ATC Project - Debug phase

(DEBUG, EVAL[vcp.getWidget{"dynatc"}.rotate{1, "ccw"}])

1. LCNC iocontrol (tool & pocket numbers)
2. remapped g-code for actual carousel movement
3. atc widget

1. Probe Basic
2. Carousel.comp
3. No geneva mechanism
4. Any tool number in any pocket.

• Get everything aligned properly
• Testing
• Try to break it
• Recover from mid-toolchange estops & faults
• Speed everything up so I don't have 45 second tool changes
• More testing
• Testing with actual tools
• Clean up all the hal & .ngc files
• Yet more testing

spumco wrote:

[Sorry, been a bit absent in the past few weeks. Landed a bid for some turning work that's been a time-suck.]

Can you confirm this?

Yes, you have it exactly right as far as I've been able to work out.  Persistent variables are added to the .var file which represent pocket numbers.  All association with tool numbers are done through the macros.

Regarding the pocket numbers...  When LCNC is set to NONRANDOM tool changer it ignores pocket numbers.  And when it's set to RANDOM, then the spindle tool is installed in the pocket of the tool replacing it.

As I've pointed out in another post (and others have elsewhere), there is no middle ground for 'semi-random' tool changers. i.e. a carousel (or chain, or rack) where pocket number may not match tool number, but it absolutely must go back in to the same pocket it came out of.

This, I believe, is why ATC macros or ladder schemes are so complicated - they're all essentially workarounds for this LCNC blind spot.

It's also (probably) why the Probe Basic devs hide the pocket number column in the tool table tab.  With the Probe Basic scheme, there's no point in having a pocket number column which is ignored.  If you unhide it by editing the custom_config.yml file you'll see that all tools have a pocket number value of "-1".

And thus the ATC screen widget isn't just a fancy-but-superfluous feature.  It is, in fact, they only easy way to figure out what tool is in what pocket.  The only other way would be to somehow query the .var file and write those values to a constantly-updating GUI table.


[code]Does anyone know, if the prolog statement forwards the correct pocket numbers within 2.9?

Doesn't matter if it does or not...  And when I was trying to work around the issue that's when I discovered - or at least started to digest the fact - that [b]LCNC ignores pocket numbers.  Tool number = pocket number; Finkle is Einhorn, Einhorn is Finkle.

You can put any pocket number you want in the tool table, but LCNC will only recognize the tool number if TOOLCHANGER = NONRANDOM

An alternative is to keep track of things with tool numbers... but you must edit your tool table so you only have tools #1 through #n (n = total pockets).  To switch tools to one higher than 'n' means changing the numbers in the tool table.  This is how (some) old-school CNC machines did it: you want a new tool... you call up tool #1, replace it in the spindle with some other tool, then adjust the tool table values for #1 to match the new tool.

A glimmer of light on the horizon is the recently-created Tool Database.  There's now a demo in axis, but there's no 'standard' database GUI to use.  I believe this would be useful for ATC tool-pocket management, but I simply don't understand much about it - much less how an implementation would work.  Based on past history, I expect it to be novice-user ready in about a week to never.[/b]

[/code]
 

        self.params["tool_in_spindle"] = self.current_tool
        self.params["selected_tool"] = self.selected_tool
        self.params["current_pocket"] = self.current_pocket # this is probably nonsense
        self.params["selected_pocket"] = self.selected_pocket