Messages

5491

General Mach Discussion / Re: Raft of problems

« on: January 25, 2018, 12:42:14 PM »

Hi,
are you using Mach3 or Mach4?

Once you set the steps per unit you should not adjust them. What are your native units?

Craig

5492

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Button OFFLINE

« on: January 25, 2018, 12:31:25 PM »

Hi,
the macros DO NOT disable Mach, they are meant to turn on and off a signal (OSIG_ENABLE0) which is connected to a pin. These macros are just for experimentation
anyway.  If you can't get them to turn a pin on your controller on and off then you'll have no chance to program Mach.

Have you read the chapter about the script editor? Have you opened the scripts and run them? Are the macros in your current profile?

Craig

5493

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Button OFFLINE

« on: January 24, 2018, 09:02:07 PM »

Hi,
just realised its also in the Mach4 Docs folder, you already have it!

Craig

5494

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?

« on: January 24, 2018, 06:50:58 PM »

Hi Reinhard,

The only case, where I can imagine to change velocity of a single axis is on lathe when you plane the front surface. In that case the axis don't has an endpoint and the speed of the turning axis depends on the x-position - thus mach4 has to know x-position during move.

This question about changing the velocity of an axis within a coordinated move came up because a member wished to alter
the A axis rotation speed in proportion to radius. A very similar situation to that you proposed.

Mach4 can change the feedrate by changing all axes within the corordinated move. It can update the feedrate 40 times per second.
Is that update rate not adequate?

I understand the PLC runs faster than that, about 12.5ms. You can program it to run faster although I believe there are practical
limits which suggest about 5ms. The PLC could read an analogue vale at around 200Hz, is that fast enough?

Craig

5495

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Button OFFLINE

« on: January 24, 2018, 06:37:38 PM »

Hi,
it is a program that runs Lua code, part of the script editor, chapter 2:

http://www.machsupport.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Mach4%20Scripting%20Manual.pdf

Download it and read it, then read it again, and the read it again for good measure.

Craig

5496

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How do I get to the center of 2 edges?

« on: January 24, 2018, 04:06:55 PM »

Hi,
I suspect its a module and it may not be included in the latheprofile.

Craig

5497

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Button OFFLINE

« on: January 24, 2018, 04:05:41 PM »

Hi,
thats correct, enabling Mach should cause Enable#0 to go high ie cause the relay to operate.

Try opening the macros and single stepping through them with the debugger. Note m211 should turn Enable#0 off
and m210 should turn it on.

Craig

5498

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?

« on: January 24, 2018, 02:08:32 AM »

Hi Reinhard,
if you attempt to change the pulse rate of one axis which is part of a coordinated move the eventual endpoint will no longer be the point which the trajectory planner
calculated.

All the other axes will reach their desired end points but the axis you altered mid flight will not. How does your software now plan the next move?
Feedrate on the other hand can be changed because ALL axes involved in the move vary and by the same proportion, so the move may be slower but at any
given point along the trajectory all axes are coordinated.

Craig

5499

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Button OFFLINE

« on: January 24, 2018, 01:56:28 AM »

Hi,
well you are going to have to change that.

Open your CSIMO plugin and assign an available output pin on your controller to Machs output signal Enable#0.

You should now be able to turn that pin on and off using the two macros. Eventually you'll use that pin to enable/disable one of your servo drives.
I dont know what output voltage the CSIMO controller uses, with any sort of lick you may be able to hook it direct to your servo drive. You will have to check
that they are compatible before you do it though.

Craig

5500

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Is Mach4 really Hobby Material?

« on: January 23, 2018, 10:50:27 PM »

Hi,
all of the readily available controllers do all the basic stuff.

There are a number of functions which require specific support/behaviour from the controller to be enacted.
The simplest is homing, but literally if a controller can't support homing I can't see it being on the market either.

The features which determine whether a controller is mature or still under development are probing, THC, backlash
compensation and lathe threading.

All Mach4 ready boards that I'm aware of support probing, so much so that it should be considered entry level.

The rest are all over the place. Vital Sytems Hicon board has always enjoyed a reputation for leading the development
curve. Given the cost of a Hicon board perhaps it should come as no surprise, Vital Systems probably enjoy a development
budget greater than all the others.

Amongst the 'value' manufacturers PMDX and PoKeys seem to be offering a greater range of features than the ESS say,
and the CNCDrive products (UC100, UC300, UC400) are only so recently released with a Mach4 plugin it comes as no
surprise that the features offered lag behind so of the more experienced Mach4 manufacturers.

When external motion controllers were first contemplated and then manufactured to suit Mach3 there was a wide spread
in what was offed as extra features and quite some years passed before all manufacturers implemented all of them.

That situation is repeating itself with Mach4. One comment in this thread was that NFS should maintain a list of compatible
boards and features offered. It would be nice but NFS is absolutely not the right organisation to do it...they're too close
to the manufactures concerned and any suggestion of bias or tardiness of behalf of NFS to update it list could result in a nasty
stouch behind the scenes.

A suitably respected and/or qualified individual could maintain such a list but it would rely on the support of the manufacturers
to provide the information. I could well imagine that some or even all manufacturers might be very reluctant to pass information
to another person whom would have a significant role in wether the market took up their products or not.

In some respects I think the manufacturers should be responsible. For instance Steve has chimed in that his PMDX smartBoBs
support threading and encoder spindle control. Why the hell should I be unsure, I mean I've been to the PMDX website on
many occasions yet had not gotten that message. SHOUT OUT THE GOOD STUFF Steve!

A comment earlier in this thread suggested that the third party hardware supplier model has made uptake of Mach 3 or 4
somewhat more difficult than it might have been. That overlooks the advantages to customers re competition for those
same products. Notwithstanding the confusion and varied approach to extras that comes with multiple manufacturers I
feel overall that I, as a customer, am well supported.

Craig