Messages

81

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: access denied - Machine.ini

« on: May 01, 2023, 09:29:50 PM »

Hi,

It would just be nice not to have to fight the copy/paste directory/file situation as often as I do, but I guess Mach4 is what it is, and I'll have to live with it 

I have found situations rather like that where I might wish Mach4 had more the characteristics of a good IDE......but it doesn't and that's the end of it. Several hours later when
you've been making parts and Mach has done a great job....that's when you realise that Mach4 is doing EXCATLY as its meant to. Whenever I feel some frustration coming on
when I'm trying to code something I try to remember this. After using Mach4 for about eight years now I can go months at a time when I never invoke the editor or write
so much as a line of code.

I spend hours with Fusion 360 generating and simulating Gcode and my machine just consumes it. The biggest issue I have to worry about is 'did I touch off to that surface
or was it that surface?', or 'did I allow for that clamp?' or something along those lines, I never really have to consider how Mach works, it just does, and 99.999% of the time seamlessly.

Craig

82

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Step increment cycling issue

« on: May 01, 2023, 09:14:31 PM »

Hi,
I filled all increment slots.

I used to have 1mm and 0.5mm as the largest increments but both caused 'after-run' where the machine would carry on even once I had stopped spinning the MPG.
This was because the increments were 'stacking up' faster than the machine could consume them. Reducing the maximum increment to 0.1mm solved it, now I can spin the
MPG as fast as I like WITHOUT suffering any, or at least any major, after-run.

This left the quandry, what do I do with those other increments? As you can see I filled them with the same numbers, just repeats. It works.

I notice that most people,and for many years that included me, would have increments spaced by a factor of ten eg 1, 0.1,0.01,0.001,0.0001.
I found those steps to coarse. If I was touching off, 0.1mm was a bit coarse and I could not define an edge with the level of accuracy that I would like, however
if I went to 0.01mm touching off seemed to take an age. A five fold increase in resolution, or even a doubling in resolution is more practical in my opinion.

Craig

83

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: access denied - Machine.ini

« on: May 01, 2023, 03:39:20 PM »

Hi,

From what I understand (I may be wrong here) Lua relies on the application program (ie Mach4) to take care of error handling, and Mach4 hasn't done a great job.

Lua has very basic error handling where it has any at all, you get a stack dump and thats about it.

Lua is a scripting language, it takes your Lua instructions and generates what amounts to C code. As you know C is very good, but it has to be in every
way perfect to run, all the data types must match exactly, any and all data structures must match perfectly and so on. Lua is a great way to generate
simple but useful code BUT DOES NOT require the level of perfection and expertise that C code demands.

Amongst the things that simplify Lua is being essentially type free....however it is also one of the areas that cause the most grief. If you feel that simplification comes
at too greater cost then write your code in C.

All Lua code should be written and tested in a sandbox. It must be compiled on its own and then tested by single stepping through it with Zero Brane. Only once its
written, tested and de-bugged should you commit it to being combined with all the other code and compiled into the Screen Script. If you write code and introduce it
into the screen script without de-bugging it first you are asking for trouble.

Mach4 is a CNC software, it primary purpose is a Gcode interpreter and trajectory planner. It has a GUI to assist and a scripting program to assist users
to generate their own code.......but its not a software development environment. If you expect all the bells and whistles of an IDE like MSStudio you'll be disappointed.
Your wife is right, have you noticed they always are, you need to start making chips. Mach4 is largely complete and does not require any additions in order for you to
make parts.

When I started with Mach4 I too wrote a suite of additional code......almost all of it has since been deleted....I just don't need it, I thought I did but practical machining
showed me that I did not. I have maybe four macros that I use day in and day out and could not work/make a living without them....all the rest is just time
wasting.

Craig

84

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: access denied - Machine.ini

« on: May 01, 2023, 12:38:58 AM »

Hi,
there are two, maybe three chunks of code when Mach is running. If you crash one chunk often times the GUI chunk will carry on running.
In that circumstance its necessary to use the Windows Task Manager to close the remaining chunk that is still running so that you can fire up a fresh instance
of Mach.

When you are coding you work on only a small part. When you want to run that code it gets combined with all the other fragments of code, many hundreds of chunks and they
are compiled into one mega chunk, variously called the 'Screen Script'. If that script fails to compile because of an error in anyone of those code fragments then Mach will fail also.

You are correct, if you are coding and not going too well you can often bugger up Mach, but if you correct, or delete the offending piece of code everything comes back to normal.
I have not encountered any file corruption, other than of my making, in the eight or so years I've been running Mach. To my knowledge Machs file handling is robust but a particularly
clever operator can always screw it up no matter how robust Mach is! ....I've done it plenty!

Craig

85

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 - Is it possible to stop the jog faster?

« on: April 30, 2023, 05:50:32 PM »

Hi,
this post should be on the Mach4 General Discussion board, no doubt Tweakie will shift it in due course.

That is a common 'problem' that you describe, I put the 'problem' in quotations because it is not actually a problem or fault with Mach at all....its doing exactly
what its supposed to do.

There are two jogging modes in Mach (3 OR 4), incremental or velocity.

