read this post and he may be able to confirm my interpretation.

My understanding is that there is only three ways to change the machine coordinates:
1) <Ref All Home> or <Ref Axis>, ie the machine will drive to the home switch location and reset (or alternately set the
    machine coordinate to your programmed offset) your machine coordinate.
2) <Ref All Home> or <Ref Axis> when the axis does not have a home switch in which case it will home in place.
3) Move the machine either by jogging, MDI or Gcode

Note that none of those methods allow you to arbitrarily set the machine coordinates.

Craig

3205

General Mach Discussion / Re: Control Mach3 via Labview

« on: January 23, 2019, 01:53:15 AM »

Hi,
well then download Mach4.

There is no way you will get a Mach4.dll file if you are fiddling around with Mach3.

I have Mach4Hobby and it has several .dll files in the main Mach4Hobby directory. They are complied so I don't think
they will be of much use to you but they are there...you can have them for free.

Craig

3206

General Mach Discussion / Re: Control Mach3 via Labview

« on: January 23, 2019, 01:24:57 AM »

Hi,

I have a 3-axis stage which is controlled by Mach3.

So your machine is controlled by Mach3.....yet...

To connect Mach3 and Labview, I need Mach4.dll file,

Why do you want Mach4.dll? Mach3 and Mach4 are totally different programs. Even if there is a Mach4.dll
it would still do you no good trying to control Mach3.

Mach4 is still fairly new and is under active development and probably more suitable for you needs whereas all development
of Mach3 ceased five years ago. In the Mach4Hobby folder for instance there are several .dll files. Without New Fangled
Solutions help I don't think they will be of much use to you.

Various individuals and companies have had need of New Fangled Solutions help to complete various plugins and develop
hardware. In order to get that assistance and all the 'inside gen' on Mach4 they had to sign a NDA (Non Disclosure
Agreement) to protect their software. If you have a worthy project and NFS ( New Fangled Solutions) can be convinced
you will treat their intellectual property with respect then I'm sure they would help and provide the code necessary
to do your project.

I don't think any normal Mach users have the information you are seeking, you need to ask NFS directly.

Craig

3207

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help defining outputs in LUA script for tool change

« on: January 22, 2019, 12:21:23 PM »

Hi,
smurph has described 'Lua syntax in something only a mother could love'.

What has surprised me about Lua is that while it has such a small footprint and such an apparently slim 'feature
matrix' is that those features it does have allow such a wide range of programming solutions.

One which impresses me and is used extensively throughout Mach is 'function as a first class value'. So a function is
represented as just a number.....I think it is in fact a pointer to the function code.

Imagine that if you call a function, ie provide the pointer to it, the function executes and then it returns
another pointer to yet another function. The function it points to will depend on the inputs to the machine say and will vary
with those inputs. Thus functions execute 'head to tail' in a never ending cycle WITHOUT the stack growing. Thus Lua can
implement a 'state machine'. Other languages with which I am familiar  would call that situation  'nested subroutines'
and this approach would fail because each time a function was entered the stack would grow, ultimately exceeding the memory
allocated for the stack.

It a good example how Lua an apparently simple language can produce a solution that other more sophisticated languages can't.

Craig

3208

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Un-Supported wxNumberEntryDialog

« on: January 22, 2019, 02:13:02 AM »

Hi Chad,

So, I don't have any idea about wx stuff.  Looking through Daz's example makes a little bit of sense to me, but when I generate code from wxFormbuilder I don't really know what I'm looking at.

I must say that I found the same thing when I tried using wxFB......it generated lots of code which I didn't really understand.
Even worse it seemed like the code extended for miles.....hundreds of line of code to get one number from the user?

Digesting simpler blocks of code like the file dialog I have posted or the dialog Daz has posted are much closer to my expectation
of 'code overhead' that is desirable in simple Mach scripts.

For all that, wxFB is clever and if you wanted a truly complex sequence of screen windows then probably indispensable.

Craig

3209

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help defining outputs in LUA script for tool change

« on: January 22, 2019, 01:59:06 AM »

Hi,
I always have this online manual open when I am coding Lua:

https://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/

Unlike a lot of computer languages Lua has only one data structure, the table.

Section 6.5 covers some of the table manipulation functions but note the syntax:
table.function(). Does that look familiar? Have a look at the maths functions that come with Lua. Again look at the syntax:
maths.cos(x) for instance, or another example is the string functions like: string.find(x.....) for instance.

In short all the maths functions are member functions of the table 'math' and the string functions are all member functions
of the table 'string'

So what is the "mc." designation? Is there a list of these somewhere that I can find that maps the I/O and other signals I can read?

the answer is that mc. stands for the table mach core. So ALL the API functions ( API.chm in the Mach4 Docs folder)
are all member functions of the table 'mc'

You will encounter others like wx. The 'wx' table is a table of wxWidgets functions which does a lot of the graphical heavy
lifting in Machs screen. Another you may see from time to time is scr. The 'scr' table has functions for populating Machs
screen with data and manipulating it.

So despite Lua having only one data structure it is in fact extremely versatile. In  fact a simple single variable, like
MyNumber in Lua, is in fact a table, its just a table of one object, ie your number.

So Mach is a whole bunch of tables, in the case of the mc. table it has many hundreds of objects like functions,
mcSignalGetHandle() is an example of one, but also data objects like mc.OSIG_OUTPUT1 and hundreds more right down
to tables with a single data object like MyNumber as I have given above.

This is on the one hand an extremely simple arrangement and at the same time extremely crafty.

Lua has surprised and delighted me after what might have been called a 'difficult beginning', I hope your experience has
a positive outcome also.

Craig

3210

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Un-Supported wxNumberEntryDialog

« on: January 21, 2019, 12:38:34 PM »

Hi Daz,
great stuff there. Some new concepts for me to get my head around.

For instance:

Code: [Select]

coords_val = ""
coordsObj = wxlua.wxLuaObject(coords_val)
What does this do and why is it required? Hang on......just seen it, the numeric filter requires an object on which to operate?

Another query I have is say 'dialog' is defined....is it necessary to define as global or is it permissible to define it as local?

I see mainframe has been defined with 0 size, so presumably it does not have an onscreen image but what is:

Code: [Select]

wx.wxFRAME_TOOL_WINDOW
This is exactly the sort of thing that I want.....enough new concepts included in a working example so I can work out
how all the individual pieces get put together. Thanks again.

Craig