Messages

5601

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting to millimeters

« on: December 29, 2017, 03:11:02 AM »

Hi,
read smurphs explanation again, there specific times and circumstances that Mach flushes settings to the ini file and certain occasions when it reads it.
There are APIs to force a flush or re-read. The means are there to have Mach perform as you wish...the question is do you want to take advantage of it.

Craig

5602

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting to millimeters

« on: December 28, 2017, 07:24:58 PM »

Hi.
I disagree, Mach never gets out of sync with itself it is we who get out of step with Mach.

As you have discovered shutting down and restarting Mach does the trick OR use the APIs provided.

If I am doing something programmatically the I use the APIs for other tweaks is use the shutdown/restart method.

Craig

5603

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting to millimeters

« on: December 28, 2017, 06:53:50 PM »

Hi Allen,
there is not any signal of that description to my knowledge. To define your own signal I believe requires a plugin which is a whole different kettle of fish.

There are some helpful APIs:

rc = mc.mcProfileFlush(
      number mInst)

rc = mc.mcProfileReload(
      number mInst)

I think I've narrowed the bug down

When I first encountered this behavior I too thought I had found a bug but as smurphs explanation makes plain it was that I did not understand how Mach was organized
not a bug at all.

5604

General Mach Discussion / Re: mach3

« on: December 28, 2017, 06:44:07 PM »

Hi,
price a real CNC controller like Fanuc or Siemens....20k plus and annual fees as well!

Craig

5605

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting to millimeters

« on: December 28, 2017, 04:29:42 PM »

Hi Allen,
not quite sure what you mean. What event has taken place?

Craig

5606

General Mach Discussion / Re: Pin ID for this 5 axis breakout board with V5 relay

« on: December 28, 2017, 03:52:18 PM »

Hi,
you say its a five axis board. Ten of the available 12 outputs would be required to drive five motors. One output for the relay so that only leaves one output
left over. If you can eliminate all the others your problem is solved.

You use this board to control your machine currently? If so you already know which pins are associated with each axis you have installed.
You could assign each unidentified pin in turn as Step for axis B for instance, I assume axis B is not currently equipped and assigned. Then you can MDI
commands that B axis rotate one way then the other and observe each pin on the board with a multimeter. Each time you identified a pin which changes state
on each axis reversal MDI command you will have identified Machs parallel port pin number for that board pin.

Craig

5607

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting to millimeters

« on: December 28, 2017, 12:29:35 PM »

Hi,
I've encountered something similar before and it concerns when Mach writes new info to the .ini file and also when it re-reads that file.
Look for  smurphs explanation top of page two.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,33866.0.html

Craig

5608

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Limit switches

« on: December 27, 2017, 07:38:00 PM »

Hi Rob,
a pic of one of my home switches...as you can see there is  a ramp which activates the roller.

The combination is very conveniently placed within the machine boundaries, the ramp is such that if it overrides the switch no harm is done.
The spec on these switches give a hysteresis of 0.05 mm and are very repeatable.

Craig

5609

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: controlling JP-3163B in 6040T USB CNC with Mach4

« on: December 27, 2017, 07:06:40 PM »

Hi Rob,
yes you are right.

To OP,
as Rob has pointed out if you were to use a UC100 (or an PMDX-411 or a 57CNCD25) you could just plug into the parallel port socket on your controller board
and it would work That would require that you have decent info about your board so you can match to the UC100. Do you have GOOD documentation
with your controller?
The only other issue is that future expansion is very limited, the UC100 has one ports worth of IO. If you are of the opinion you will want more in the near future
you'd be better off buying a more capable unit straight up. However all three devices are attractively priced, around $120USD. Just as a warning there are lots of
Chinese UC100 knockoffs on Ebay in particular. DON'T waste your money on that rubbish, go direct to CNCDrive or their nominated distributor.

Craig

5610

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: controlling JP-3163B in 6040T USB CNC with Mach4

« on: December 27, 2017, 06:34:24 PM »

Hi rndpig,
my confusion notwithstanding.....your budget pretty much precludes replacing the drivers at least with good quality ones.

There are plenty of cheap Chinese driver boards on EBay but all of low quality. It maybe that you have to get one as a temporary measure.
The other possibility is as I suggested earlier and modify your existing controller so that you can use the stepper drivers only.

My training/profession/obsession is electronics. If I had the board in front of me I could probably tell you within ten minutes whether what I've proposed is
feasible. In absence of the board I would like some detailed pics of the board close up. In particular I wish to see the circuit traces of the six white Opto ICs.

Where abouts in the world are you...I live in New Zealand so I can pretty much guarantee that I'm a long way from you. It still might be feasible to send me the board
and withy luck ( could modify it and send it back without costing us a fortune in postage.

Craig