Manual Tool Change AXIS widgets

I had the same issues when new. So I finally just dove in and installed the latest Debian RT kernal, then KDE, then added LinuxCNC to it. Love it, Still required the touch off and such. I do have a sub-thousandth of an inch machine, but do manual tool changes. So how to do it perplexed me.

As you have been advised, elegance is saving the ngc file in parts whenever there is a tool change, or splitting it into parts if your CAM does not allow you to. Then change the tool and zero. Load next cut ngc and just run.

So I downloaded several of everyone's code, looked everything over, installed, played, tinkered and finally settle on my AXIS that does what I, read I, require. A lot of these guys are way ahead of us, but I'm OK with what I have now. So the end of this is I guess if anyone wants it I could zip up the routines and cut the code out of the in/hal/config and put it in there too. It may take me a little time to get it posted, but I will do my best to make it clear and easy.

Anyway, screen shots:

There is the whole thing, little is a zoom of the side panel. It contains buttons for:
"G53 Home" - send machine to physical home
"G54 Home" - send machine to touched off home
"0-COORDS" - clears all homes other than machine physical home so the display reads the physical location
"Z-Touchoff" - lowers the bits till it touches, raises and slower lowers and touches off, ZERO Z, rises a little. you must manually move the bit to where your block or touchoff is, lower within an inch - suggest closer - then hit the button. if it does not work [sort of times out and fails] you were not close enough to the block. then you must know how high off the table your block is and lower the Z Axis to " - x.xxxx " whatever the height of your block is and manually hit "zero z axis" as I move my block I did not hard set the position
"X-Touchoff" - and Y touchoff do that only in one direction - nothing fancy
"Z-OFFSET" - rezeros Z by the block dimensions I used to touchoff - must be entered in code - hardly ever use it just come down by block and rezero Z manually - lazy I guess, never really set this up as a final - you can by editing the position if you wish - read the comments in the file
"Tool Move" - just takes the gantry to tool change and touchoff position I want for ease of use, set your own coords in the file
"park-center" - moves gantry and spindle to center of table all the way "back" for me out of the way, set your own coords
"grease-X" - both grease moves move the gantry so I can grease one side then the other without anything in the way, you can set your own coords in the file
"limits-run - runs the gantry and spindle around the out perimeter of the table, just a button I never finished but runs fine
"x-max" - takes the gantry to the other far end of the table out of the way, set you own coords

everything needs to be added for your limits. but everything that can "bump" is coded such as raise the spindle to it's max height FIRST on operations involving moves of the gantry. to set your own coords - suggest you run the table to where you wish them to be for each button and write them down [make sure the coords are physical and not some mapped coords [you can delete or change buttons] BEFORE you run else you may end up with nothing but trouble

Usually, I place my piece, move to "Tool Move", insert or change tool, do "Z-touchoff", move to where I want the x/y zero, zero them and then just run. My CAM program - I have added to it's code so when it creates an ngc file it moves the tool to the max height and to the tool change position once the program finishes. Saves a lot of time.

So I just keep going.

I admire and see a lot of great work on the forums, some of you guys are really jacked up, but some of us are a few steps behind and just require basics. So I offer this possibly for those like myself.

Comments are in the files telling you what you must change. Compare these to yours to find missing info that is required for the panel to work. The "your user name directory" section in the "ini" file is at most a mandatory change, along with the path to the routine folder. So this may help a few that are new like I was, or help those understand basics.

I have used this config since 2016, updated 2017 adding another button so here it is. ZIP has everything in it required to add or change to make it work. PATHS are usual oversights that cause errors.

Suggest new users testing this out copy their installation to another place before using or editing their own.

My first post - hope this helps and makes sense.