Good afternoon, my name is Peter.
I have a project that consists of using Mach3 to create a micro injector of 6 or 12 colors to create figures in plastisol. but i have no idea how to start i use vectri aspire to generate the G code
If any of you can give me ideas to start I would appreciate it.
a hug to all
  I attached a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_piddTq3cEA&ab_channel=FactorysupplyPVCSiliconeRubberMachine

Hi,
I think you'd be better off with Mach4. It is so much more amenable to custom configuration than Mach3.

Craig

Thanks for answering
  in mach4 it is better I would buy Mach4 hobby

Hi,
I have been using Mach4Hobby for eight years, it light years ahead of Mach3 in my opinion.

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=42891.msg278176#msg278176

Craig

Hi Peter,

It is going to require a great deal of thought, work and research - it would not be for the faint hearted, but it can be done and when you look back on the project at some future date it will probably all seem quite simple.
Easy enough to create the outline and infill toolpaths with Vectric but in order to extrude a material of consistent thickness / volume you will need near perfect ‘constant velocity’ from your moving axes. To help achieve this the design mass of each moving axis should be kept to a bare minimum throughout the build so start out with just one extruder / colour and learn how to control a rotary axis (driving an extruder) which is speed linked with the moving X,Y linear axis speed. I have not tried it but the creation of this type of GCode may well be beyond the remit of a Vectric toolpath and you may need to look towards something like 3D slicing software. Cura, just for example, will break down an infill toolpath into matched linear and rotary movements and then produce the necessary GCode which can then be run with Mach (although some minor adjustments may be necessary to match the GCode style).
Once you have one extruder / colour working correctly additional extruders can be added and selected via a Tool Change within your GCode file. There will be some electronic work required for selecting the drive requirements of each separate extruder but it should not be too complicated.

Good fortune with your project.

Tweakie.

thank you Tweakie.cnc
I will take your ideas into account
to inject the ink it is operated with a pneumatic system (air, solenoid valves, etc.) but I am concerned about the programming, with macros but I don't know how to start

As far as Mach3 is concerned, this document would be a good place to start learning about macro's;
https://www.machsupport.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Mach2_6.11_Custom.pdf
(Although it it referrs to Mach2 it equally applies to Mach3).

Perhaps Craig (Joeaverage) could point you in the right direction for learning how to create macro's within Mach4.

Tweakie.

Hi,
it rather sounds like your project will require quite a lot of custom code.

You can do so in Mach3....but its not easy. The scripting language is a variant of Visual Basic, and that in itself has shortcomings. So much so......that is why is
changed to Mach4 all those years ago.

Mach4 is a highly structured and modularised application. It uses Lua as a scripting language. Lua is not especially easy to use, but it has a very lightweight software
footprint and runs blazingly fast. The two combined means that Mach4 is a vastly better proposition for customisation. Having said that there is a distinct learning curve,
all that flexibility, power and speed don't come free!

In Mach4 there are two main areas to put custom code.

The first is a a macro within the Gcode interpreter/trajectory planner. For example you might wish to write a macro to change injector from one color to another:

m150() changes to Red
m151() changes to Blue
m152() changes to Green
etc.

These macros are small blocks of code that you would put in the macros folder of your profile. If you need a different color, Blue say, then you would write a line of m151 in the Gcode.
When the job is running and Mach encounters an m151 call it will execute that code.

Another area where you can place custom code is the 'Screen Script'. This is large block of code that includes all the screen elements, things like DROs, toolpath windows etc.
You can add chunks of code to this script and that would provide a specific functionality which is generally available throughout Mach.
There are yet other scripts, like the PLC script that give you a place to put code that runs every few milliseconds, and the PMC script that gives you ladder logic.

All-in-all this modularity gives Mach4 scripting a great deal more power and flexibility than Mach3.

Craig