Lost Step Counter

Hi,
I am a former LinuxCNC user, i turned myself to ESTLCAM recently , it is easy and can do great stuffs, but I now use hybrid steppers, and Estlcam struggle to send correct timing pulse to the motors.
So I am thinking to get back to LinuxCNC.

One of the key fonction (for me) of ESTLCAM is the Lost step counter, that really helped me setting my machine.

I would like to know if it is now available on LinuxCNC or easily programmable ?

The principle is simple:

At every homing, the computer compare the known position of the machine to the homing switches, and if it doesn't match, it means that some steps have been lost.


So it works for every type of machine, motors, and gives indication about health of the machine.

sincerely.

Does this assume that the machine hasn't been moved since it was turned off?
(Often a safe assumption).

LinuxCNC can store the switch-off position in a txt file and re-use that at switch-on, so all that needs to be done is to compare the position offset before and after homing...

I think this could be done fairly easily in HAL. (but I would need to be in front of a LinuxCNC machine to experiment to see which pins to monitor).

Hi,
What I'd like is:
1) home the machine
2) mill the project
3) home the machine
4) calculation of deviation between the 2 homings. I would tell how many mm lost during the milling.

I find it very useful in Estlcam.

If you find it useful to know when you have lost steps then your machine probably has a problem. A properly configured machine shouldn't ever lose steps.

But I will have a poke around tonight to see if I can figure something out.

Hi, yes in a perfect world everything is perfect... But not in my garage .
Seriously it helps setting the proper speeds , acceleration, etc.
And this is how I discovered that estlcam doesn't properly use my hybrid steppers.
After 1 hour of milling, I lost 0.5mm

It also help to diagnose the accuracy of limit switches.