pathpilot pulse output

Hi everyone, I have a specific question and need a pathpilot or linux expert to help me out. I have a Tormach 1100 series 3. I want to have a pulse signal from the machine to my coolant nozzle to know what tool is in the spindle. that way the nozzle will adjust to the correct tool length. I am not using the Tormach coolant sprayer, so thats why I need to program it myself. Linux should have a pulsed signal out to tell the tool changer what tool to grab...I am not a coding kind of guy. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

AFAIK, the Tormach ATC and Smart Cool use USB/FTDI interfaces, rather than pulses to interact with Path Pilot.

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Originally Posted by shred

AFAIK, the Tormach ATC and Smart Cool use USB/FTDI interfaces, rather than pulses to interact with Path Pilot.

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So that means it’s not possible to get pulses from machine or control?

Pathpilot outputs a serial string command to the smartcool which is then interpreted by the internal controller of that device and converted into a command that is sent as another serial string command to the nozzle servo. The machine is not involved in this, it's all over USB from the controller. Get yourself an FTDI breakout board from Adafruit or similar and run it to an intermediary processor (arduino, teensy, etc.) and use that to generate your pulse output.

It requires a little more than just connecting an FTDI breakout board to a USB port on the PP controller. For example, you will need to edit the /etc/udev/rules.d file to associate your FTDI board with the PP code that controls SmartCool. The software on the arduino, teensy, whatever needs to properly respond to each message sent by PP. PP doesn't send the tool number to SmartCool but rather the required angle for the SmartCool nozzle to direct coolant at the tool. It should not be especially difficult to accomplish what you want but it does require a modicum of programming expertise.