Messages

41

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Need help with tool offset

« on: May 28, 2019, 12:43:09 PM »

Drill heads,  two spindels and also horizontal drills

42

Mach4 General Discussion / Need help with tool offset

« on: May 27, 2019, 10:46:44 AM »

Hello, I am retrofitting an old masterwood project 309 and I am currently trying to set the tool offsets. My machine has an machine head with alot of tools on it. These tools have a fixed postion so they would need an offset in relation to the master tool. I am using mach4 and an csmio controller.

Could someone help me how to define those x and y offsets in relation to the master tool? If it is even possible.

Thanks in advance.

43

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Need some help please. Mach4 Masterwood work position

« on: May 24, 2019, 08:41:14 AM »

Yes I have 9 row drill heads and 4 side drill heads and 2 spindles. One spindle with an fixed changeable tool and one ATC spindle. Why do you aks?

44

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Need some help please. Mach4 Masterwood work position

« on: May 23, 2019, 09:52:30 AM »

Thanks for the help. Indeed I wanted to set to g54 at the top of the work area (bottom of work piece) and measure the tools also on that area. I read somewhere that fusion360 puts g54 in the gcode from default.

45

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Need some help please. Mach4 Masterwood work position

« on: May 23, 2019, 08:51:29 AM »

first need to understand which cadcam you use and how you define there the material
because normally in that kind of controller (gcode like mach) the system not real interesting about yours material thickness
only date its need what  z need go down and which tool
in europe cnc its generaly come with cadcam that calculate this ,so first explain how you want to work on this cnc
and which cadcam you plan to use

I am going to use fusion360 with the mach3 mlll post processor.But I I think I might have found what I needed. I think I just need to use g54 and I indeed do not need to tell the machine the thickness of the material because you already define it within fusion360.

46

CS-Lab / Re: CSMIO IP/A and CSMIO IN/OUT MACH4 ISSUE

« on: May 23, 2019, 08:46:20 AM »

Hello,

Have you tried to turn an output on via lua scripting. I had an problem with setting the outputs high via m codes aswell and send them an email. They said to try it in the m6 toolchange macro. for example i tried this:

 local inst = mc.mcGetInstance()
 io = mc.mcIoGetHandle(inst, "CSMIO-IP/Out.1");
 mc.mcIoSetState(io, 1);

just paste this on top of the m6 macro.

I experienced that if you want to control the output you don't assign it in the mach4 config. So if you type output 1 in the string to control the output. output 1 on the csmio will be set high nog output 1 inside the mach4 config. So there is no need to assign the output inside mach4 config if you want to use it inside an script.

Hope this helps and that I was clear.

47

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Need some help please. Mach4 Masterwood work position

« on: May 22, 2019, 12:56:57 PM »

You're asking how to specify the work piece position, then saying it's always in the same place?
I'd set the origin in the CAM software to match your pin locations, which should be set by your home switches.

The machine has different tool on it's head which is also the z-axis. The limit switches can't be the same as the origin for the work piece. This is because there are drills that need to drill horizontal past the origin which would trigger the limit switched. So I think that I need an fixed work piece offset to match the origin that is set by the pins.

I found that you can set x and y offsets for tools inside the mach4 tooltable.  I want to use that to specify the different locations for the tools(because they have different x an y offsets in relation to the main tool). But I think I am a bit confused on how to set the origin in relation to the head. Is it even possible to tell the machine that there is an fixed origin in relation to the head?

Sorry for the confusion hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.

48

Mach4 General Discussion / Need some help please. Mach4 Masterwood work position

« on: May 22, 2019, 11:32:57 AM »

Hello,

I am currenlty retrofitting an old masterwood project 309 from 1993. I am retrofitting it with an CSMIO-ip/a. The machine is made for furniture buidling so it has an vacuum bed to fix the material. In the upperleft corner are pistons to set the workpiece in a fixed zero position. I am trying to make a function where I can fill in the workpiece dimensions to give the machine the workpiece position. I do not need probing because the material is always in the same position on the bed.

But the problem is that I am unsure in which value to put it and where to program it. Could someone help with my problem?

Thanks in advance.

Jelle

49

CS-Lab / Re: Custom script CSMIO/IP-A Mach4

« on: May 21, 2019, 07:49:45 AM »

Hi,

I am an novice at programming with lua but i have experience with c an c++

If you can program in C and C++ then Lua will be a walk in the park. You could write scripts in C but you would
have to compile, edit and debug outside of Mach. Don't waste your time.


Mach4's latest builds have migrated to Lua 5.3 which has a few subtle variations on 5.2:

https://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/

I notice you are using an Io? I assume that the CSMIO plugin has registered the Io you are addressing?
You cannot register an Io object from a script, registering an Io object is done by a plugin and the object is 'owned'
by the plugin. I don't think that your string correctly addresses the object, assuming it exists.

May I suggest you use a regular output. Output #5 for instance.

function m(126)
local inst=mc.mcGetInstance()
local hsig=mc.mcSignalGetHandle(inst,mc.OSIG_OUTPUT5)
mc.mcSignalSetState(hsig,1)
end

Assign a pin of your controller to Mach's output in the controller plugin and your done. This is how I would address an output
of my ESS for instance.

Note the I chose Output5 with malice aforethought because there is an LED for it in the outputs section of the
Machine Diagnostics tab. Allows you to see what you are doing.

Craig

Thanks for the reply. I am not a pro in c and c++ but can find my way around.

I got an reply from the csmio manufacter and I can call an output via an string. But I think the problem is where I put my macro file.

I tried my code in the m6 function and it worked, the output was set high. But when I make a custom macro m126 and put it in the macro folder within the profile the function doesn't seem to work. I tried to call the macro with the MDI window. Could you or someone help me with the custom macro file location? Because the mach4 manual said to save it within the profile and give it the macro name (m126).

Thanks in advance.

Jelle

50

CS-Lab / Custom script CSMIO/IP-A Mach4

« on: May 20, 2019, 08:18:25 AM »

Hello, Iam currently retrofitting an old Masterwood project 309 with Mach4 and the csmio/ip-a controller. I am at the phase to write custom scripts to make the machine function as it should.

The problem is that I cant seem to find a manual on how to use lua with this controller( and no good manual for lua itself). So I am unsure on how to set an output high.
I wanted to try and set an output high with an m-code to get familiar with the language. This is the code I wrote:
function m126 ()
local inst = mc.mcGetInstance();
io = mc.mcIoGetHandle(inst,"CSMIO-IP/out.3");
mc.mcIoSetState(io,1);
end


I am an novice at programming with lua but i have experience with c an c++

Thanks in advance