Not what you want to hear, but I've used it for probably 50-70 hours in the last year and have never had it crash. good luck

Not what you want to hear, but I've used it for probably 50-70 hours in the last year and have never had it crash. good luck

There is some interaction between Mach3 and Scream4 that I am just not getting.  I closed Scream4, started Mach, loaded my screenset, and put the spindle control scripts into their buttons for about the 10th time.  Worked find.  I could exit, and re-start Mach, and the buttons were fine.  I then closed Mach, and re-started Scream, and added a new button, without changing any of the old ones.  I re-start Mach, and my scripts are gone.  And, the new button is not there, until I explicitly load the new screenset.  It appears Mach keeps a copy of the screenset internally somehow?

I just don't get:

When/where/by whom are the scripts saved?
When/where/by whom is the .set file actually read?
When/where/by whom does the .set file get written?

I must be missing something, or doing something wrong, because the behavior seems totally random.  I neve know what's going to change, or when.  Actually creating the screens is easy, but getting them to actually work is another matter entirely....

Regards,
Ray L.

Somethings not right there.

Where is your .set file? In the Mach3 folder?
Where are your bitmaps? In Mach3\bitmaps\screenset\  ?
Where is Screen4.exe? In the Mach3 folder?

I've never seen any of your problems.

I've even ran Screen4 and Mach3 at the same time. Screen4 will now when you edit scripts in Mach3 and prompt you to reload the screen with the updated scripts.

The way I see it, the scripts are saved by Mach3 when you save in the script editor window. They are part of the .set file.

The .set file is read when you start Mach3, and when you use View>Load Screen.

the .set file should be in the main Mach3 folder.

Gerry,

You've just solved one problem for me!  I did not have the .set file in the MAch3 directory - didn't know you HAD to!  You can open a .set file located anywhere, but if you modify it in Mach3, by, for instance, editing a button script, it will silently write a NEW one to the Mach3 directory, and THAT is the one it'll load next time you start up.  Needless to say, that's really bad practice to do something like that with no notice to the user.  So, I'll move mine to the MAch3 directory, and I expect that will solve several of my problems.

Thanks!  That one was driving me nuts!

Regards,
Ray L.

Gerry,

That one tip saved me a HUGE amount of grief!  Once I moved the .set file into the Mach3 directory, things started behaving MUCH better, and I now have most of my new screen up and running in just a few hours.  Thanks again!

I've also figured out how to make a kinda cool new combo button/LED that I'll be making extensive use of.  I just wish I was more adept at the graphics editing part - It's something I've always sucked at....

Regards,
Ray L.

I've also figured out how to make a kinda cool new combo button/LED that I'll be making extensive use of. 

Glad you're getting along better now Ray, I was feeling your pain but was helpless.

Anxious to see how you did the button.

I put a button in an LED but it is behind it. It works, but you can't see the button till you put the cursor over it.

Thanks,
RC

Quote

I've also figured out how to make a kinda cool new combo button/LED that I'll be making extensive use of. 

Glad you're getting along better now Ray, I was feeling your pain but was helpless.

Anxious to see how you did the button.

I put a button in an LED but it is behind it. It works, but you can't see the button till you put the cursor over it.

Thanks,
RC

Quote

I've also figured out how to make a kinda cool new combo button/LED that I'll be making extensive use of. 

Glad you're getting along better now Ray, I was feeling your pain but was helpless.

Anxious to see how you did the button.

I put a button in an LED but it is behind it. It works, but you can't see the button till you put the cursor over it.

Thanks,
RC

RC,

What I did was created a two-color button graphic (similar to the LED surrounding the Spindle CW button), complete with text, then put an image button with no image on top of it.  So, when the function associated with the button is active, the entire button can light up a different color, or blink.  Looks nice, but I dont' have any of those in my prototype screenset yet.

Regards,
Ray L.

