Messages

831

General Mach Discussion / Re: Has anyone tried one of these?

« on: May 27, 2007, 04:41:02 PM »

I have one on my mill. It works fine, and has enough keys for all the functions I need.

 However, I also have a Genovation control Pad for my router, and like it better. It  is cheaper, but more important, the X-keys requires a special driver to be loaded. The driver reads the key code form the keypad and converts it to the string you aet.

The genovation has a download feature- you load the actual key strokes into it, it then sends those, no drivers needed. I always like not having to add special drivers that may or may not be happy with Mach.

http://www.genovation.com/

I found my genovation on ebay for about $50.

832

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: rectangular hole pattern

« on: May 25, 2007, 03:39:54 PM »

I tried your numbers and it works exactly as expected for me. The first hole is at x=.375, then it moves across in x, then up one and back to X .375.

Can you post the code you get, maybe I can get a clue from that.

Also,are you sure you are using the latest version- it should be the one that has the material screen with the dialog box, not all the individual material buttons. There should be a V 2/74 in the upper right of the first screen.

833

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: rectangular hole pattern

« on: May 24, 2007, 08:46:56 PM »

I ran a 5x7 pattern and it looks OK- I didnt actually drill it, but the screen display looks right.

Tell me the rest of your setting- x, y, length , width. tool size, etc

834

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: bugs in thread milling wizard help

« on: May 23, 2007, 03:06:45 PM »

I have to admit I have never looked into the thread milling wizard- its part of the original set Brian wrote before i started working on them. Ill have a look, but my guess is its another of the problems around cutter radius comp. It has caused many problems before.

835

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Wizard for clockmakers.

« on: May 23, 2007, 03:00:21 PM »

I have an idea on how to do this, and one that could make quite a few shapes. I think I can write gcode for a cross-out of a 'unit circle', then just scale the code to get whatever size wheel you want. Its an interesting problem, Ill work on it, but Im leaving in a week for a 6 week road trip across the country (want to do my part to help the Oil companies profit :-) I dont expect to have this for a while.

836

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Bugs in version 2.74 surfacing wizard

« on: May 23, 2007, 02:56:20 PM »

I agree it is better to make an extra tool change than to miss one!

I will correct the wizard to always put the tool change and coolant choices in the code. Ill also put M7 and M8 on separate lines- I did not know Mach objected to that.

I suspect this problem occurs with other wizards as well- they all have some similar code to minimize tool changes.

Im still looking at the extra pass problem.  Ill post a fixed zip file in a day or two.

thanks for your help in finding this problem.

837

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Bugs in version 2.74 surfacing wizard

« on: May 23, 2007, 12:10:14 PM »

Ok, I see the problem.

The wizard tests the tool selected to see if it is the same tool last used by a wizard. If it is the same it does NOT add a tool change, nor does it turn on the coolant. This was part of the plan for wizards to be useful to build a big program by running several wizards in sequence. As the demo video shows you could do something like cut a circle, then drill a bolt circle around it, then return to mach and run the one big program. If you did that you wouldn't want a tool change and the coolant going on and off between features of the part.

Will you run a test using a different tool number and see if that adds the coolant words?

Clearly this is a bad plan, so I will fix the wizard, but I have to think about how to do this without the fix rippling through all the other wizards. 

838

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Bugs in version 2.74 surfacing wizard

« on: May 21, 2007, 09:20:29 PM »

When I run it it does generate the Mist, but its M7 , not M8. I tried all the combinations of mist and flood, on and off, and all seem to work. Does yours do a flood if you select it?

I see the extra pass, but so far I have not figured out why its doing it.

I also see your code has x -1.7, which looks like you have a .2 setting for approach amt, but it only does that for the first X move. I would think it should do it for each pass.

I will fix this,

ron ginger

839

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Power Feed Wizard

« on: May 17, 2007, 06:15:39 PM »

A spindle speed button is easy, I will add it. Only concern is the screen is already to crowded.

The return to origin is easy, but a bit strange in logic- the wizard makes no assumption about an origin, and either limit could be Zero, with the power moves either plus or minus. you could even have limits both is negative region, then a GotoZero would be outside the range. I think it might cause some confusion.

Making it a mach screen is possible, but there may be a conflict. I use a number of DROs and Leds, with numbers I selected- they might overlap with DROs already in use on another Mach screen. It would not be technically hard, just tedious to get all the numbers right and no conflicts. That would also cause some logistical problems, since Art controls the rest of the screens, Id have to make sure mine got linked in on new releases.

Nice idea, Ill think about it.

840

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Power Feed Wizard

« on: May 15, 2007, 08:12:00 PM »

I think the loosing moves is a VB problem. Each time you press the button for a move a new VB instance is called. It generates the Gcode, then exits. If you press the button again, another Vb session is called. Mach and VB dont get along all that well- they barely tolerate each other. Look at some of the issues of a macropump that tries to run 10 times a second.

I probably should have added a While IsMoving loop to each command so that Vb does not return until the move is finished. Then you could not get ahead of VB.

I suggest you do NOT try to get several moves ahead of the machine.

Mike, you can do that kind of surfacing with the power feed wizard, but you do have to keep pressing the buttons for each feed and step over. It is for surfacing that I added the step over buttons in the lower right corner of the screen. To do a surface you would set up the limit values then press <feed> <Rapid return> <step over Y> then repeat the loop as many times as it takes to finish.

I realize thats not as nice as a wizard that simply generates one block of code then runs unattended.

This is kind of a fundamental distinction of my view of conversational. As its implemented here it means generating a block of gcode, then running a program. In my view of the world, one I was calling 'Interactive milling' instead of conversational you would actually run the code under the screen where it was generated. as you do in the PowerFeed wizard.

A long time ago I did a program like this, but I was never able to get a motor driver module I could call from VB. When Art started Master5 there was supposed to be a callable ocx to do moves, but it never really worked. I eventually quit working on my code. If you are interested in what I was doing its at http://plsntcov.8m.com/CNH.htm Someday I may revive that idea.