Messages

121

Mach4 General Discussion / strange Fontsize of Group-Titles

« on: April 25, 2017, 01:52:17 AM »

Hello,

I'm playing with mach4 and its integrated screen designer. I changed Fontsize of the main notebook tabs and may be other elements and had to note, that some (not all!) of the groupbox titles are painted using big font sizes.
The groupbox does not have font properties, so how can I bring the wrong groupboxes to use the fontsize of other groupboxes?

See "Results" compared with "Feed Rate (G1)" and "Tool Information" or "Spindle". Here it does not matter, but on diagnostics tab it looks really ugly.

Ah - and when I try to change some text (I try to translate some of them), I can't enter a lowercase "O" in the text-entry-field. All other places wich accept text input can create a lowercase "O", but not the text-property =:O

122

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 23, 2017, 07:46:50 AM »

Oups - that's a bit to complicate for the moment.

I can not imagine a situation, where I want IJK be absolute, but I can imagine a situation, where I want G91 (instead of my default G90): when I raise Z to safety level. Not very common use-case, but ...
... so what is the right way to switch G90/G91 without changing G91.1?

Is it worth to raise a cambam-issue to change the mach3-postprocessor?

123

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 23, 2017, 07:10:33 AM »

@Rich
I already did - and they are the same!

@ger21
cambam is quite heavily used by mach3 users - I can't imagine, that I'm the first, that run into trouble.
I'll keep it in mind and check for differences

124

General Mach Discussion / how can I increase security?

« on: April 23, 2017, 03:49:40 AM »

Hello,

I created a screen, which is working so far, so I'm quite content.

But what looks nice in theorie isn't nice at all in practice, especially with kids playing around.
I don't wan't the machine to move by a single click.

From professional controls I know the principle of the dead man switch - you have to press multiple keys for one step to happen.
I would like to do something similar with mach3 too. I have enuf digital inputs for the switches ...

But: the jog-keys/-buttons don't respect the jog-mode - with jog-mode disabled, axis stil move on buttons like "push to jog x++".

How can I change the buttons to respect the jog-mode and check two simultanious pressed keys additionally?
Is it possible, to simulate this with keyboard-keys too?

125

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 10:50:29 PM »

Hi Rich,

the hint with the xml-files was the key

I used an xml-beautifier and diff and then the rest was pretty easy. I don't know enuf to talk about reasons, but it looks like the default screen has an initialized parallel port and enabled axis, whereas my new scren had none of all.
I wonder, how mach3 did the green circles without any axis enabled

Anyway - I configured the parallel port and now my screen does the right moves too

But this leads to another "problem": I enabled the relais output for cooling and mist, but the buttons that should toggle cooling and mist did not work. I use LEDs with double-width grafics and those LEDs switch, when I issue an M7, M8 or M9 (in MDI-input) - but not, when I hit the button, that should toggle cooling or mist.
Is there another "hidden" feature I happen to miss?

126

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 07:39:13 AM »

Thanks for the hint with the xml-files. They are pretty different
So I have to dive into xml now ...

127

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 04:04:09 AM »

If you compare both images, it shows up, that both start at different offset (red line to inner circle).

I think, it's not just a matter of absolut/incremental modes. In my screen, the Z-axis does not move and the initial G0 (red line) is not performed.
I did not work out all screens yet. Does the original screen have macros, that run initially under the hood?
I think, it must be something, I did not have done/found yet.

128

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 02:49:40 AM »

- how can a difference in the file produce different results depending on the active screen?

Anyway - here's the file

129

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 02:23:50 AM »

Hi and thank you for your attention!

What I don't understand - no matter what settings I have active - shouldn't the preview after loading a file be created respecting the same settings as when I hit start?
How can it be, that the preview is perfect and the tool path after run is completely wired?

In the config settings I have absoulute dimensions and incremental IJK.

My gcode sample starts with this line: "G21 G90 G91.1 G64 G40"

But obviously there's a difference between the standard screen (1024) and my created screen. I also searched for an initial macro, but did not find one.
I use the same button function, as in the screen 1024 and the behaviour of the app is completely different
When I run the sample with my screen, it seems as if no G0 will be executed.

130

Screen designer tips and tutorials / wired toolpath and no idea why

« on: April 22, 2017, 12:35:30 AM »

Hello,

I'm trying to create a screen with screen-designer. My screen is not ready yet, but as I'm quite curious, I loaded a gcode-file and hit start.

The (desired) workpiece consits of blue lines and purple circles.
What mach3 did is shown by the green circles.

Doing the same with the originial screen 1024 looks like expected:

Green dots match the path of blue lines and purple circles.

Both screens use the same settings, so what am I missing?
Any hint is welcome.