Messages

351

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: M4 update to 5000 version, result: system failures

« on: January 16, 2023, 01:14:29 PM »

Hi,
yes all that info is in the .ini file. Its the screen set that we are talking about here which includes all the extra little bits of code you havewritten.

Craig

352

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trying to get Mach3/Mach4 to work with Dorna Robot G2Core Arduino Due 5-axis

« on: January 16, 2023, 03:15:58 AM »

Hi,
that is a robot arm with three rotating joints that I can see.  Gcode cannot drive that.

Gcode, at least lets start with just three axis Gcode, describes the movement of a machine along the X axis,
Y axis and Z axis all mutually orthogonal to each other. If you have a Gcode file like this:

G1 X 100
G1 Y100
G1 Z 100
G1 X0 Y0 Z0

then the machine moves to 100mm in the X direction, then it moves 100mm in the Y direction, then 100mm in the Z direction,
and the last line causes all three axes to move at once it a straight line from (100,100,100) to (0,0,0).

In order for your robot arm to describe a 100mm linear movement requires coordinated action between the three rotating joints.
This is done by a 'kinematic solver'. If you wish to make for instance a linear move of 100mm in a given direction at a given speed
the you need some software that can 'solve' for the required commands to each of the three rotating joints so that motion can be achieved.
The relationship between the three rotating joints is not necessarily constant either.

Mach is not, nor will it ever be a kinematic solver. If you have a separate program that does the kinematics then you could potentially use Mach
to signal the motor drives, not a very practical solution. It would be a bit like translating English into Chinese and the Chinese to Russian, when it would
be better to translate direct from English to Russian and skip the Chinese bit altogether.

I don't think Mach is going to help you. Mach is a GCode interpreter and orthogonal trajectory planner, great for CNC machines and 3D printers,
CNC lathes and CNC Laser tables but no good for robot kinematics. You are barking up the wrong tree.

Craig

353

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Best way to disable/e-stop machine on servo error (digital input)

« on: January 16, 2023, 02:48:12 AM »

Hi,
OK:

Code: [Select]

LUA Syntax:
rc = mc.mcCntlEnable(
number mInst,
number state)

Description:
Enable or disable the control.


So the second parameter sets either TRUE or FALSE.

Craig

354

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trying to get Mach3/Mach4 to work with Dorna Robot G2Core Arduino Due 5-axis

« on: January 16, 2023, 02:44:38 AM »

Hi,
from what I can see it looks like the Arduino is the motion controller, but I know of NO Arduino based controller that accepts trajectory data
from either Mach3 or Mach4.

If you want to do that then get an Ethernet SmoothStepper and use the SmoothStepper to signal your five axis drives. The you could use Mach3
or Mach4, but note that Mach is a Gcode interpreter.....I'm not at all sure it will drive a robot arm.

Can you post a pic of the robot? If the robot has X, Y, A, and B axes then maybe, but if the axes are not orthongal then you require a kinematic
solver, and that is not what Mach does.

Craig

355

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Best way to disable/e-stop machine on servo error (digital input)

« on: January 16, 2023, 12:15:05 AM »

Hi,

I think I had forgotten the 0 parameter so it hadn't been disabling the drives

What exactly is the '0' parameter? I assume you mean the instance variable? If that is that case you are writing potentially weak code.
It is true that the only instance of Mach4 in a single instance environment is instance 0.......but that may not always be true. Mach4 was always intended to be
a multi-instance solution, and Mach4Expert is already multi instance. Thus, if your code were to run on such a machine it would fail.

Craig

356

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trying to get Mach3/Mach4 to work with Dorna Robot G2Core Arduino Due 5-axis

« on: January 15, 2023, 09:51:23 PM »

Hi,
Mach, be it Mach3 OR Mach4 is a Gcode interpreter and trajectory planner. Its output is a string of numeric data, in 32 bit integer blocks that describe the controlled point in 1 millisecond time slices.
To my knowledge neither g2core nor GRBL can accept the numeric data that Mach produces.

A motion controller, for example an Ethernet SmoothStepper, has a plugin which is software that adapts the motion controller to Mach....but the same basic scheme is in action,
ie Mach produces a stream of numeric data, and the motion controller converts that data to pulse stream suitable for the axis motor drives.

Craig

357

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: M4 update to 5000 version, result: system failures

« on: January 15, 2023, 03:10:14 PM »

Hi,

for installing a new version i will take you're advice to rename my current directory..

You can change the directory, and I note that many people do rename the entire Mach4 directory so they can revert to it should they have to....
but I've never bothered. What I do instead is rename the screen set I am using and that means that that particular screenset will survive an update.

