additional probe inputs or configuration for tool height sensor ???

I'm probably going to dump linux cnc and spend money on a a real industrial control system, it's only free if your time is worthless

smc.collins wrote:

I'm probably going to dump linux cnc and spend money on a a real industrial control system, it's only free if your time is worthless

Thats your choice. Its a very powerful and flexible system if you take the time to learn it. There are many people doing quite well retrofitting commercial machines using linuxcnc.

the software is incapable of differentiating between a tool height indicator and a surface probe. How is this in anyway a industrial grade solution ? Do you tell yourself that HASS, DOOSAN, etc all share one input for input probing & tool height ? by my reckoning it should be part of the tool table code and ATC routines.

This is exactly the kind of statement that pushes people away who have resources and a desire to help development away. the software is broken.

It's like the Radius arc issue I am having, for no particular reason, because if I load the G-coode from the post processor into the Sim version of linux cnc on my VM, it's fine, but put it into my live mill, it fails on radius arc errors.

That a very serious bug

smc.collins wrote:

This is a entirely backwards way of thinking, fix the damn software. Probe and tool height are separate entity, and it's not as if the cards are short for IO pins, they are not.

Would one please move their head into the pulled in position.

Now I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are frustrated and a little angry.

First of all, as I mentioned before, the work is done by volunteers, demanding that they "fix the damn software" is no way to go about things. Your are not their boss or a paying customer, your are a consumer of free software and have right to demand actions.

You can either try to implement a fix, and if you feel like it share it, as many have done before. Or you can make the decision Linuxcnc is not the solution for your situation, choose another path and walk away with grace and dignity.

I honestly wish you the best and hope that once you have cooled down somewhat your decision is a rational one and not an emotional one.

The process of adding a touchprobe/toolprobe is overly complicated IMHO.
Dual or steerable inputs would be quite helpful - the problem is probably more that there are workarounds for multiple inputs using HAL so motivation to change the code is low.

if you want auto tool probing at tool changes, it requires 'remap' code and that is not a pleasant process to work through.

We are short of developers to take on these little projects.
We have no official process to decide on goal posts because everyone (usually) just works on what they want - as was said it's all volunteer - please don't beat us up too bad.

Linuxcnc is cheap to buy because the real price is time - no doubt about that.

There has been mail post about your Gcode interp problem - so that is not being ignored.

Chris

I have some proficiency in C, what are the relevant files in the source tree that deal with this type of input ? My thought is to simply duplicate the probe input code and  branch it out as a tool height , and if not to harry to tie the tool touch off button to the input.

This is the simplest and most straight forward path I can think of. I'd happily contribute to a bounty to pay for features like this. There a lot to like about linux CNC, but there's this mountain of stuff, that's east to fix, that's just broken. 

For the mountain of things that you have identified as broken raise an issue on the github page, as that will been directly seen by the devs.

smc.collins wrote:

the software is incapable of differentiating between a tool height indicator and a surface probe.
 

Why would you want to make a distinction? Depending on the context the software knows which switch is tripped.

Here is how I use my two probes with just one Probe signal. You can use many more probes if you want to.

Although LinuxCNC drives me nuts too sometimes it is best to be nice to all the people who try to help. Everything is possible with LinuxCNC but there is kinda steep learning curve, but when you finaly get the point then everything is much easier to use. Think of the software as you cabinet full of relays, LCNC replaces all the hardware logic with software rules.
It's a state of mind I guess.

Been using LCNC for years now and it gets better and better. Without LCNC my machine would not have worked since there is no other decent software available at all.

I'm curious if you ever found a solution to this? I'm four months into linuxcnc and keep hitting walls where things just don't make sense. Like the tool height sensor/probe share situation which I'm currently wading through.