Messages

71

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Post Processor for Plasma in Fusion 360 and a ESS motion - Cant Find One

« on: May 14, 2023, 04:25:40 PM »

Hi,
Fusion 360 already has a Mach4 post.

You will most likely have to modify it to suit your specific purpose, but the basic post is there and complete.

Craig

72

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: M6 Lua script help!

« on: May 13, 2023, 10:54:14 PM »

Hi,

I purchased a license last night but i'm not sure if its an industrial one. It was $200.

A $200 license is Mach4Hobby. Mach4Industrial is $1400...quite a difference. There is very little that Industrial can do that Hobby cannot, don't be alarmed,
but as GOOMBA points out NFS 'roll out the red carpet' for Industrial customers, including direct assistance with m6 Lua code.

Coding in Lua has a distinct learning curve and there is quite a bit you'll want to read and digest before you become familiar with it.

You'll want this:

https://www.lua.org/docs.html

Mach4 uses version 5.3 if I'm not mistaken. I have  this open on the desktop when coding.

You'll read,  again and again.......this:

Mach4Hobby/Docs/Mach4CoreAPI.chm

There you'll find all the API's that are exposed for your use, both Lua and C.

If you want to use dialogs in your code, I'd recommend you don't to start with, or use those that you can copy and paste from Lua examples, other than that you'll need:

https://www.wxwidgets.org/docs/

Its written for geeks, by geeks, and in geekese, and remember you asked for it.

If you want to get into wxWidgets in a big way then you'll appreciate:

https://github.com/wxFormBuilder/wxFormBuilder

You might find a few useful things like ENUMS and pound variables here:

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=40051.0

Craig

73

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: vista pendant not going to work zero?

« on: May 11, 2023, 09:52:16 PM »

Hi,
I had and used a P1A pendant for eight years.....I wore it out. First with Mac3 and then for the last seven years with Mach4.
I had only one occasion to email VistsCNC when I thought I had buggered it up, my fault. It was going to send it back to be repaired, but they gave me another
plugin to try and that fixed it for anther four years before it started to crap out. Really it was good enough I should have just bought another...they are the same price
as I paid eight years earlier.

It was the same, that is I could see that the plugin was there but you could not open it, view it or edit it, it just is....thats all.

I thought I could make a new pendant..and I did. It works through the ESS, ie its wired. I stripped down the design to just the things I use and nothing else and have seven wires
to do the whole lot, and two of those are for power! The real deal is that I got a second hand Sansui MPG wheel, and despite being second hand and having done a million
miles its still perfect, put 'a horn on a jellyfish'. I've been using it for over a year now. The horn has subsided....just.

Craig

74

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: vista pendant not going to work zero?

« on: May 08, 2023, 09:31:03 PM »

Hi,
but there are no user settings in the Vista plugin. The pendant is a fixed piece of hardware and does not change....so the plugin does not change either.

Craig

75

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: vista pendant not going to work zero?

« on: May 08, 2023, 08:54:37 PM »

Hi,
the Vista pendant has it own plugin, it has zero interaction with the ESS or the ESS plugin.

Mach4 has in the ScreenLoad script a function called GoToWorkZero(), and when activated it does as you'd suppose it would, namely go to
z=machine 0, x=work 0, y=work 0, a=work 0. I suspect you are having problems because Mach4 is excepting to drive all four axes, whereas you have three.
You need to get into the ScreenLoad script and delete/comment out the line that requires the A axis goto zero.

This is really  Mach4 setting, or rather set-up. Its not anything to do with Vista, but rather the machine as it is set up.

Craig

76

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Where to Look for Learning

« on: May 04, 2023, 04:33:25 PM »

Hi,
you'll absolutely want this:

https://www.lua.org/docs.html

I think 5.3 is the version that is current in Mach4, despite Lua5.4 having been released. I have this open on the desktop permanently when coding.

This will be helpful for things like enums, variable names, machine states etc:

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=40051.0

If you are going to require any dialogs etc, and most projects do the you'll need wxWidget documentation:

https://www.wxwidgets.org/

This is written for geeks, by geeks and in geekese....but its still the best there is.

If you want to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into wxWidgets then try:

https://github.com/wxFormBuilder/wxFormBuilder

Just remember...you asked.

Mach4 is a CNC solution, not a software development environment, if you want all the bells and whistles that you'd get with an IDE like MSStudio, you'll be disappointed.
For most, if not all machines, Mach4 is complete and should not require any coding to have it operate, so be careful what you wish for. When I first started with Mach4 (eight years ago now)
I spent a lot of time writing bits of code....but years later 99% is gone, deleted, didn't really need it after all. I have about four macros that I use daily and cannot, I mean CANNOT
work (ie job, making a living) without them but everything else is time wasting.

Craig

77

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Two issues I need help with. Please.

« on: May 03, 2023, 10:42:41 PM »

Hi,

The Mach 4 Probing Screen. Does not see my probe or any of the 3 inputs I have.

Ok, that is a different issue altogether. I do not off-hand know why...but will give it some thought.

Craig

78

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Two issues I need help with. Please.

« on: May 03, 2023, 08:38:21 PM »

Hi,
so is it a problem or not? You went to the trouble of explaining what it was doing I would have presumed that you had an issue with it?

Craig

79

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Two issues I need help with. Please.

« on: May 03, 2023, 04:20:47 PM »

Hi,

The Mach 4 Touch module Z and corner operation only works with the "Probing failure disables Mach 4" unchecked. If its checked the probing operation stops during repositioning move.

That is the way it supposed to be, at least with the ESS. Read this explanation.

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=47369.msg297000#msg297000

Craig

80

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Touch Off UI Find Center Not Working

« on: May 02, 2023, 06:08:52 PM »

Hi,
this is a common and recurring problem.

The probing module use g31 moves to move the probe around. Lets say you need to move the probe to the other side of a hole of nominal diameter.
You could say:
g1 xnnn   where nnn is the diameter.

What happens though if the nominal diameter is wrong, the probe could slam into the other side of the hole and wreck itself. Its common for the programmers to
use g31 instead. With a g31 move it behaves almost identically to a g1 move, ie it moves at a given feed rate, but a g31 move stops if it detects a probe event.
So if you programed:
g31 xnnn           where nnn is the nominal diameter then it would move to x=nnn UNLESS the probe touched something along the way. The machine would stop and therefore the
probe would not get wrecked. This is good, and is commonly used.

Now consider what happens if you use the g31 move as I described but the nominal diameter is correct. You'd expect the probe to move to x=nnn but there would be NO
probe event...this is good, this is what we expected, it means the probe did not hit anything......but the ESS was expecting a probe event. After all all it knows is Mach called
for a g31, how does it know that it was just a way to avoid banging up the probe? When the probe gets to x=nnn the ESS is going to say ERROR: No contact with probe"

So the ESS reports an error if a probe event does not occur before the g31 reaches its terminal location. You can change that behaviour.
In the ESS plugin under the Probing tab change the check box that describes what the ESS does in absence of a probe strike.

Craig