[shred]

No update since September last year so, maybe they are not interested anymore to listen to the owners of older machine.

I know many peoples who asked for improvements of Pathpilot never received an answer!!!

FWIW, by and large, Tormach doesn't read this forum. A few employees do from time to time AFIAK but they rarely post for fear of getting flooded with out-of-band support requests. It is much easier for them to manage incoming feedback in one place rather than all over the web.

[jeffrey001]

FWIW, by and large, Tormach doesn't read this forum. A few employees do from time to time AFIAK but they rarely post for fear of getting flooded with out-of-band support requests. It is much easier for them to manage incoming feedback in one place rather than all over the web.

They should

[mountaindew]

The setting you want is in the Admin function. Go to the MDI and type in admin and a list will pop up go down the list untill you see that command. Click on that line and it will transfer up to the MDI line then add a space and the RPM you want to use with the door open then press enter.

YEP hard to believe that PP does not have a proper M00 M01. In PP it is just a feedhold and we already have one of those. M00 is extremely usefulll IF it worked correctly.

By chance on your 8L is the cooling fan working in the PC ?? Sounds like the PC is overheating and shutting down.

(;-) TP

I had sprutcam setup to change to tool #1 at the end of the lathe program. I went back and looked. When the program finishes I need to hit the continue an extra time so it gets to the m30 in the code and stops and returns to start of program. If I fail to do that and let machine set for long period of time it will not start the spindle at programmed rpm. If I shut off machine for a while, it restarts and works fine. If I dont let it set waiting for a tool change for a long period of time "hours" I never see this problem. I dont think I ever reported this to tormach because it was hard to repeat. Also The control pc is a fan-less brix unit they are about 4x4x3 in size.

Will look at admin commands to see if I can bypass door interlock. That would be handy. Be nice to open door to clear birds nests now and then.

I use the mo1 to pause program at a point at end of all operations for that side / offset. I then stop program flip stock, probe new offset if required then position cursor just after the stop point set the rfh with no prep. It continues program at new offset /side and completes the code for that side. If required this repeats for every side of the part up to six sides and its a finished part. This Allows me to do multi sided parts in one program. And you have a choice as to how to run the parts. One at a time complete using work stops. Or one side by many parts and repeated for as many as you want. I like having only one g code file for 1 complete part no matter how many sides / offsets it has to finish it. Sprutcam newest version now makes this even more easy to do and use multi fixtures and sort tools and code to work on all fixtures and offsets by tool. Before I could do this but it was hard to setup, now its easy. I think they seen what I was doing and added that as a built in feature.

[vmax549]

Hi Mountain Dew, That is exactly what I discovered. PP does retain all the positions and machine states on a M00. That will work on all ABS code. IF you are running INC it changes everything. To restart that you add a G28.1 on the line before the M00 and a G28 on the line after the M00. Then run as you described and it will work also.

I am working to make a hotkey that will do all the RFH with no preps in 1 press of a hotkey then press CYCLESTART to continue.. That is the way HAAS does the RSJC routine.

SO to use it program a M00 at a stop point. When it runs the M00 press STOP. From there you can jog away and do whatever even probing. Then when you are ready move back close to the restart position restart the spindle and the coolant or not. Press the hotkey(resume) then press cyclestart. It will move to the next line after the M00 and continue running the program. I wait until the cutter engages the part before I turn on the coolant so I can clearly see it is doing what I intended for it to do. IF good then press the coolant button. Oh wait yous guys don't have external buttons (;-) They are nice Red(stop) Green(cyclestart) Yellow(feedhold) Blue(coolant) White(resume). just like the big boys have.

(;-) TP

[soofle616]

One more item on my wishlist, split the coolant button into an M7 and M8 for those of us with some combination of mist, flood, air

[vmax549]

Hiya Soofle, Would a keyboard HOTKEY work for that ?? Less work for them no screen mods needed. Hopefully Tormach will develop a method for allowing you to create your OWN hotkeys for special functions. I can do it here BUT you have to crack into PathPilot coding and THAT is not always a great idea. Tormach like to keep PathPilot closed up tight for support reasons. It is really hard to support PathPilot IF the users gets to tinker inside the code. But that does NOT mean that you cannot ASK for new features. After all you guys do help pay the bills so you do have a bit of say on new features. (;-) OFF the soapbox now (;-)

Just a thought, (;-)TP

[soofle616]

Hiya Soofle, Would a keyboard HOTKEY work for that ?? Less work for them no screen mods needed. Hopefully Tormach will develop a method for allowing you to create your OWN hotkeys for special functions. I can do it here BUT you have to crack into PathPilot coding and THAT is not always a great idea. Tormach like to keep PathPilot closed up tight for support reasons. It is really hard to support PathPilot IF the users gets to tinker inside the code. But that does NOT mean that you cannot ASK for new features. After all you guys do help pay the bills so you do have a bit of say on new features. (;-) OFF the soapbox now (;-)

Just a thought, (;-)TP

A hotkey would work but I'm more of a GUI guy than a keyboard warrior when it comes to running the machine. I haven't yet requested the additional coolant button but I did previously request the G37 parameters I had posted about earlier in this thread. The response at the time seemed largely positive but I've not seen that change get made yet. Or if it has, it wasn't listed in the published changelogs

[vmax549]

It would be REALLY NICE if Tormach would give us a switch for the (debug,1, Testing123 #5500) function Where the 1 would pipe the output over to the self.set_message_line_text( "" ) function. That way when needed you could divert a message AND parameter value to the operator. AND using the message_line would not add anything else to the screen but let you USE the existing resources.