In the attached pic I have two individually named screen sets , Mywx4.set and Mywx6.set. They started out as just plain copies of the Mach provided wx4.set and wx6.set.
They have been modified by me to suit my machine....and so I don't want to lose them or have them overwritten when I update.

Craig

358

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Best way to disable/e-stop machine on servo error (digital input)

« on: January 15, 2023, 02:56:26 PM »

Hi,
I use servos on my new mill.

Each servo has an alarm output which is hooked to the BoB/ESS combination. I have allowed for six axes (X,Y,Z,A,B,C) and thus have six inputs to the ESS,
one for each axis. Any one or more of those inputs will cause the machine to Estop, using the API provided for the purpose. Note that each alarm input has
an entry in the SigLib table that invokes the mcCntlEStop() API.

Code: [Select]

LUA Syntax:
rc = mc.mcCntlEStop(
number mInst)

Description:
Disables the control and optionally dereferences all axes.


All my servos have an ENABLE input and a RESET input. In order for a servo to run it must be enabled. Note also that the ESS has output signals of the type Motor0Enable,
Motor1Enable, Motor3Enable etc. When Mach is enabled then all these outputs are active, and when or if Mach is Estopped then all those signals go inactive.
I use only one signal, Motor0Enable, and use it to drive all six servos. The ESS output switches a signal level MOSFET on the BoB and pulls the ENABLE output low.
The servos are programmed that an active low input turns the servo on.

Just as a matter of interest I have an electromagnetic brake on the Z axis and it too is driven from the same ESS output. The ESS Motor0Enable also switches a medium
current Darlington transistor on the BoB to apply 24VDC to the electromagnetic brake. It requires approx 250mA to release the brake.

My servos require an active RESET should they fault out. For this purpose I use a general purpose ESS output and that drives a circuit commoned to all the six servos RESET input.
I have a button on screen that I press should any one or more of the servos require a reset....it hardly ever happens, but its handy. Otherwise I would have to de-power the machine to
allow a power-cycle to reset the servo drives, a PITA.

Craig

359

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help on Mach screen modification.

« on: January 15, 2023, 02:08:39 PM »

Hi,
Mach4 is an entirely new product and does not share any code with Mach3.
There is no upgrade path from Mach3 to Mach4.

Craig

360

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can't set x axis to "0" home

« on: January 14, 2023, 07:34:52 PM »

Hi,
would you please expand on what you are trying to do.

'Homing' has a very different meaning to 'Zeroing an Axis'.

The machine is natively in machine coordinates, its the only coordinate systemm the machine understands. If you 'Home' a machine it will drive in turn
to each of the home  switches in turn and zero the MachineCoordinate of each axis (or offset by a given amount per your programming).  This is the machine
'Home'.

Its common, not actually required, but common for the machine Home to be with the X axis hard to the left, the Y axis hard to the front and the Z axis right at the top of travel.
Most machines have limit switches at each extreme end of travel of each axis and thus three of those limit switches can also be used to define the machine Home.
There is nothing to stop you from having the machine Home elsewhere, for instance you could have three home switches that are located in the middle of each axis.
All that the machine is interested in is that there is a single well defined and absolutely repeatable location where the machine coordinates are 0,0,0

Note that the only way to set the machine coordinates is to use a Homing procedure, either with home switches, or you can use the 'Home in Place' option.

I suspect its that Home in Place option that you are trying to use and its confusing you.

The other procedure is 'Zeroing an Axis'. Lets say you have already 'Homed' or equivalently 'Referenced' your machine, where its gone right to the top of the Z axis, X axis to the left
and right forward of the Y axis and there established the machine Home of 0,0,0 in machine coordinates. Now you put a piece of material in the vice roughly in the center of the table.
You now jog your machine to the lower lefthand corner of the material and hit <Zero X>and  < Zero Y>. The X and Y axes DROs will now read zero. This is the Work Coordinate position.
If you toggle to the machine coordinate DROs you will see that the Work Zero is X=256.87mm and Y=341.54mm. That means that the Work Zero, ie the corner of the material is
256.87mm from the far left of the X axis and 341.54 mm up from the bottom of the Y axis. That's ll very well, but it does not help you especially, what you want to do is drill a hole
in the material 42mm in X and 21mm in Y from the corner of the material. If you flip back to the WorkCoordinate DROs now you can jog to X=42 and Y=21 and drill your hole.
The fact the the machine uses machine coordinates does not really bother you, all you want to do is drill the hole in the right place.....its up to the machine to keep a running tally
of the machine coordinates, and the machine does that no trouble, where that would hopelessly confuse you and I after a while.

The important point here is that while you can zero a work coordinate position and otherwise manipulate them what you CAN'T do is set a machine position at will, that CAN ONLY
be done by one of the two Homing procedures, either 'Homing' ('Referencing') to home switches or 'Home in Place'.

Craig