Messages

51

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: B C axis independent from XYZ axis

« on: January 13, 2020, 01:41:57 PM »

Whoops! And I commented on that thread 

I didn't look to see who was posting!

52

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: B C axis independent from XYZ axis

« on: January 13, 2020, 12:19:46 PM »

You might be referring to independent planners/coordinate systems. This would allow completely separate control of XYZ and AB, but allow XYZ to be coordinated and AB to be coordinated separately.

Mach 4 only supports a single planner / coordinate system at the hobby and industrial levels, however there have been hints of other versions which support more.

This type of control is common on Swiss Lathes where there is work being performed independently on the front and rear spindles, only to work together with special sync codes. This is actually pretty complicated for a CNC control to do, even in high end controllers, and isn't something that Mach 4 can do out of the box without some special effort.

53

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: B C axis independent from XYZ axis

« on: January 13, 2020, 09:28:28 AM »

Out of Band = No synchronization.

If you wish to do the move you described XYZAB start -> AB stop -> XZY Stop... You would need to program that as two lines with CV turned on. The first move would get you part way through the move on XYZ and finish the motion for AB, the second line of Gcode would finish the motion for XYZ.

For Example, if you wanted to move XYZ to 10 units and AB to 6 units.

G1 G90 X6 Y6 Z6 A6 B6 F20
X10 Y10 Z10 F20

If you needed some axes to move faster than eachother while doing these moves, then you're going to need to do some math to figure out the component velocities of each axis in the move and adjust accordingly. This is what your CAM package should be doing.

This isn't a limitation of Mach in any way, just the way Gcode behaves.

54

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Index pulse and Spindle RPM?

« on: January 02, 2020, 10:07:35 PM »

Whoops... I really should have followed up on that issue...

In the ESS configuration, there were check boxes to get the spindle RPM display from the index sensor or an encoder. The boxes were a tad confusing in their placement and I had selected the wrong one.

Took Andy (Warp9TD) and I far longer than I care to admit to find the issue. He has moved the location of these check boxes for future builds.

Since you are using CS labs, This doesn't apply... Sorry

55

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: PCNC 1100, Mach4 /ESS, Spindle Speed Control

« on: December 23, 2019, 11:47:18 AM »

CCWood,

I am using Mach 4 and an ESS with a Step/Dir spindle.

In the configuration you would set up your spindle as Motor 5 (or anything else) and axis OB1 (or anything else). In the Mach 4 control config, you would map Motor 5 to axis OB1.

In the ESS plugin config, you would configure the spindle as "OB" and configure the correct output pins in the ESS config. You would need to wire these and your enable (if you have one) to the drive. When configured correctly, the ESS will know to output pulses on the specified pins to generate spindle motion.

56

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Exit button for touchscreen

« on: December 18, 2019, 09:48:15 AM »

How does one know which API's are usable inside this programming for Mach, or is it open to any API?

.

Typically API is used to refer to the Mach 4 interfaces here. If you are asking about wxWidgets or another LUA library, that is a different thing.

In general, all the Mach API commands can be used anywhere. Some have restrictions based on the state of the machine. There are other restrictions/limitations once you start playing with LUA panels and macros, but I am not qualified to provide information on this.

wxWidgets is fully supported in Mach4, however it can get quite complicated once you get beyond the basic features. There are other libraries for LUA included in the Mach 4 install (such as RS232 serial support) and others might be able to be added, but I'm not knowledgeable in doing so.

57

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 liniar automatic tool change

« on: December 18, 2019, 09:16:14 AM »

Use the milling screenset then and just edit it to only show what you need for the lathe. In this case you may want to use work offsets and call them "Tool Offsets" then not even use the real tool offsets.

58

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: December 17, 2019, 11:19:08 AM »

I would like to see an additional check be done at the time of loading Gcode to make sure that the T# and H# match during tool changes. Perhaps an alarm can be raised that the user can ignore rather than preventing loading the code all together. Or perhaps a checkbox to enable and disable the checks.

For example:
N100 M06 T04
N101 G43 H40

Would throw the error "Line 100: T and H vales do not match".

This is a standard feature on Haas controls (probably others). I feel like there are only rare cases where someone would want those set separately, and in most cases it could prevent a crash.

Attached picture is completely unrelated 

59

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Exit button for touchscreen

« on: December 17, 2019, 09:52:08 AM »

You can check OSIG_MACHINE_ENABLED. You'll need to read this like any other I/O point in Mach by getting the handle first, then reading the state.

This signal mimics the status of the machine as you toggle the Enable button in the lower left hand corner.

Edit: Looking back, I see that you have found the OSIG_MACHINE_ENABLED, however you are failing to actually read the signal.

You will need to first get the register then read it:

local hReg = mc.mcSignalGetHandle(inst, mc.OSIG_MACHINE_ENABLED)
local machEnabled = mc.mcSignalGetState(hReg)

Mike

60

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 liniar automatic tool change

« on: December 17, 2019, 09:40:59 AM »

Daniel,

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I have done a few jobs which required me to use my mill as a vertical CNC lathe. I had many tools on the table, some clamped in the vise, others mounted elsewhere on the table.

Rather than using a M06 T## to change between tools, I flipped everything around. I used work offsets to give the machine the X,Y,Z coordinates of the 0,0 location on every tool, then I used the tool offsets to handle my different lengths of stock (held in tool holders).

This is a little backwards, but the functionality is exactly what you need to handle your tool changes.