This thread is of Lathe users ( the neglected children ),

    This thread is temporarily sticky'ed, to allow comments, if enough respond with USE FULL input and HELP, then I will ask the mods to make a Lathe Screen set(s) sub thread.

    IF you want a "More practical" or "Better" lathe screen set then I propose this be a "USERS" community project, please ONLY respond if you actually use lathe in Mach3, and currently HATE the OEM screen, and want something better.

    In the past my self and da-one and a few others tryied to get something out, but response, and help was POOR.....

So, I recommend a Community Lathe screen "Team" to do this project, If you have ability in  screen design, wizards, or macros (to include designing bit maps etc.), PLEASE step up.

It is apparent to me, that "Hood" and "Rich" appear to be the MOST experienced real world Mach3 lathe users, (via post of answers, help docs, etc.).
There are probably others, if so and your willing to help, speak up.

I am thinking of making a community team, since we all work for a living, we can all contribute as we can. If someone out there is "re-tired", and has both time and interest to be the main "Team Leader" for this project step up. You would be the "Main Source" tree guy as well.

If you can and will volunteer, put in what areas you would be interested in helping. For sure, a Team leader would need to be the main guy that we can email our work to, or better yet, have a CVS or like development tree. Perhaps Brian would allow us to use a CVS tree node on the ArtSoft server........ That way we could keep track of versioning, changes, etc.....

Here are the position as I see them, please add more if you see more, and volunteer on this thread if you WILL contribute. Question marks
means, "Your name(s) here" to be decided, etc.

Team Leader = ?(main guy over the entire project, keeps track of stuff on the CVS or like, farms out jobs, all suggestions/complaints are directed here etc.)

Screen Layout = (what NEEDS to go on each page?, how fancy or not?, embedded wizards?, tabbed layouts etc. (i.e. IPS, Mach 2010, etc.)

Wizards = (embedded into a screen page(s) or in wizard drop down?, standard operations? embedding current lathe wizards into the screen sets?)

Macros  = (These may be used for screen set functions, or wizard idea guys may need help implementing the VB)

Bit Maps = (making screen background maps, button and other bit maps), with what ever graphics program you use, would need to be able to make dual state "Led" buttons in it).

Brains  =   (if the screen sets require them)

Plugins = (if needed, for embedding "macros", replicate brain functions, or other embedded stuff, i.e. Modbus driven VFD ect.)

Beta Testers = (only guys that actually RUN a lathe doing a lot of different stuff daily should apply here, to test out for bugs, and be able to give USEFULL feed back, like: EXACTLY how did you cause the failure (the steps that make *************************** happen).

BRETT (ChaoticOne), pehaps you could make us a temporary sub thread for this, that ONLY the team above could access, the team leader would provide the LIST of who could join, so as to not junk it up with a bunch of "Yahoo" comments.

Please of following threads, post what your willing to do and your realistic time commitment you can do.

I.E. Here is my availability:

Availability catagories:  Sparse 1-10 hours per 7 day week, Moderate 11-20 hours per 7 day week, Good = 21-30 hours per 7 day week,
Great = 31-40+ hours per 7 day week.

Scott: Wizards, Macros, BitMaps, Brains, Plugin(s), (notice leave out what you don't want to do: Team leader, Screen layout, beta tester)
Availability: Sparse (may change to more when school is out)

Scott

Scott,

I see no reason for you to start from scratch. You should download my screen I posted recently and run with it. Everything but the full IPS system is done and working. I am sure you could build on that and only make it better.

On a side note for others venturing into using a lathe on Mach3. I think someone needs to maintain a bug list so that others don't go down the same road I did. The lathe side is kinda the bastard child and has so many issues I am amazed people don't look at other options. Anyways just my 2 cents, take it for what its worth.

Best of luck,
-Wes

OK, I agree that the stock mach lathe screens leave a bit to be desired.
That's one reason we added lathe support to MSM last year.
I anyone wants an alternative UI to use for lathes, one that is already done and released, you can use the MSM lathe screens.
They're available as part of the free personal edition of MSM (so the price is right).
http://www.calypsoventures.com/

Dave

Hey Dave,

   Nothing personal to you, but this is for a community lathe screen, open source. If you don't mind, please don't hijack this thread, you have your own dedicated threads for your stuff.

Scott

Hey Scott,
I wanted to see what kind of replies you recieved and after two weeks seems there is not much interest.

Let me ramble some about creating a new lathe screen

I realy dislike the OEM lathe screen and don't use it. I must say that I have never seen written logic behind it's creation
and to comment in any way would not be appropriate, only to say, it's restrictive in my opinion. What i disliked most was the back and forth required to get to the different screens and inability to do simple things because a screen was limited. Just to manny clicks and tabs to move around. I also deisred additional capability.

Back a long time ago Phil worked on a screen and and improved the lathe screen. That is still the one I use today since it has many nice features. Just "my opinion" and others would probably think very differently about it.

As time passes, maybe three years or so, I think of Mach4 and it's implications, namely that old screens, macro's won't work with
Mach 4. So one must ask........
Why go through all the effort at this time to do a new lathe screen?
Why create new wizards when Ron has provided a new lathe wizard. Skip the screen makeup as the wizard replaces the
basis for some of Dayone's screen revamp.

Just some thoughts,
RICH