Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Win7 Jog-mode enabled prohibits entering axis values

« on: December 01, 2022, 07:03:19 AM »

P.S.:
It appears that DROs can be set without a problem when Jog mode is on on a second
installation of Mach 3 I just did on my laptop for testing.

So I assume the problem on my machine must be something in the Pokeys setup or similar rather then in Mach3 itself.

I'll do some more experimenting.

2

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 Win7 Jog-mode enabled prohibits entering axis values

« on: December 01, 2022, 06:24:02 AM »

Hi everyone,
I'm running Mach3 with Windows7 and Pokeys57 interface board.
I built a MPG long time ago which is connected to the Pokeys interface.
That works fine.

But: I need to switch Mach3 into Jog mode in order to move the axis with the MPG.
That's ok so far, but when in Jog mode, I cannot change or reset the axis values.
When I try this the entered value is not commited to the display as long as I stay in
Jog mode.
As soon as I switch off Jog mode, the displays are jumping to the new value (or zero if I zeroed the axis).
So I find myself switching Jog mode on and off every time I need to set coordinates or move the axis by hand.

I remember this was not necessary some time ago.

I made an excurse to Mach4 and tried hard to get it to work, but I had so many problems that I decided
to go back to the reliable Mach3.
In the old Mach3 I did not need to switch on or off Jog mode at all.
Either it was off all the time and I was able to use the MPG also in normal mode,
or the DROs could be set with Jog mode on. I really do not remember, which was the case.
What I remember though was the fact I never had to switch Jog mode on or off manually.

Is there a way to use the MPG and CNC operation and setting the DRO _without_ having to switch
Jog mode on and off all the time?
Could you please give me a hint how to get this finctionallity back again?

Thank you!

  Lothar

3

Feature Requests / Re: Add a single line MDI with Enter property which executes like Mach3

« on: June 30, 2020, 02:51:40 AM »

Digging out this thread while searching for a convenient MDI usage in Mach4 I'd like to say:

The most important MDI behavior in Mach3 for me was the command history.
Just browsing through the last entered lines using the arrow up/down key and editing the
commands if necessary.
That was sooo nice!
If find myself closing Mach4 and starting Mach3 just to use the convenient MDI of Mach3 quite often.

Please, NFS, bring back the MDI functionality of Mach3! 

Btw: It's not <Crtrl>-<Enter> to execute the MDI in Mach4, but <Shift>-<Alt>-<Enter>.

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Surface map Wizard not working

« on: June 24, 2020, 06:39:36 AM »

Same here.
Spent about 3 hours now to get this to work, but surface map seems to have no effect at all.
I tried it on .4300 (demo) and .4517 (licensed)

Also I found the map file contains a lot of "noTouch" entries even though during probing everything went fine.
The machine recognized every single probe point.
Well after having no success loading the map file, I edited it by hand inserting plausible values instead of the "noTouch" data.
But that did not change anything.
The map file is just not recognized by Mach4. No hint in the logging window either.
I'll attach my (edited) map file from a "sloped" machine bed.

I'd really appeciate that feature working!

Lothar

5

Mach4 General Discussion / General error opening gcode file - fix

« on: March 07, 2020, 04:38:35 PM »

Hi!

I had a problem here on my setup switching from Mach3 to Mach4.
After some experimenting I found the reason for the problem and I thought I'd share the solution here.
Maybe it helps someone.

I store my gcode files on a NAS.
The CNC computer mounts the NAS share as a nework drive to access the gcode files.
That worked perfect with Mach3.
Mach4 however refuses to open these files. I get a "General error opening file" (or similar - I have a non-english Windows installation).
Copying the file to the desktop or a local drive works fine and Mach4 is able to open the copied files without any problem.

My NAS shares files read-only and that is obviously the problem.
Mach4 needs write access to gcode files in order to open them.
Exporting the directory read-writeable fixed the problem.

Maybe NFS could brush up the error message a bit. Something like "Gcode file needs write permission to open!" would be nice.

Well, hope that helps someone.

Cheers
  Lothar

6

Mach4 Plugins / Re: XHC WB04 plugin

« on: March 06, 2020, 04:46:10 AM »

I was very happy finding this thread, since I'm missing the WB04 very much after upgrading to Mach4 recently.

Unfortunately Mach4 (Version 4.2.0.4300) does not start anymore when I put XHC04.m4pw and
XHC04.sig (V 1.0.19) into the M4 plugin folder.
I'm running Win7 32bit

What might have gone wrong?

Thank you!
  Lothar