I have written a new wizard that runs as a simple power feed.

You can set a limit switch for X plus and X minus, then with a single button click you can feed back and forth, much like you could with a manual power feed option.

It also has controls for feed rate and can raise the Z axis on rapid moves.

Save the zip file to Mach3\Addons and extract the files to Power Feed X.

I think it might be useful, so its posted here. If there are no error reports it will go into a future release of the complete wizard set.

ron ginger

I gave it a try.  I don't quite understand the controlls.  I hit the one of the arrow keys to start, but how do I stop?  If I hit the reset button, I loose my possition depending on how fast I was feeding.

Vince

There is a DRO for X minus and one for X Plus. You set those to be your limits. The wizard loads them both to zero to start with so there is no mistake with an old value, but you must set at least one of them to some other value to get a move.

The keyboard arrow keys are your normal jog keys, and there is a button to turn jogging on or off.

Do you see a better way to label the keys to make this more obvious?

thanks for trying it.

ron ginger

I went back and tried it some more, paying more attention to the X limits.  It's even more confusing.  Next to the X minus limit value there is a feed plus feed button with a similar set up on the X plus value.  Shouldn't it say "FEED NEG" next to the X minus value?  I would also have a big "STOP" or "FEED HOLD" button between the two X limit buttons that does a contolled stop as apposed to a estop.  A note that says "enter X limits then click on feed direction buttons" should make it clear what to do. 

Just this last week I was doing something using the MDI page that this wizard would have done much better.  I will definitely use it in the future.

Vince

Ok, I was going to make the Feed buttons in an arrow shape but I dont have a good tool to do that. The idea is that the button by the Xneg limit is the one to send the table to the positive limit. So the button my each limit assume you are at that limit and want to go to the other limit. Ill see if I can make better buttons.

Good idea on the feedhold button, I will see if I can make that work.

thanks

ron ginger

I added some arrow buttons to make it more obvious which direction the moves will make. And I added a Feed Hold button with the Space Bar as a hot key like it is on the Mach main screen. The feed hold is a bit slow in acting, I suppose its because of the Mach buffer.

Ron,

Will that wizard work with Mach2?  Tormach won't be releasing Mach3 for their mill for another month or so or I'd be using it now.

Mike

Sorry, I don't know about Mach2. I have not run that for a couple years. I dont even recall the structure of the wizard folder in Mach2. I will have to find another system here to test that, but I'm trying to finish several other wizards now so it will be a while before I can try.

You could not hurt much by trying.

ron ginger

I added some arrow buttons to make it more obvious which direction the moves will make. And I added a Feed Hold button with the Space Bar as a hot key like it is on the Mach main screen. The feed hold is a bit slow in acting, I suppose its because of the Mach buffer.

OK, now you have me really interested.  Each time I play with it I find something else I like, this time was the Z to safe height on rapid.  The space bar works plenty fast enough.  If it's not fast enough someone can just hit the estop.  My next request would be, can you duplicate the same thing for the Y axis?  Just an hour ago I had to cut out a square in piece.  It still was not worth my time to write a g-code program for it so I just used the MDI screen, G1 Z-0.05, G1 Y-3, G1 X11, G1 Y0, G1 X0, G1 Z-0.100 etc.  With your wizzard I could have just set the limits in the windows and keep pressing the direction arrows.

Thanks

Vince

Ron,
Thanks for this wizard.
tested it here on my office computer and found it works OK.
No machine at present to test with but hopefully I will have within a week.

John S.