I am upgrading my machine and looking moving to Mach 4 from Mach 3.  I downloaded the trial version and I dont see the Reverse Run button that there is in Mach 3.  Reading though the manual, it shows one.  Is this something that is just disabled in the trail version or is there actually no Reverse Run button?

Hi,
if I'm not mistaken that screen shot is of wxMach.set which was the very first and experimental GUI, it was never intended to be
a useful screen set for normal operations.

If you load wx4.set for instance you will not fine ReverseRun, and to my knowledge there is none.
Reverse Run was always one of the buggiest features of Mach3 and so I believe the Mach4 developers avoided it altogether, not withstanding
its early inclusion in wxMach.set.

Mach4 adheres very closely to ANSI Gcode and as a result if you attempt to reverse run the code the modals are all wrong.
Is there a particular reason you want it?

You could easily write a script that rewrites the Gcode in reverse order......but what happens to the modals??

Craig

Its a step in one of my regular processess with EVA foam.  Guess Ill have to hold off on Mach 4 until I can come up with a script of some kind...

Hi,
look at the following code:

g1 x0 y0 f500
x100 y100
x0 y0
x100 y100
x0 y0

This code is ANSI compliant, the g1 being modal means that successive lines are interpreted as if a g1 was included in each line.
If you wrote this code in reverse order:

x0 y0
x100 y100
x0 y0
x100 y100
g1 x0 y0 f500

Now Mach is in trouble because the g1, which sets the mode is now at the end of the block of code rather than at the begining.

If your code has a g1 ( or g0 or g2 etc) at the beginning of each line simply re-writing the code in revers order is fine, so it rather
depends on how your code is generated whether it will reverse run successfully.

This is the exact problem that Mach3 had as well and I believe that is why the Mach4 developers avoided it.

Craig

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation Craig. 

Ive been using this method for a couple of years and I dont remember having any real issues.  Maybe I need to revisit the process im using. 

Brett

The HiCON Integra Plugin from Vital Systems is capable of doing reverse run and it works great. They offer a Mach4 profile with the button programmed into the screen already.

For the reasons that Craig stated, reverse run isn't in Mach4. We have "cut recovery" instead of reverse run since reverse run was mostly used when a plasma flamed out.  The cut recovery process is really simple to use.  Just jog to near to a place on the path where you want to restart and hit the cut recovery button.