[Greolt]

I'm new to this forum. I implemented the Auto zero touch pad with success and absolutely no issues. Thanks Greg for the effort. Very slick.
Sorry but 12 pages of this thread was a bit much to wade through to find the answer to my question. Sorry if it's already answered elsewhere.
I notice the new plate thickness DRO never reads anything. How do you make that work and what will it read when it does. What should I do with that reading when it does show up. It seems everything is taken care of without it.
What's the process for customizing the control panel? I'd like to make some minor changes of my own.

I guess you mean the "Plate Thickness" DRO. The name says it all.

Enter here the thickness of the material you are using as a touch plate. Then make minor adjustments to get the result spot on.

This tells the macro what height above intended zero the probe was activated.

For alterations to screens look for "Screen4". It will be found on the Artsoft web site.

Greg

[neilw20]

In Mach3, when you change an entry in a DRO you MUST HIT ENTER to to accept the new value. This stops typos or accidental key hit creating havoc.
Also, if the num-lock is not on the number pad won't enter changes either.

[Mr.Chips]

In Mach3,
if the num-lock is not on the number pad won't enter changes either.

Is this true even if you use the number keys that are above the letter keys and not the Key Pad?

Thanks Neil

[LeeWay]

Yep. That's all I ever use. I am not even aware that there is a calculator on the end of all my keyboards.

[dsage]

Ok. I wasn't getting the fact that it was a DRO you could enter data into. I get it now. Very nice. Good work. I guess I got the speed etc tuned pretty well. I checked the final height after the tool retract and it was spot on using feeler guages from the work surface. My piece of circuit board is the typical .063" and I only have a retract to .2" after zeroing and it was spot on. I assume the retract would be short or long if the .063 was not correct.

Thanks

Sage


Sage

[dsage]

Ok. Sorry I must be slow. I'm still not getting the purpose of the "plate thickness DRO". I put 0.065" in the DRO which is the thickness of the plate (no mater what I put in there), after doing the auto zero it does not change. I see the Z DRO change for a fraction of a second to 0.065 but I think that gets there from the macro writing it there just before it does the retract.

Can someone explain to me how to use the "Plate thickness" DRO.

Sage

[Greolt]

Sage

It is not supposed to change. The macro reads that value to know how thick the touch plate is and allow for it in it's calculations.

The macro will not change that value. Only the operator can do that.

Read through the macro on the first page of this thread. You don't have to understand it all but you will get the gist of it.

Greg

[dsage]

I read the macro and I thought I understood it.
Here is a piece of the macro.

Call SetDro (2, PlateThickness) 'set the Z axis DRO to whatever is set as plate thickness
Code "G4 P0.25" 'Pause for Dro to update.
Code "G0 Z25.4" 'put the Z retract height you want here

Because I use inches here I change the obviously metric numbers throughout the macro to inches. I may have gotten carried away a bit.

In the line
"Call SetDro (2, PlateThickness)"

Is the PlateThickness a variable that macro reads from the DRO? (put in by the user)

I thought it was something I needed to insert so I removed the words PlateThickness and put in 0.065
In effect I guess I've hardcoded the value instead of having it read from the DRO.

I guess I need to put the PlateThickness variable back - right?

This might explain why no matter what I put in the DRO the Z-axis DRO gets updated with .065 (I also extended the pause to 1 second so I can better see what gets writen tot he Z-axis DRO before it does the retract).

Maybe I get it now.

Sage

[123CNC]

From upthread,

"Put a user DRO on the screen using Mach's screen utility, Screen4. Assigned it OEM code 1151

and

PlateThickness = GetUserDRO(1151) 'Z-plate thickness DRO "

When you initially 'program' your auto tool zero, you will enter the best value for plat thickness in the Mach's screen utility, Screen4. This value may differ from actual thickness, + x to achieve the desired accuracy and repeatability. The auto tool zero macro retrieves the stored value, previously entered, in Screen 4, OEM (1151).

If you need to make a new touch plate, no problem. Enter the new best value in Mach's screen utility, Screen4.

I'm not sure I understand where you assigned your "0.065" value within context of the VB script, but it sounds like you did hard code it, at one point, yet perhaps left the variable somewhere else?

More or less.

[dsage]

Ok I put the variable PLateThickness back and it's working properly now i.e what I put in the DRO gets transfered to Z-axis.

Thanks for that. I got a bitcarried away modifying things.

So now the question is. My machine is very repeatable so why do I need the PlateThickness DRO now that it's set up. I can't imagine I'll be changing the plate on a regular basis or anything. It might just as well be hard coded in the macro.
How hard would it be to make the tool zero function work on the original 1024 screen which already had a button for zeroing the tool so I can use the original screen. I think it might be useful to have the toool information back (which disappeared with the modified 1024 added for this feature).

Great feature though. Glad to have it any way I can get it. It was a real pain setting zero before.

Thanks


Sage

[ger21]

You don't enter the value in screen 4. You add the DRO to the screen using Screen4. Then, in Mach, when you run Mach3, you enter the plate thickness into the DRO that you added to the screen.

"Call SetDro (2, PlateThickness)" sets the Z axis DRO to whatever your plate thickness is. It gets that info from DRO you add to the screen.

