Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E

I'm still trying to get my head around solving the gearchanging issue.

I've been reading up on remapping "S" to read the current spindle state (spindle turning or not) and gearbox state (current gear ratio based on reading out the 12 feedback cam switches), so it can then work out if/which gear changes are necessary.

I picked up this line from the the remapping guide
Access of HAL items is read-only.

So if I can't command HAL pins from within the remapping python environment, how do I command the classic ladder or comp which actually does the timed activation of control relays to shift gears whenever an S word is encountered?
Mark

I just surveyed the gearbox feedback switch poistions for the various ratios. I guess others have already done this, but it helped me a little to understand it better...


If anyone can point me to an answer to yesterdays question of how to set classic ladder or comp HAL pins from within a Python remapping function, I'd appreciate it.

Mark

Hello Mark,

sorry but till now i had no time to get on the maho again.
You can do all you transmission work from within an comp, remap is not necessary, use the standart manual toolchange.

in attachment there is my transmission comp file.
Sorry but im not ready with commenting and some changes to make it user configurable from extern.
At this state a few parameters/config data has to be set in the source code and then have to be recompiled.

I hope you have a little knowing of C, then you can get around with this.

This component has worked, but i stoped in the past because of an broken axis nut.
For testing i only created 7 States, but you can add mores. In the future this will be configurable from the calling hal file.

-available gear states = position count [line114]
-you have to set the rpms for the singles states (so much as position count) [see line 73-79]
-the positions for the single gear states are defined in the Extra_Setup Part line 177 ff.

I hope this will help you.
Without Machine i can not test anything in the moment. After finishing an Deckel FP4 and some Boehringer Lathe i will get on the Maho again.

Dominik

There in one simpler solution. At this state the ladder has an output witch go to 1 when the gear change is completed you can use this output to feed the motion.spindle-at-speed.
When a spindle change is commanded the ladder will set the motion.spindle-at-speed to 0, and when the change is completed and after a preset time in the ladder (for the motor to go to full speed) the output motion.spindle-at-speed becomes 1 again and Linux can continue the program.

When motion.spindle-at-speed becomes 0 linux stops every move on all axes, it does not retract the spindle from the work or anything, but it is no need to do that.

Fully customize the software to the machine is what the companies do, but linuxcnc is buil in a way to adapt to a large range of machines without the need for changes in the core, we have to first try the tool the developers of linuxcnc have given to us before changing the way linuxcnc is working. Debugging, helping others and ask for help is a lot easier fallowing the mainstream road.
John

i think, you have not understand what this is.
This is an simple comp file (like classic ladder for example) and not an change to the core or some other basics.
In the final state this will be an universal component for Maho and Deckel Transmission like the other ones around for
turrets or handwheels.....
simple load it in hal, assign pins and set some parameters.

Hi I was talking for changes in python, and the way linuxcnc handle signals and variables.
John

Thanks for posting your gearchange comp file Dominik. So far I have no C programming experience, just a little python. The fragments of C code I have collected in the past for the gear shifting were not clear enough for me to understand, or even for C programmers at work to understand. Yout code is a lot more complete and really nicely structured. I m sure I'll have a bunch of questions.

Q1/ If I understand this correctly, your 700's spindle brake is controlled by the NC controller. On the 400E, the spindle brake is controlled electrically by a relay off the spindle on relay. I need to comment out all the brake stuff?
Q2/ What was your plan with the manual change stuff? I was planning to only have automatic control, and simply change gear with an MDI S command if needed.
Q3/ Does you code do a Z retract off the work if it encounters a speed change in the middle of contourings?

I appreciate that John has put a lot of work into getting the timing and switching into the classic ladder, but that would still need some glue to get it called and responding to S codes in the NGC files.
Mark