Messages

31

PoKeys / Re: Pokeys57 shared data

« on: October 16, 2017, 08:06:51 PM »

Progress, I figured out #1) above.  I'm still trying to figure out #2)

32

PoKeys / Pokeys57 shared data

« on: October 16, 2017, 05:29:46 PM »

Hopefully someone can help me out with this....

I would like to send data to and from a Pokeys 57E and mach3 from within PoBlocks. I'm finding the information regarding shared data minimalist and lacking to say the least. I think I know how to do this on the Pokeys side, I don't understand how to do it on the mach3 side. I'm guessing I would need to do this in a brain, but if it can be done in the I/O configuration that might work as well.

1)  From Pokeys to Mach, lets say I have assigned input5 (as in input 5 of the Pokeys board) to the first shared slot (S0), how do I make use of that bit in Mach3?

2) From Mach3 to PoBlock, lets say I have a bit in Mach3 (for example the Jog on/off button or Jog on/off LED) and I want to use that in PoBlocks, how do I get that data into the shared slot on the mach3 side?

33

Mach Screens / Custom LED with a unused code ???

« on: October 12, 2017, 11:08:37 AM »

I want to add a few LED's to an existing screen. I will have a brain drive the LED's. However the function of the LED is not a standard OEM type, I want it to be custom. My brain has output to OEMLED: 1001 etc.

How do I create a custom LED on an existing Mach3 screen that will turned on/off via my brain using for example OEMLED: 1000, 1001 etc???

Using MachScreen, when I select an LED, It seems like I can only select from the provided list of standard LED's that already exist on the mach3 screens.

34

Brains Development / Re: Brains - Creating a button that sequences through various modes when pushed ?

« on: October 12, 2017, 08:05:17 AM »

Working......

I took another (simpler) approach and it works, I just need to add debounce to the inputs

35

Brains Development / Re: Brains - Creating a button that sequences through various modes when pushed ?

« on: October 11, 2017, 09:16:38 PM »

I'm starting to get the impression that there are less people using "brains" that I envisioned.

The following almost works, it increments and selects, however I have not had any luck resetting OEMDRO: 1501 to 0 or 1 after I get to the desired roll-over count.  I have tried  MANY methods and they all failed. It seems like if you try to write to OEMDRO:1501 in any other rung after the initial instance that the register refuses to update or be set to 0, 1 etc.
 

36

Brains Development / Brains - Creating a button that sequences through various modes when pushed ?

« on: October 10, 2017, 12:33:57 PM »

I would imagine this is trivial for those that are familiar with creating brains (I'm not, complete newbie)

I'm making a hard button panel (see below), I'm using a Pokeys 57E to capture the key presses. This is working fine, I can jog, etc via the panel.  Setting this up using the pokeys configuration software (Mach3 plug-in) is straight forward, just map one of the 55 input pins to the desired button in mach3 and it works.

Some of the buttons on my panel need to cycle through various modes (bottom left button) for example the SS-CON-MPG. I have this mapped to button call 245 and it works fine, HOWEVER I would like a 4th press of the button to disable jogging, and then if I press again it starts at SS.

Similar situation for the right most blue button, first push MPG is set to Jog speed, 2nd push the MPG controls feed speed and then 3rd push disables the MPG.

Can someone describe how I can create a brain to provide this functionality?

37

General Mach Discussion / Re: Best way to get data back and forth from Mach3 to a custom button/LED board?

« on: October 01, 2017, 05:25:45 PM »

Update......

I watched a quick video on "Brains" and I think this might be a viable solution using a combination of 1&4 hard-wired and mutiplexed.

Starting with the buttons I have 13 so, 4 input lines can support 16 switches, if I use a simple 16 to 4 line encoder and feed the 4 data lines to input 1...4

and then use Brain logic like this, I think it should work, does anyone spot a flaw in the concept?

38

General Mach Discussion / Re: Best way to get data back and forth from Mach3 to a custom button/LED board?

