How do I do a manual tool change?

Damn, I was writing for like 15 minutes to you man, and accidentally clicked back button on a keyboard with backspace while not in text field... sh&t accumulates fast when you are frustrated like that for sure. which is why I also hate forums, so inefficient.

Anyways, not gonna rewrite all that again... the most important was to thank you for your help.

I am using a pre-made rpi4 image from linuxcnc website, therefore all those paths were an unknown to me - I haven't installed linuxcnc at all, it came preinstalled there.

for wifi I do need it at least for testing, as it is impossible to stand for days in my garage (where it is going now apparently). But I got that working actually. was misguided again into installing a gnome network-manager, which caused more problem that I had before that and messed up configuration files for me. once I figure all the correct settings and everything, I will reflush the OS and do a cleaner setup for sure. Also it is really handy for file transfer as I use XRDP + remote desktop on windows, I can make a CAM this way and just drag and drop it without having to worry about using flash drives etc.

So my steps so far:
1) installed an ISO from linuxcnc on RPI4
2) ran PNC conf, tuned everything there (pretty straightforward and nice there and all was on schedule so to speak and I was pretty happy with the progress)
3) realized that I cant manually change a tool in gmoccapy, spent another hour walking around with "wtf face".
4) started messing with adding that functionality, which already turned into 5x more time wasted than the whole previous setup where machine was already working fine, just with one tool.
5) went to GMOCCAPY documentation (linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/gui/gmoccapy....l-measurement-videos), found kind of tutorial, followed it carefully 3 times already. That turned linuxcnc into a frozen mammoth and nothing works at all now. HAL pins are connected correctly and I can see them changing TRUE/FALSE when triggered inside linuxcnc. the guy in docs also used PROBE variable instead of standard PROBE-IN, which by itself may have messed things up, but I am not sure how to troubleshoot that.

All my config files are attached, or so I think.

If anyone feels generous with their time, here are my messengers: t.me/vladcronos , m.me/vladcronos . Would be actually much faster over there. Thanks in advance!

So you want to work without tool length compensation, but move your Z zero point every time? I have a feeling you haven't understood the advantages of Dynamic Tool Length Compensation.
Nevertheless, I could imagine it working as follows:

Add the following to  your ini:

[RS274NGC]
REMAP=M6 modalgroup=6 ngc=messen_z


Create the file messen_z.ngc in your macro folder and add the following content:




I just tested the code on my machine, but still consider them a suggestion to use at your own risk! You have to adapt the parameters to your machine coordinates and conditions. 

Best wishes

Jan

Yes, at least for now, i think it will be a shorter path to a fucntioning machine for me. I can imagine that I will be bound to having a stock top surface always available and if I face it for example, it will mess things up. But afais dinamic compensation is even more complicated, and everytime I will put something into the vise it will have a different height meaning I will have to measure it manually allt he time, which kills the point of all of this.

My Setup as I meantioned is that I change collets and tools only, not the whole chuck. If you think it will be bette rto go another route I am all ears, because at this point I have no idea wth I am doing anyways.

Going to try your code now, thanks a lot!

Can you see the common pattern in most of your comments? It's deflecting blame to everyone and everything else other than you. Obviously it's the person who wrote the software who sucks, not you. Obviously it's the person who wrote the documentation who sucks, not you. Obviously it's the forum that sucks and is inefficient and not you fat fingering.
How about you take some responsibility like a grown adult instead of behaving like a toddler?

A very quick look at your config folder and the documentation give it away instantly that you didnt follow the documentation.
It very clearly says that you have to copy the files into the directory specified in the ini -> section "RS274NGC" -> key "SUBROUTINE_PATH".
Is there such a key specified in your .ini? No ofc not. But hey obviously it's again the shitty documentation and the software should just have it in there and the whole linux thingy and stuff is bad, totally not you just not doing a step clearly written out in the documentation. noooooo, you being at fault? never!!!

I mean if the documentation is so very hard for you to understand then just go ahead and rewrite it. It's open software and documentation, everyone can participate and improve. Why just be a leech if you could also contribute?

"...I can imagine that I will be bound to having a stock top surface always available and if I face it for example, it will mess things up..."

I would recommend placing Z0 on the bottom of the material in your cam system, or placing the sensor/contact plate on the material surface when measuring. In that case, an M0 at the beginning and end of the remap code would be appropriate.

"I change collets and tools only"

This is exactly where dynamic tool measurement comes in...

screenshot above. had to upload to imgur... imgur.com/a/Tvz7ZQC

Apparently there is some more mess from that gmoccapy tutorial now. should I check if python is present on that OS? 

I feel your pain with linuxcnc, everything is hard but have patience it will become easier by the time you are finished (but its still hard). The documents are very well documented, but in the same way a microchip is well documented. All the basic(and many not so basic) necessities of a modern cnc can be done with linuxcnc, its been around for a while with some very competent contributors but some basic things are not as easy to implement. I am not a pro hacker, but my reading has led me to believe that jogging and setting a new tool offset in the middle of a program is more than 2 lines, and since there are many ways to skin a cat with linuxcnc there are many different solutions.
Are you using some kind of tool height probe with a digital input or are you moving the endmill to the top of the workpiece and setting it that way?
To get your machine running with manual toolchange for the time being, I can suggest when you encounter a toolchange in your program, to stop the program, do your normal tool change procedure manually with touchoff, and resume your program from the toolchange position to ensure all your new offsets/gcode headers are in effect. By that

The best starting point will be the linuxcnc sample configurations probably. Try running this sample configuration to see if it behaves in the way you expect your toolchange to act, and then you can work from there to merge it with your current configuration. the path to the con

I am sorry that I am just used to a much higher standards, let's blame me for that.

That subroutine path was OFC setup before, I have no idea why it was again rewritten somehow, despite that I have not touched any auto configurators like pncconf. You really think I am so dumb to just skip one step in documentation, and do that 3 times in a row? That's a bold assumption I must say. The crap overwrites itself because of poorly written and explained code, and I relate that mostly to gmoccapy and not the linuxcnc itself, as native setup was a breeze until gmoccapy mess started. The guy created some python scripts there which I have no idea what they are doing. Every single time I filled the [RS274NGC] section carefully, first time I made a mistake to use pncconf and it was overwritten, my bad. Both following times it just overwrites itself from some other location.

jogging and setting a new tool offset in the middle of a program is more than 2 lines

Nope, it is possibly less than two lines, all you need to do is stop disabling joging controls and let user overwrite Z0, that's how it is done in mach3/4 for decades, works easy and simple. You basically need to just jog and then reset Z to zero. Both of features are already there, just disabled during program run. Resetting Z to anything is not a problem, program will just shift position and keep going, I have done that for years on mach4 router.

 I can suggest when you encounter a toolchange in your program

I dont even want to think about such PITA to be honest. This is going to turn every machining into a pure misery. Not even gonna mention that gmoccapy GUI doesn't even let me monitor which code line is actually running at given moment and scroll isn't even working. If I wanted that kind of misery I would be better off machining my complex shapes on a manual mill lol. This is the same solution as mine that I do now, just run separate programs for each tool, but that's a sick joke... If I ever knew that would be a case with linux cnc to not have such basics, i would never even touch this. Sadly now I am stuck with only linux compatible hardware.

I would recommend placing Z0 on the bottom of the material

Cant imagine how I would touch off the bottom of the stock later then


 

"Cant imagine how I would touch off the bottom of the stock later then"

I assumed you were using a sensor. If this is the case, you have to determine the offset from your sensor switching point to your material bottom edge once (I assumed that this is always the same) and enter it in the macro under parameter #1814.