Topics

11

Mach Screens / Screen Design - where is it going?

« on: December 14, 2006, 03:56:08 PM »

Hi Guys

I am currently in the process of developing some new wizards. Up until now I have been using screen 4, and it is driving me mad. Everytime I make the slightest change I loose button transparency, background images dissapear, background images hide toolpath displays etc.

I decided to give the Jetcam screen designer a go. It is fantastic, picked it up in minutes and I have done what took me 4 evenings in Screen4 I have just done in a couple of hours.

But my question is where is scrren design going. There is a lot of talk about flash screens, but I've yet to see a flash screenset. How easy is it to develop flash screens, can you get free flash editors and when is it going to happen?

I know Stan is reluctant to do too much work on the Jetcam designer as he doesn't want to spend time on something that is soon to be replaced.

If you haven't tried the Jetcam Screen designer I would strongly reccomend that you try it. If you like it then let Stan know.

Cheers

Dave

12

Mach Screens / Screen Designer Quirks?

« on: November 27, 2006, 02:13:03 PM »

Hi Guys

I've taken the plunge and started playing with Realdraw Pro and Screen 4 to make a new set of screen for turn 

Anyhow a couple of things. Firstly, I have a button in the jpg in the centre, this is surrounded by a transparent PNG. When you click the blank image button the outer border of the button changes colour via the png. I notice that if you put an 'empty' image button over the JPG it is totally transparent. Similalry the first state of the PNG is also transparent, but when you click the button, the bit of the png covered by the image button remains in the first state. Is there any way around this or do I have to live with a smaller button inside the frame?

Secondly I have setup the above button for the spindle. When I click it the first time the border goes green, second click back to orange, third click remains orange, fourth click to green, fifth click to orange etc.  Why do I always need to click twice in the orange state? I am using M3 to turn on the spindle and OEMcode 11 for the LED.

Cheers

Dave

13

Mach Screens / item depth

« on: November 26, 2006, 02:52:30 PM »

Hi Guys

Is there any way to change the display order of things on the screen using screen 4? I want to use a background picture, then have an LED on the layer above and then a 'skin' graphic to tidy up the LED.

Is this possible?

Cheers

Dave

14

Mach Screens / Maintaining position across screens

« on: November 26, 2006, 08:56:35 AM »

Right - I'm starting to work on my own screens for turn. One thing I want to do is have a set of buttons along the bottom that exist on most of the screens. So I create the buttons I want - and copy them to each page - but is there an easy way to ensure that the buttons are all in the same position on each page?

Cheers

Dave

15

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / My Denford Starturn

« on: November 26, 2006, 05:37:07 AM »

Hi Everyone

Thought I should add a couple of pics of my latest toy. It's a 1985 Denford Starturn originally controlled from a BBC. I stripped out the processor board and replaced it with a breakout board, digispeed and some boards I made to interface with the 12V stepper drivers. The orignal setup ran the 2.1A stepper motors at 1.8A for some reason so i have turned this up to 2A! It's performing very well so far - will easily take off 0.25mm at 550mm/min in brass and ali - haven't tried in anger on other materials! The monitor on the right has a touchscreen panel attached to the front as well (ebay bargain!) I've left the old stand on the monitor and stripped the plastics off - I will fold up a small tray which will then hold the keyboard.

The only physical difference you can see that the lathe has been modified is the extra switch and LEDs on the front panel for the digispeed. I've got to say this is on of the best tools I have ever had - I use it on a daily basis - much more than my CNC mill!

Cheers

Dave

16

VB and the development of wizards / Mach Feature - is this available?

« on: November 26, 2006, 05:25:27 AM »

Hi

Is it possible to have drop down menus in Mach? If so can this be
expanded to hierarchial levels of menus.

Why - well I have an idea (another one in my long list!) for a
threading wizard for Mach. The idea is that you have two drop down
menus. In the first you choose the type of thread, e.g. BA, BSF,
Metric, UNC etc etc. This then fills the second menu with a list of
common threads - e.g select BA in menu 1, menu 2 then has 2BA, 4BA,
6BA etc

You can then simply select the thread, enter the start point and
length and hit go. I imagine at this point that the thread data
would be stored in something like a CSV file so users can add
threads and build a thread library. You could also add the stock
dimension so it automatically turns to diameter and then asks for
the threading tool.

Well - thats the idea anyway!

Cheers

Dave

17

General Mach Discussion / Mach Threading

« on: October 02, 2006, 04:13:30 PM »

Hi

I just wnated to confofm something. I am retrofitting (well rebuilding) an old lathe. As part of the control, the spindle motor had to be turned on manually and the speed set manually. However the machine is equipped with a spindle speed sensor (both a single pulse per rev and multiple pulses per rev). Hence I'm assuming this machine worked by matching the feedrate to the spindle speed. Does Mach work in this way?

I.e. can I thread without having speed control from the PC - but I have got a spindle pulse going into the PC?

Cheers

Dave

18

General Mach Discussion / New Wiki Page

« on: August 27, 2006, 07:13:01 AM »

Hi

I've been struggling to find a list of standard keys for Mach 3 - so I've created a Wiki page to keep tab of them :-
http://www.machsupport.com/MachCustomizeWiki/index.php?title=Standard_Hotkeys

I've put some in but PLEASE help by adding any you know of.

Cheers

Dave

19

General Mach Discussion / Hotkeys ???

« on: August 26, 2006, 05:50:31 PM »

Hello

Can anyone help me with the folloiwng enquiry, posted this on the yahoo group but no replies.

I think I'm on the last few hotkeys now - can anyone tell me what
the keys are for :-
On Jog panel
Jog Mode - key 32842
Cycle Jog Step - key 2122

Cheers

Dave

20

General Mach Discussion / Feedrate Overide Buttons

« on: August 13, 2006, 01:02:00 PM »

Is there a simple way to get the spindle speed increase/decrease buttons back instead of the slider?

Cheers

Dave