Messages

41

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mapping F5 Key in mach 4

« on: April 08, 2018, 02:07:41 PM »

I was thinking it wasn't working somewhat for same reasons that Craig mentions, I was not sure what part of the the mach software may have those keys reserved.  But Allan states there are versions that it does work on or can be mapped on. My build is 3481 so maybe it is possible it has been reserved for a function in the latest build and was not in previous revisions or builds. I sent an email initially to artsoft, as I figured they would know right off if that button is reserved since they developed the program, but have not heard back so I posted the question. I have a little hand held controller that I use for lining up the bit on my mill and zeroing things in by eye with. The buttons mimic specific keys on the keyboard and I know which ones they are but I don't think I can or I don't know how I could re-map that button to a different key.
Thanks for the replies on this.......

42

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 stops processing gcode

« on: April 08, 2018, 01:54:25 PM »

Thanks Craig for the info. That makes sense in regards to the reading ahead and cpu usage. Windows may be a multitasking OS theoretically but in reality I believe it is just a very fast single task OS in regards to CPU handling. I did run another shorter gcode script that I wrote in an unrecognized syntax on purpose and that is what happened. The program stopped before actually executing or getting the the syntax.
Thanks again for the reply

43

Mach4 General Discussion / Another Mach 4 issu not tool path display

« on: April 07, 2018, 05:09:48 PM »

Today I loaded a gcode program and in the toolpath display nothing showed up, not even the xyz coordinate reference that is normally in the lower left corner. I rebooted everything several times, made no changes to any mach 4 configuration only loaded a gcode. Loaded other programs that I have ran before several times with no change. On all of the programs all I get is a blue screen in the toolpath and once in a while a red vertical line but nothing else. Zooming in and out to extents and panning around reveals nothing either. Has any one seen this issue or had this problem?
Thanks..........

44

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Question on 4 Axis Toolpath?

« on: April 07, 2018, 12:36:03 PM »

Has anyone got any input on this issue. I have seen this issue asked in a few other posts but no real replies that I have found. mach 3 does not have this issue and I generally use mach 3 to check code that I have created but not run before just to make sure nothing is missing or out of range.

45

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 stops processing gcode

« on: April 06, 2018, 11:43:32 AM »

Checked the licence information yesterday, it appears to be present and correctly displaying as a licensed version. I noticed yesterday while running a different gcode program that it may be actually reading ahead and hanging on a G92 command later in the program. I have modified my mach 4 to have some scaling DROs and while running the particular code that I have the problem with I also had the z axis scaled back by 50% on the first pass. I had a typo in another program that I was running and it stopped and reported that there was an unrecognized word. I looked at the code on the screen and it all was correct but when I scrolled down several lines I noticed the error in the code and corrected it, after which the code ran as designed. Is there any real advantage to having the read ahead option turned on? I believe I saw it set at 20 lines when I was going through setting up the software and I did not change it from it's default setting during my initial setup.
Thanks........
 

46

Mach4 General Discussion / Mapping F5 Key in mach 4

« on: April 06, 2018, 11:31:55 AM »

I attempted to map the F5 key to a specific function the other day but when I enter the info on the Input Signals tab under configuration it does not seem to retain the the settings. It will keep the green check marks selected for the mapping enabled and active low columns but "keyboard" under the device column and the name I select under Input Name column disappear after I close the configuration window and go back in to it. I have the name I chose set up for the F5 key established under the keyboard configuration tab and I have successfully mapped other keys to other functions but for some reason it appears that Mach 4 will not accept or allow mapping a function to the F5 key. Has anyone else seen this issue or know why this may be occurring?
Thanks.......

47

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 stops processing gcode

« on: April 05, 2018, 11:31:04 AM »

I am pretty sure it is. I bought it, a few weeks back, as part of a bundle with a PMDX control card and went through the licensing procedure that was emailed to me. I have done some other projects which exceeded 6 minutes and by the time it gets to that line of code in the one I was running it was well past the 6 minute mark. I will check the Help tab to make sure it does reflect it as being licensed to make sure I didn't miss something.

48

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach 4 stops processing gcode

« on: April 04, 2018, 12:03:55 PM »

If anyone has seen this or has any ideas of what to look for I would appreciate their suggestions/input:

ISSUE: Yesterday while turning an object on my 4 axis cnc, the machine and program stopped and about 50 lines from the end of the code. Total length of code was about 1350 lines. It stopped on an axis move and all commands before and after were all just axis movements. I was able to get the rest of the program to execute by selecting the Single Block function and then clicking the cycle start to complete the project one line at a time. It reported no errors and the line of code it stopped on did not appear to have any syntax errors or be any different from the previous lines of codes. Also the last two lines of code are an M5 spindle stop and honestly don't remember the very last it may have been a go to home coordinate command but after  at the last move of the axis I had to actually click in the window on the M5 command and then hit cycle start twice to get it to complete the last two lines of the code.
Thanks for reading.....

49

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 scaling and keyboard button mapping

« on: March 25, 2018, 06:29:16 PM »

LAST UPDATE---Figured out the "looping" problem and I can now scale any axis by simply entering the value in to the DRO's and they will scale just like you could do in mach 3. When  I select regen tool path it will resize the picture on the tool path table as well as update the extents.

50

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 scaling and keyboard button mapping

« on: March 25, 2018, 05:57:53 PM »

UPDATE--I went back to the mach 3 program and dug around in some of there scripts and oem codes and figured out how they performed the scaling in that. I had to make several modifications to the code that I had found in post under mach 4 from 2014 in order to get that to work. For the most part that code that the user had shared on his post got me in to the ball park but there were some errors and things left out that caused issues.

I have one basic issue at this point and that is figuring out how to get it to only issue the gcode command once instead of getting stuck in a loop or at least I think that is what is occuring. At this time I can resize my image to whatever I want but when I click the enable button, it appears that the gcode starts executing and toggles between line 1 and 2 and the timer starts running. I basically only need to the code to execute when i change the value in the dro and/or click on regen tool path.