Messages

471

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 plasma acting weird, z commanded over soft limits

« on: October 25, 2022, 04:58:13 PM »

Hi,
just a guess, but do you have THC?

THC usually works an an 'overload axis'. This means that the Z axis works normally, but the THC height variations are applied to a mythical extra Z axis motor which
works in parallel with the main Z axis motor. In practice the up/down signals are sent to the main Z axis motor, but the idea remains that there are two sources of pulses,
the regular Mach generated Z axis trajectory pulses AND the THC pulses.

Mach can and does keep track of the main Z axis pulses but it cannot keep up with the overload axis. When you go do do a regular job the accumulated overload axis movement will offset
the Z axis. If you had Homed before then the accumulated overload offset would be accounted for and Mach would not dive into the table.

Craig

472

General Mach Discussion / Re: Weird arcs and circles in my Mach3 toolpaths

« on: October 24, 2022, 04:00:40 AM »

Hi,
its called Radius Arcs.

Craig

473

General Mach Discussion / Re: Weird arcs and circles in my Mach3 toolpaths

« on: October 22, 2022, 07:34:40 PM »

Hi,
Mach3 uses natively 'incremental arcs'. Fusion is producing arcs using 'absolute'.

In the Fusion Mach3 post select Incremental Arcs and you'll be fine.

Craig

474

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

« on: October 20, 2022, 09:47:50 PM »

Hi,
as smurph has pointed out that behaviour is set by the motion controller.

The motion controller that is the subject of this thread is the ESS. The ESS reports to Mach a 32 bit integer value corresponding to the machine coordinates.
That value is multiplied by the step/unit value and that is the machine coordinates in native units which in turn populates Machs DROs. To my knowledge
ALL Mach4 ready motion controllers work that way. Thus the ONLY way to change the machines coordinates of Mach is to CHANGE the integer value fed to Mach
from the motion controller.

There is nothing that NFS could or should do about it, its not a Mach4 issue.

In the case of the ESS there are two ways to change the integer value, either by moving that axis OR Homing....no other choices have been made available by Warp9,
and in fact I don't see that its really required either, although OP seems to disagree. The work-around I and Katz have used is to use the HomeInPlace instruction, which
requires no axis movement or Home switch involvement, and HomeOffset. It's adequate.

I note this discussion is being had on the Warp9 forum and Andy is thinking about modifying the ESS code to allow a user to arbitrarily set the machine integer value.

Craig

475

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

« on: October 17, 2022, 02:25:11 PM »

Hi,

Should you really need to do it for a "Hobby" installation?

Well no.....in fact you don't. Once I had fitted proper and decent Home switches I found that I didn't need this facility at all and I let the
code for it 'lapse' six years ago because I didn't use it.


Craig

476

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

« on: October 17, 2022, 06:44:34 AM »

Hi,

Unless you simply want it to save it's state over shutdown....

I've posted that it can be done, twenty or thirty lines of code, or does it have to be programmed for you by NFS?
I did it myself not long after I started using Mach4, say 7.5 years ago. I found it less useful than you might believe, but I did have
it working. I've updated I don't know how many times since and that code didn't survive and was not useful enough for me to be bothered
to recreate it.....but its not rocket science.

Craig

477

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle wont start with G-code

« on: October 16, 2022, 07:38:15 PM »

Hi,
my machine does not have a toolchanger so the m6 is redundant. If I recall correctly you can make a setting in the post that stops Fusion from including
an m6 block....but then I think you miss out on the required m3.

My machine (Mach4) is set up to 'Ignore M6', so even the redundant m6 does not stop my machine, it just ignores it but does get the benefit from the inclusion of
the following m3.

Craig

478

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle wont start with G-code

« on: October 16, 2022, 06:55:43 PM »

Hi,
I don't have to edit anything, yes the Fusion post puts an m5 at the start, but thats no problem as the spindle is usually stopped anyway, but shortly
thereafter Fusion inserts an m3 snnnn block and the spindle starts.

For example:

Code: [Select]

(LENS)
(T2  D=1.5 CR=0. - ZMIN=-3.25 - FLAT END MILL)
G90 G94 G91.1 G40 G49 G17
G21

(2D CONTOUR1)
M5
T2 M6
S24000 M3
G54
G0 A0.
M8
G0 X37.05 Y0.65
G43 Z15. H2
Note the M5, followed by M6 and then an M3. This is straight from the post, no editing required.

Craig

479

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

« on: October 16, 2022, 06:37:07 PM »

Hi,
I had Mach4Hobby and my ESS motion control saving the machine coordinates at the end of a session and then writing those saved values to the ESS
at the next start years ago. There is a trick that you can pull using HomeInPlace and HomeOffset that effectively hoodwinks the ESS into writing an arbitrary value into
the machine coordinate register.

I never really used it. Like Steve every time I start Mach I Home....always....no matter what. It takes but a few seconds, no guessing, no inaccuracies.
I never turn my machine off, unless perhaps I'm doing some maintenance or alteration or maybe the power has faulted out....a fairly rare occurrence.
My mill has been sitting powered on for the best part of two months since the last time I powered it down to fit a new fourth axis. I ocassionaly re-Home
but have yet to find a time when the reference has somehow 'slipped'.

The only time that I've ever really wanted the feature that Rimmel wants is when the machine crashes, by that I mean a software crash or something along those
lines. In that event the machine does not shut down gracefully and so the Screen Unload script never runs anyway.....so whats the point?..... and under those same circumstances
I would not expect the ESS plugin to be running and therefore retain machine coordinates either. Even if the plugin were running would I trust that the machine coordinates had not
been corrupted?.....no I don't think so.

There are features  that I wish Mach4 and the ESS had, but this is not one of them. Features that help me make parts certainly, but this feature does not do that.

Craig

480

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

« on: October 16, 2022, 04:21:09 PM »

Hi,
if you have parameters, in this case coordinates, that you want to save.....that's what the ScreenUnload script is for, save the data to the .ini file and
restore the data at the next startup during the first pass of the PLC.

There is a particular procedure (other than Homing) where you can set the machine coordinates at will, it's a workaround and not too difficult, and is in any case
automated.

Craig