The most common is incremental mode, and what you have described is what you are doing. In incremental mode the machine will advance 0.1mm or whatever 'incremental distance'
you have programmed into Mach with each button press, or wheel spin if using an MPG. The problem arise when the 'increments' stack up faster than the machine can go. Those extra 'increments'
are stored up....so after you release the button or stop spinning the MPG they will still be executed. That is called 'after-run' and that is doing exactly what you wanted. You issued
say 1000 'increments' and now it goes ahead and does them.

This results because in incremental mode with keyboard jogging when you hold a button down Windows interprets that as repeated button presses and thus by holding the button
the 'increments' get stacked up.

I used to have my max increment set to 1mm per increment. I suffered greatly from the problem you describe, I'd stop spinning the MPG (holding the button) and yet the machine would carry on until it had
consumed all those incremental moves I'd dialled up. This is essentially because the incremental distance is accumulating faster than the machine can consume them. I have reduced the max
increment to 0.1mm and now I can get the increments to stack up if I spin the MPG (hold the button) as fast as I can but mostly it never happens.

May I suggest that you try velocity mode. There the machine will advance at the programmed jog rate while you hold the button down, but stop the moment you release it.
If you are rapid jogging back and forth it is a good way to go. If you want to touch off to a part the incremental moves with a small increment is the safest and most accurate way.

Craig

86

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Simple way to have Mach4 remember axis positions on startup.

« on: April 26, 2023, 11:38:15 PM »

Hi,
yes HomeInPlace is the ONLY way you can set a machine coordinate at will.

The problem arises that when you stop at a location the machine coords will be x_mcy_mcz_mc and due to the work Offsets
the position of the machine is x_wcy_wcz_wc, this is the position the DRO shows, but is in fact the arithmetic combination
of the applicable work offsets AND the machine coordinates.

When you turn Mach on you want the DRO to read the same....but you also want the machine coordinates to be the same. The code you have written does not set
the machine coordinates. How do you intend on setting them?

Craig

87

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Simple way to have Mach4 remember axis positions on startup.

« on: April 26, 2023, 09:05:57 PM »

Hi,
I'm not so sure that will work.

In particular your use of:
mc.mcAxisSetPos(inst, mc.X_AXIS,regvalx)

will set the WorkOffset for that axis such that the DRO reports the required position relative to machine coordinates....BUT.....you've just fired up Mach......the machine
coordinates are undefined...so what does your WorkOffset mean? It traditionally and normally means a certain distance from the Home position but you have no
defined Home position when you first fire up Mach.

If you are trying to set machine coordinates to some previously saved value then your code fails.....that API does not set machine coordinates. The ONLY way to set machine coordinates
is by one of the Home procedures.

If you however Home first.....then you can set the machine to whatever you want....but why not just use G54, that is saved at shutdown and you don't have to write any code.
In fact all the WorkOffsets G54, G55, G56 etc are saved at shutdown automatically.

Just to illustrate the procedure:
Lets say I'm working on a project. The machine is Homed and I have set the G54 work coordinates to the very corner of the material in the vice. I do two of the three ops
before leaving for the night. I can shut the machine down. The next morning I'll power up the machine and FIRST thing I do is Home. This sets the machine coordinates.
My Home switches allow me to Home to the same location to better than 0.02mm every time.

I now MDI G54, being the work offset set that was in use the day before, so my machine now knows exactly where the corner of the material is and I can now hit <CycleStart> on
the third and final op to finish the part.

Craig

88

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to change axis position in a script?

« on: April 25, 2023, 11:50:47 PM »

Hi,

I used scr.SetProperty("droCurrentX","Value",regval) to set the dro but as soon as I move the axis it reverts back to the original position before I changed it.
What command should I use to do this?

That is incorrect. The numeric value displayed in a DRO is just the visual artefact that results from displaying the true internal value. For instance lets assume the X axis
position is x=123.456. You come along blithely and set the DRO to 654.321, but the true and underlying value remains 123.456, and therefore at the next screen re-draw
the DRO again displays that true and underlying value.

The machine coordinates of the current location of the machine are determined by the distance from the Home point or Reference point and the machine position.
The only way to change the machine coordinates to some other value is to shift the machine......end of story. Work coordinates can be changed however.
The commonly displayed axis position  is = machine coordinate (of that axis)  - WorkOffset (of that axis). You can change the WorkOffset with Gcodes or with a script.

This concept is hard for most people to grasp......you cannot set a machine coordinates at will. The only way to set a machine coordinate is by using one of the Homing procedures.
There is s trick means of doing so by using the HomeInPLace function......but its confusing....and ultimately counterproductive. I tried using it years ago...and it worked
but actually caused me more grief than it was supposed to solve.

By the way, this API works by changing the WorkOffset....not as most people assume by changing the machine coordinate:

Code: [Select]

LUA Syntax:
rc = mc.mcAxisSetPos(
number mInst,
number axisId,
number val);

Description:
Set the Position of an axis by changing the fixture offset.

Craig

89

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Go to Zero and other things I miss about Mach 3

« on: April 25, 2023, 11:21:49 PM »

Hi,

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=44529.0

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=47199.0

Craig

90

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Go to Zero and other things I miss about Mach 3

« on: April 25, 2023, 11:16:38 PM »

Hi,
there is a GotoZero button, and there is a means of having the keyboard enabled on start up, and they have been discussed at length on this board within the last month,
some searching is warranted.

Craig