Messages

11

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Unlicensed Mach4 on desktop?

« on: December 23, 2019, 04:01:33 PM »

Yes, the license conditions are pretty much hidden. They are probably so intransparent with it because the license restrictions may discourage people from buying Mach4. If I had known it earlier I would have thought twice whether to buy a license.

However here are the licensing details: https://www.machsupport.com/my-account/license-maintenance/license-maintenance-instructions/

I wish they would add more details e.g. what exactly causes the PCID to change. Especially because the PCID is not only changed when changing hardware. Some settings in windows 10 cause mach4 generate a new PCID. So be careful when changing settings. It could waste license renewals.

best regards

Brandon

12

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: December 05, 2019, 05:25:10 AM »

We are working on gesture support now. 

Yes, that was what i mean. Nice to hear that.

We already have popup screen keypads and keyboards.  You have to enable them on the controls you want.  Look for the "Editor" property in the properties of the controls when in the screen editor.  Then make sure "DRO Auto Calc" is checked in the Operator menu in the menu bar.  The MDI control is an exception at the moment.

Awesome. That was exactly what I thought of. I hope you can make it work for the MDI control too. But please, when adding a qwerty popup-keyboard, make sure to think of localized keyboard layouts. Eg. the german keyboard layout has y and z buttons swapped.
Is there a setting to increase the size of the popup-keyboard buttons? The entire popup is just 35 x 35 mm for me. Makes it hard to press any buttons.

Making a default touchscreen screen set is probably not going to happen.  Because nobody will like it

Wouldn't say that. It's just that people who are happy won't complain. The default screens are functional and not bad. They offer all features I need. After all i'm using the default screen. However it's just that some parts are too small for working good with touch.

Part of the reason choosing Mach4 is the default screens. If Mach4 would not come with a working default screen for my machine then I would probably not even use Mach4. I think they are important and having more than the six presets wouldn't be harmful. Why not offering a larger selection possibility? I probably won't edit the screen because it's much work (at least for someone like me  ). I use a touch pen for now instead. That gives a little more precision to hit the tiny buttons. Most of the buttons are actually well sized. It's just a few that are too small.

Best regards

Brandon

13

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: December 04, 2019, 11:10:06 PM »

Feature Request: Better touch support

Larger touch screens are cheap these days and spares you from installing a keyboard/mouse. However Mach4 does not play well with touch.
1. It would be nice to be able to pan and scan the gcode viewer with touch gestures.
2. A default touchscreen friendly screenset would be nice. (larger buttons, virtual keyboard etc)

Maybe a setting that makes Mach4 not use the lower third of the screen so that there is enough space for a virtual keyboard. Or maybe it would be better to add a virtual keyboard in mach4 directly so that it pops up whenever we can type something (eg MDI gcodes)

14

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: How to automatically start Mach 4 after booting windows 10?

« on: December 03, 2019, 07:35:31 PM »

You are right. It still exists.

However it's now more hidden as it is no more in the start menu of windows 10. To find it one has to press [Windows Key] + [R] to open a command prompt. Then enter shell:startup and click OK. The autostart folder opens in a new window. You can now move a shortcut for Mach4 in this folder. Make sure it is a link to C:\Mach4Hobby\Mach4GUI.exe. One can also specify a profile to load (to skip the profile selection dialog) by adding the /p argument like so: C:\Mach4Hobby\Mach4GUI.exe /p Mach4Mill

Best regards

Brandon

15

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 is missing DLLs and does not start after updating to 4.2.0.4300

« on: December 02, 2019, 12:41:22 AM »

Nevermind. It's caused when using a Windows 10 N/KN Version. These versions don't come with media stuff. The newer versions of Mach4 do seem to depend on these making it incompatible with Windows 10 N/KN.

A solution is to download the Media Feature Pack from Microsoft (essentially upgrading to a normal windows 10 version): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/mediafeaturepack

Keep in mind that Windows 10 uninstalls the media pack, when updating to a newer windows version (i.e. the biannually updates). So you have to download and install the media feature pack again whenever windows updates.

Best regards

Brandon

16

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 is missing DLLs and does not start after updating to 4.2.0.4300

« on: December 02, 2019, 12:28:09 AM »

I tried upgrading Mach4 from Version 4.2.0.3804 to 4.2.0.4300. I launched the installer and everything installed successfully. However when Mach4 starts various error messages appear. They say that some dll's are missing:

- MFPlat.DLL
- MFReadWrite.dll
- MF.dll

Mach4 does not start anymore since this update. What am i doing wrong? I already removed all my customization / profiles, but that does not help.

Best regards

Brandon

17

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: MACH 4 screen contrast

« on: December 02, 2019, 12:23:43 AM »

To be honest if I really want to view a toolpath, say for verification before committing the job, I use a standalone Gcode viewer. Mach4's toolpath display will never be a highly resolved and richly featured display like you would expect from a dedicated viewer.

I would not agree with that. Visualization is very useful. Seeing how the lines move in relation to the spindle is a big advantage and can help prevent crashes. In my opinion the gcode viewer of mach4 should be expanded even more as it is too rudimentary. Like adding 3D models of bed/spindle/vice etc to it. Maybe even a visualization of the workpiece and how the tool machines it. A simulation of entered gcode would also be nice. Computers are powerful enough these days i don't see why Mach4 could not do that.

Ok, I installed the newer version now too. You must now go to Operator > Edit Screen. Then click the large gray area designated to the paths. Scroll the box in the bottom-left down until you see the colors. By clicking them three dots apper. Click them and select a new color.

18

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Making a connection through rs232 in Mach4

« on: November 30, 2019, 08:53:51 PM »

Agreed. Thank you very much for sharing your work. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

After all, information on Mach4 in this matter is still scarce. Collecting all the bits of knowledge around to forum to create a nice serial add-on is tedious. A nice guide/tutorial would definitly improve the accessability of Mach4 in general.

Best regards

Brandon

19

Mach4 General Discussion / How to automatically start Mach 4 after booting windows 10?

« on: November 30, 2019, 04:41:43 PM »

Hi,

How to automatically start Mach 4 after booting windows 10?

Basically I dont want that my coworkers must launch it themselfs by navigating through windows 10. So, how can I actually launch Mach4 with the correct profile automatically when starting windows?

When using windows xp there was a "autostart" entry in the start menu that launched it automatically after booting. How would one do this in windows 10? There is no autostart menu anymore or where is it hidden?

Best regards

Brandon

20

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 and mini PC

« on: November 30, 2019, 04:22:32 PM »

Hi,

I am running mach4 on a Intel NUC NUC7PJYH.

It comes with a quad core and clocks up to 2.8 GHz and has Intel HD Graphics 605 chip. As a bonus you can attach two HDMI displays. I use one touch-display for Mach4 and another display for displaying two downscaled full hd video feeds from cameras in the CNC.

Despite the load it works perfectly fluent.

Best regards

Brandon