Messages

181

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Probing Question PoundVar 5062 amd 5072

« on: April 30, 2017, 09:20:02 AM »

I look forward to your test result. Like you, I would think that all probes should use these same 6 variables, otherwise the probing module isn't going to work.

182

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Probing Question PoundVar 5062 amd 5072

« on: April 30, 2017, 07:10:56 AM »

For G31.0, variables 5061-5063 hold the absolute probe strike positions for X, Y and Z respectively. 5071-5073 similarly hold the machine positions for the probe strike.

Sorry I can't help with G31.1.

Allan

183

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 build 3372 hangs with CSMIO/IP-A

« on: April 29, 2017, 06:36:53 AM »

Thanks for the heads up Steve. That does suggest that the plugin may be responsible so I will contact CS Labs. If only they were as responsive as PMDX...

Allan

184

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 build 3372 hangs with CSMIO/IP-A

« on: April 28, 2017, 05:24:22 PM »

I use a CS Lab CSMIO/IP-A controller and have generally had good results with Mach4 using plugin version 2.910.

Disturbingly, recent versions of Mach4, including builds 3346 and 3372, appear to be incompatible with the CSMIO/IP-A, preventing motor operation. When Mach4 is started, the controller's internal temperature and voltages are correctly reported, suggesting basic communication is OK. However the CSMIO log file indicates that all calls to mcMotorGetInfoStruct() have failed. Opening Mach4's log file shows it to be flooded with repeated mcMotorIsStill() calls and causes Mach4 to hang. Clearly all is not well.

Version 3233 mostly works well but probing intermittenrly hangs. No probe movement occurs and the PLC is frozen. Mach4 is essentially dead, although the screen remains superficially responsive. The Mach4 log file indicates normal behaviour for G31 up to the point where motor stop reports are requested followed by "Waiting on SetStill..." No further log entries are made. Perhaps this is related to the motor issue with 3372.

Has anyone else seen such behaviour and/or can you suggest the possible cause or resolution? I tend to assume Mach4 is the culprit as nothing else has changed.

Allan

185

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 second Probe does not work with G31.1

« on: April 24, 2017, 07:17:05 AM »

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.  The ESS is your controller. I have the same problem with my CS Labs controller. In my case, the probes are normally closed switches, so I'm thinking of using an opto-isolator to effectively wire them in series. I can't do that directly as each probe needs to be grounded for its illumination to work.

Allan

186

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 second Probe does not work with G31.1

« on: April 23, 2017, 12:23:23 PM »

Are you sure your controller supports multiple probes? Not all do at this time.

Allan

187

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: multiple probe use

« on: April 20, 2017, 02:59:19 PM »

Be aware that not all controllers currently support multiple probes, so be sure to test carefully.

Allan

188

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Simulate Probe Strike

« on: April 19, 2017, 04:15:55 PM »

My appologies if I misunderstand what you are aiming to do, but the hardware probe input would normally be recognised and the axis position latched by  the controller. You should not expect the controller to do this in response to your changing the probe signal within Mach4. This is certainly the case with my CS Labs controller, where a hardware edge is needed to halt a G31 sycle: a Mach4 signal change has no effect on G31.

Allan

189

Mach4 General Discussion / Error in probing module?

« on: April 10, 2017, 09:17:12 AM »

I think there is an error in the interpretation of probe offsets within the probing module mcProbing.lua. The offsets XOffset and YOffset are defined during calibration as:

   Offset = Measured value - True value

(XPos and YPos are the variables representing  the true values as input by the user to the calibration function  Probing.XYOffsetCal.)  It therefore follows that these offsets should be subtracted from future probe measurements in order to achieve the desired correction to probe readings. In fact they are added, thereby increasing rather than minimising probing errors.

The solution is simply to replace all occurrences of the string "+ XOffset" by "- XOffset" and similarly for YOffset. In all there are 86 such occurrences, so you will want to use the Find and Replace tool in your editor to facilitate this.

Allan

190

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Setting G54

« on: January 07, 2017, 05:49:17 AM »

To hopefully clarify the above a little:

a) The machine must remain in its home position whilst step 4 is performed.

b) Say you want Work zero to be at machine coordinates (x, y, z). To achieve this, you could enter the values x, y and z directly into the Fixture offsets table. Alternatively, using the above method,  you could enter the values -x, -y and -z into the dros at step 4. The magnitudes of the numbers are the same in each case, but the signs differ. This arises because the Fixture offsets table contains the machine coordinates that correspond to Work sero, whereas at step 4 you are entering the Work coordinates that correspond to Machine sero.

Allan