[ger21]

You could change this line:


PlateThickness = GetUserDRO(1151) 'Z-plate thickness DRO

to:

PlateThickness = .065

Then you wouldn't need the DRO. If you ever changed the plate, just change the thickness in the macro code.

[Greolt]

How hard would it be to make the tool zero function work on the original 1024 screen which already had a button for zeroing the tool so I can use the original screen.

No problem at all hard coding the plate thickness value. That is what many people do.

And yes, then the standard screen with existing button would be fine.

I prefer to have my LEDs and DRO on screen. Just my preference.

Greg

[dsage]

On second thought (for now anyway). I'll stick with the modified screen. There is some benefit to having the LED indicator on screen to test the plate operation before using it. It could be bad news if the plate didn't work.

Ideally though I'd rather have the original screens back with just the addition of a LED near the original tool set button to test the plate and just hard code the plate thickness into the button macro as required to set it up.

Like I said. I'll take it anyway I can get it. It's a great addition to the software.


Thanks to Greg and all for your efforts.

Sage

[bp092]

I'm running a pmdx122 BOB. Anyone here using the same bob and made a tool setter like these in this thread? I am using pin 15 on my input side, setup on the probe in mach3 using ernie's machblue screen. No luck yet. I had the understanding that it was worked out so only one wire was needed and you didn't need a complete circuit. Would I need to add a resister/cap at all? Or just another cable to go from ground to an alligator clip on the tool? Thanks.

[jalessi]

BP092,


In the PMDX 122 document it states there is a LED on board that should light if the pin is pulled low.

Is the LED working when you ground the touch plate?

If so, then Mach3 is not configured completely.

I would be happy to IM you help, let me know.

Do you have a instant messenger?

Jeff...

[bp092]

Thanks to Jalessi for helping me to get it working!

[dsage]

Greg:

I wonder if you can help me here.

I have been using your tool setter with great success. I had to convert it to inches though.
Today I created some G-code files for some fonts. Somehow the G-code came out with X and Y numbers in the hundreds, probably because they were in millimeters. So I took the files and added a G21 on the front to tell the machine they were in millimeters but then they were too small. So I applied a manual scale of 4 to X 4 to Y and to get Z back to inches depth of cut I applied a scale of 2.54. I think theres a mistake somewhere there but the result was what I was looking for and is irrelevent to the problem.

In the past, working with inches I noticed the tool setter moves down until it touches the work and as soon as it does it jerks a bit deeper - maybe about a thou before it backs off the prescribed amount. This extra forward move was no big deal so I ignore it.

The G21 and the scaling now makes this a problem somehow. Good thing I was working on a piece of wood loosley clamped at the top of the vise jaws because at one point during my experiments, after touching down and stopping, the Z axis went down about another 100thou before retracting.

I was unabe to reproduce that serious problem but below is some code for you (or anyone) to test the tool setter. It still jerks down quite a bit before retracting. Maybe someone can figure out why and detect where my problem lies. I may have screwed up the conversion to inches from your original button code so I have also included my macro (or whatever it's called) for the tool setter button below as well.


To use the G-code:
First home everything and then put the machine somewhere in the middle of the table and zero X and Y. Put the quill down a bit and zero it. Then move the quill up a bit so it's a bit positive.

Load the G-code below and manually put a 4 in both the X and Y scaling DRO's and put 2.54 in the Z scaling DRO.

Run the tool setter. You don't need to have a tool in the chuck. AFter the tool setter starts just touch the plate to ground somewhere and hold it. You will see the quill stop as it should but very quickly jerks down a bit more (about 10thou or more) before retracting to the defined height.

The G-code:

(Program to test auto-zero with metric G21 and scaling active)
(manually set x scale to 4 y scale to 4 and z scale to 2.54)
(then use auto-zero and see what it does)
G0 x0 y0 z0
G90
G21
G0 x10 y6
m30




My button macro is as follows - converted to inches:

PlateThickness = GetUserDRO(1151) 'Z-plate thickness DRO

If GetOemLed (825)=0 Then 'Check to see if the probe is already grounded or faulty
DoOEMButton (1010) 'zero the Z axis so the probe move will start from here
Code "G4 P5" ' this delay gives me time to get from computer to hold probe in place
Code "G31Z-1 F4" 'probing move, can set the feed rate here as well as how far to move
While IsMoving() 'wait while it happens
Wend
ZProbePos = GetVar(2002) 'get the axact point the probe was hit
Code "G0 Z" &ZProbePos 'go back to that point, always a very small amount of overrun
While IsMoving ()
Wend
Call SetDro (2,PlateThickness) 'set the Z axis DRO to whatever is set as plate thickness
Code "G4 P0.75" 'Pause for Dro to update.
Code "G0 Z.2" 'put the Z retract height you want here
Code "(Z axis is now zeroed)" 'puts this message in the status bar
Else
Code "(Z-Plate is grounded, check connection and try again)" 'this goes in the status bar if aplicable
Exit Sub
End If



Thanks for your help.

Sage

[aminear]

what is your z pad height dro setting value set to?

[dsage]

Sorry Aminear:

See the corrected original post. I updated the button script listing. What I originally posted was not what is on my CNC machine. It is now corrected to what is misbehaving as described.
To answer your question, the PAD is .058 inches thick and that is what I have set into the tool setter DRO.


Sage