« on: October 01, 2017, 01:01:06 PM »

Update

4) I/O Multiplexer
    * I'm surprised these are not plentiful in the after market considering the input signal limitations of the parallel port, I did find the (PMDX-126), however it does not have enough I/O
   - I don't think Mach 3 offers a plug-in that would say allow mapping of 5 input signals to 32 inputs and or 8 output signals to 256 outputs, assuming this is not available, would be great enhancement to Mach. The H/W at the BOB side is really trivial.
   ?  If I connect say 16 buttons to a 16:4 mux and then wire the 4 data lines to 4 unused inputs on my 2nd parallel port, can I use a "brain",  micro-pump etc. to monitor the 4 lines and then update a register or variable in Mach that then could be used to indicate the status of the 16 inputs, and possible select or deselect buttons in Mach based on the data?

39

General Mach Discussion / Best way to get data back and forth from Mach3 to a custom button/LED board?

« on: October 01, 2017, 11:33:26 AM »

Newbie here, longish post with numerous questions.

I'm in the process of adding steppers to an old LC30A mill. I now have the X and Y axis working, and will add the Z axis shortly.

I'm comfortable with electronic design and plan to make a PCB that will replace the name plate on my mill with a bunch of buttons and LED's for the often used controls. I realize there are lots of OTS pendants available, however making "stuff" is half the fun for me.

Image below is first pass at what I'm thinking of making, please feel free to critique as I have next to no experience using Mach3 (just a few hours of playing with it to test the steppers I installed, and make a couple of simple parts).

So basically:
  - about 15-20 momentary switch contacts
  - perhaps 20 or so LED's
  - Rotary encoder will be hard wired as MPG
  - I already have the spindle controls working as shown (hard wired to VFD), so this could be as is, or flow through Mach3, I need to think about this one, comments?

Mach seems very flexible so there appears to be numerous ways to get the data back and forth to this PCB. Some of the obvious:

1) Hard wire to inputs and outputs
   + Good response time
   - Not enough I/O for all the buttons and LED's I would like to implement

2) Keyboard encoder, I took apart an old keyboard and inside I found a small PCB (1" x 2") that decodes the keyboard matrix, so I could simply map the matrix pins to my new tactile switches
   + Pretty simple and cheap
   -  I will need to add an IC or two to activate the Ctrl and Alt buttons at the same time as the "J" etc. for the multi-key commands (not a big deal but does need to be done), or can I change the commands to single key commands to get around the need for simultaneous key presses? (perhaps through some sort of configuration file in Mach 3?)
   -  I still need to get LED data from Mach 3 to my board

3) PIC type circuit
   + Most flexible if I want to tweak something in the future
   ? I'm not sure (yet) how best to get data back and forth, I'm inclined to use the serial port if that's easy to do from a Mach side perspective. I'm not sure if there is way to send and receive simple commands via the serial port? (my preference) or if I need to use something more elaborate i.e. a mod bus driver on the PIC side?
   ?

4) I/O Multiplexer
    * I'm surprised these are not plentiful in the after market considering the input signal limitations of the parallel port, I did find the (PMDX-126), however it does not have enough I/O
   - I don't think Mach 3 offers a plug-in that would say allow mapping of 5 input signals to 32 inputs and or 8 output signals to 256 outputs, assuming this is not available, would be great enhancement to Mach. The H/W at the BOB side is really trivial.

5) Other options?  If there are other methods, please elaborate.


 

40

General Mach Discussion / Re: More inputs or can I configure Mach3 to use one MPG for X, Y and Z axis?

« on: September 21, 2017, 09:14:23 AM »

Is there a way to get Mach3 to change the axis a single MPG will be used for?

Why not just use Tab key and the flyout allows you to assign any MPG to any axis you want to use it for when jogging.
If your into  modifying screens you can add the functionality to any screen you wish there is no need for the flyout.

KISS......


RICH

Rich,

I'm under the impression (please correct me if I'm wrong) that selecting Alt A, Alt B, or Alt C on the jog pop-up, simply selects MPG#1, MPG#2, MPG#3, but does not allow a single MPG to be routed to just 2 input pins for the A&B signals from a single encoder to be used for any axis X, Y or Z.