    The "alpha" version of my screenset is attached for anyone brave enough to give it a try.  It seems to work quite nicely.  To install, copy the folder "AllInOneMillScreen" into C:\Mach3\bitmaps, then copy the file "AllInOneMill.set" from that folder up into the Mach3 directory.  Open Mach, go to View->LoadScreens, and select AllInOneMill.set.  To return to the standard Mach screenset, go to View->LoadScreens, and select "1024.set".  Note that there is only one screen in there, not the 6 or so pages in the regular set.
 
    What I really like about this is it's big enough that I can read everything, even from 10 feet away.  It's very nice for old farts like me.  :-)
 
    Most of it should be pretty obvious. The two buttons next to the DROs do a GoToZero, either on all three axes (respecting SafeZ if enabled), or just X and Y.  "Mach Coord" toggles between User and Machine coordinates.  The background is RED when machine coordinates are being displayed.  The DRO borders are RED if the machine has not yet been homed, or otherwise referenced.
 
    The "SetPos" and "GoToPos" buttons next to the current tool DRO allow you to jog to your desired toolchange position, then click "SetPos" to make Mach remember it (this does not persist after exiting Mach, however).  Clicking "GoToPos" will rapid back to that position, respecting SafeZ, if enabled.  The dark rectangle under the tool number DRO is an LED that lights up yellow when it's waiting for you to do a tool change (do an "M6 Tx" in MDI, where "x" is the new tool number).
 
    The Spindle and Feed DROs are, from top to bottom, the commanded value (S-word or F-word), the over-ride value (0-100% for feed, 0-200% for spindle speed, and the actual value, with the over-ride taken into account.  Click or drag on the blue vertical bars to change the over-ride.  On Feedrate, the Reset button returns it to 100%.
 
    In the lwoer right corner, clicking on one of the four probe graphics, the center of the blue circle, or the tool spindle graphic executes the macros to do edge-finding, center finding, and tool length setting, using the Probe input.  The dark rectangle in the lower right corner lights up yellow when the probe is grounded, so you can test the probe before running one of the macros.  If you don't have a probe hooked up, you can still play with these by going into Ports&Pins->Inputs, and defining an emulated Probe input, mapping it to a keyboard key.  That's how I did all the debugging on my laptop.
 
    The MDI line is at the bottom left of the screen.
 
    I don't have a lot of hotkeys wired in yet, but these should work:
 
    Alt-R -> CycleStart
    Alt-S -> Stop
    Left/Right -> Rapid Jog X
    Up/Down -> Rapid Jog Y
    PageUp/PageDn -> Rapid Jog Z
    F5 -> Spindle on/off
    Alt-M -> Mist on/off
    Alt-F -> Flood on/off
    Alt-H -> Hide/Unhide menu bar
 
    Notice a number of DROs and buttons have green borders.  These are LEDs that light up when the corresponding function is active.  So, for instance, the one around the Mist button blinks red when the Mist coolant is on.  One quirk I haven't worked out yet is that when the spindle is turned on CCW, BOTH LEDs (CW and CCW) blink.  When you turn on the spindle, clicking EITHER CW or CCW will turn it, and the coolant, off.

Regards,
Ray L.

I like it Ray.
Dont understand the M3 and M4 buttons either....must be in the scripts. Greek to me though.
Also, could use a regen button, sure you have it in mond.
Great work....thanks for sharing it,
RC

I like it Ray.
Dont understand the M3 and M4 buttons either....must be in the scripts. Greek to me though.
Also, could use a regen button, sure you have it in mond.
Great work....thanks for sharing it,
RC

RC,

Thanks.  Let me know if you see anything else obviously wrong or missing, or have any suggested improvements.  I think this does contain every feature I actually use, so I'm pretty happy with it.  I'll be using it as my default for a while, and see how it goes.

"Dont understand the M3 and M4 buttons either" - Not sure I understand what you mean.  Are you referring to the LED behavior on the CW/CCW buttons?  I think I can fix that, but was too lazy on this one.

Notice there are a number of undefined buttons, and will likely be a few more when I'm done.  One of those could be made a Regen button.  I've never actually used it myself.  I rarely even look at the toolpath - I watch the machine!  :-)

Regards,
Ray L.