(;-) TP

[soofle616]

Actually that reminds me of another wishlist item on my end. My employer has some old Fadal's that can accept user inputs at the start of a program and alter how the program runs as a result. We have some parts that can be made in a number of different ways but all with the same base geometry. The changes are handled by subprograms. Which subprogram is used for any given cycle, is determined based on the operator input at the start of the cycle. Sort of an If-Then scenario. Something like that would be really awesome for some of the stuff I do so I don't have to have lots of programs for parts that are all essentially the same but with minor variations.

[vmax549]

HI Soofle, that is a cool idea. I do something similar here with the ATC. Where the table parks depends on what part it is . I can define that on startup or on the fly if needed. It uses #parameters to set the options. You could do that as well to define the parts you need to machine.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

[soofle616]

HI Soofle, that is a cool idea. I do something similar here with the ATC. Where the table parks depends on what part it is . I can define that on startup or on the fly if needed. It uses #parameters to set the options. You could do that as well to define the parts you need to machine.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

I assume that in all cases, your parameters are being set within the program and those positions are hard coded in? In other words, if you decided halfway through the program that you wanted to park the table somewhere else, for whatever reason, you would have to change the gcode and re-run the program? Or are you able to provide input at runtime to change the position "on a whim"?

[vmax549]

I WISH that PP had a working Block Delete. As is it is turned on and locked there. At least you can use the / to block execution then remove the / to use that block. I think it is a problem with Linuxcnc block delete code so better to just lock it ON than bother with bad code ?????

But Block delete can be very handy at times.

(;-) TP

[74BurkeMVN]

Not sure if this *could* be handled in PathPilot, but in the situation where a tool manually loaded into the spindle during a program (because the ATC is full) followed by another tool that must be manually loaded, can the Z axis please retract to a sufficient height to be able to change tools without stopping the program to retract far enough? Seems like PP should be smart enough to recognize the next manually loaded tool can't be inserted because it's too close to the work.
I realize that I can overcome this by proactively remembering to increase the clearance height for that tool during programming, or with my tool loading strategy, or globally setting my clearance height default to a couple inches however, isn't the point of CNC automation? Every time this situation gets me, I manually edit the Z, but it's not like I'm making hundreds of parts at a time....I'm a prototyper, so it's onesie-twosie's for me.

Another wish - this is for sure a Post Processor issue...Option to turn coolant on between the clearance and feed height? NOT before spindle on, blowing coolant everywhere while RPM climbs and Z- decent. A while ago I adopted XoomSpeed's Post for the G37 diverse functionality, but their coolant routine is too complex for this non-coder to edit to my liking. I reached out, but got no response. Perhaps they've moved on.

Thanks for anything, you guys have helped me out more than you know.

-TJ

[vmax549]

HIYA TJ, Let me see if I understand want you need. I write my own ATC code so I am not sure what PP does for ATC. But as I undestand it PP retracts the Z as high as it can and still be able to lift off the tool holder in the carousel. IF that is the case then it cannot lift Z any higher than that. Are you talking having the table PARK in a different location to do manual long tool changes ??

(;-) TP

[74BurkeMVN]

I'll try to better describe what I run into....Some things I make require more than the 10 tools in the ATC and when a tool that came from the ATC is finished and a manually loaded one is called for, PP puts away the ATC tool and then requests the manually loaded one. Fine & perfect because at the ATC tool change height, there is lots of room to insert a tool. However, when that manually loaded tool is finished, if there happens to be another manually loaded tool requested, the machine just retracts to clearance height (like every other tool) and waits for the change there. I have always been happy with the default 0.400" clearance height in F360 as it keeps "Z" time to a minimum. Unfortunately, 0.400" isn't enough to change a manually loaded tool. Seems to me, PP should be smart enough to recognize this situation and just Z+ far enough up to change tools.

[vmax549]

So when doing an out of slot >>> out of slot tool change PP does not retract to the Z tool change height ??

(;-) TP

[74BurkeMVN]

Correct. It just asks for the next tool...too bad you can't physically get it out without hitting STOP, manually jogging up, changing the tool, MDI FIND Txxx, Set Start on line...you get the idea. Generally, I go edit the gcode and change the last Z move to about +4" and carry on.

[footpetaljones]

Why doesn't Fusion output a G30 for the tool change? I've never seen a CAM software not do that.

[vmax549]

Tormach could correct that with about 5-6 lines of code in the ATC routine. It already asks if the tool is out of slot "do this". Just have to add to the " do this" to retract up to tool change height
Goto their website and do a request for a feature (;-)

(;-) TP

[74BurkeMVN]

Request made...reported as a bug (the way I see it anyway). Annoyed by this again, earlier today I actually went to their website to find the reporting, but couldn't remember my password, so I headed over here for a sanity check. How am I the only person this happens to?