Gscreen - a GTK / Glade / Python based screen

cmorley wrote:

pushed some new stuff:
-at speed indicator displays the commanded spindle speed
-Gscreen now honours the default jog speed in the INI file
- all the sample screens except gaxis have an alarm page now
- The alarm page records when the control was launched and whe the machine is estopped and machine turned on
- You can set the display cycle time in the INI file. A slower computer may work better with a larger cycle time. default is 100 milliseconds

Chris M

Chris,

This is really looking good!!! Some more comments from working on the mill:
1. When gscreen starts the jog speed now comes from the INI file, but when I select jog override and +/- buttons it jumps back to 60. I probably have some other setting in the INI file. Any idea what it is?
2. After cycling modes through manual->mdi->auto->manual, then select jogging mode and select an axis. The machine is still in MDI mode, so the joysticks and jogwheel don't work. Pressing the +/- buttons sets manual mode. It would be nice it it could put the machine in manual mode without having to press the +/- buttons.
3. When running a program, the Snnn in the active G codes doesn't change with programmed spindle speeds.
4. Is there somewhere that current machine velocity is shown when running a program?
5. When setting overrides with the +/- buttons, is is possible to detect the button held down, and continuously increment/decrement the value. What would be best is to still increment/decrement by the amount it currently does when the button is just tapped, but after it's held for more than 0.5s (or whatever) it increments/decrements continuously.
6. Connecting the cycle-start button works great in MDI mode. Thanks.
7. Could the actual spindle speed displayed as text in the bar graph be limited to 1 or 0 digits?

It's all really coming together nicely. Thank you!

Karl

cmorley wrote:

In reference to a cycle start button:

I have to decide on behaviour for run-at-line.

Do we select the line with run-at-line dialog then use cycle start or
Do we select the line with run-at-line dialog and start the cycle from that dialog button?

We don't use run-at-line much. Mostly too scared that something won't be right.

But I'd favor your first option.

Karl

karlkec wrote:

Chris,

This is really looking good!!! Some more comments from working on the mill:
1. When gscreen starts the jog speed now comes from the INI file, but when I select jog override and +/- buttons it jumps back to 60. I probably have some other setting in the INI file. Any idea what it is?
2. After cycling modes through manual->mdi->auto->manual, then select jogging mode and select an axis. The machine is still in MDI mode, so the joysticks and jogwheel don't work. Pressing the +/- buttons sets manual mode. It would be nice it it could put the machine in manual mode without having to press the +/- buttons.
3. When running a program, the Snnn in the active G codes doesn't change with programmed spindle speeds.
4. Is there somewhere that current machine velocity is shown when running a program?
5. When setting overrides with the +/- buttons, is is possible to detect the button held down, and continuously increment/decrement the value. What would be best is to still increment/decrement by the amount it currently does when the button is just tapped, but after it's held for more than 0.5s (or whatever) it increments/decrements continuously.
6. Connecting the cycle-start button works great in MDI mode. Thanks.
7. Could the actual spindle speed displayed as text in the bar graph be limited to 1 or 0 digits?

It's all really coming together nicely. Thank you!

Karl

Karl are you using the metric sample config?

1) i see in the metric example similar behaviour I don't see 60 but 15 as the velocity but the jog rate say 381mm
This is a conversion error that doesn't happen in imperial configs (so I missed it) I will see whats going on
2) You must be talking of external joystick and jogwheel. Gscreen has a jogging button that must be toggled on.
This is automatically toggled off when you change to MDI or AUTO mode. This button also changes linuxcnc to manual mode.
There is a jogging-enabled HAL pin that follows it.
I did this so if running a program or a MDI move you could go to manual or MDI page without causing an error.
Maybe this is unnecessary. And I could have linuxcnc's mode changed as you change Gscreens mode....
3) hmm I see the Snn change in auto or MDI mode. It always says 0?
4) double click the graphics screen makes it bigger and the readout show (with velocity)
I will add velocity to the status box though.
5) I will see if i can figure that out.
6)Ah good thanks for testing.
7) Yes I fixed that on the industrial screen - forgot to do the rest.

the feedback from every one really helps to flush out the bugs and needed improvements

I am gonna mention that fairly soon there is going to be HAL pin name changes and a INI name lookup change that will require
users to modify HAL and INI files a bit. So if you see these errors you know why.
The naming convention of the HAL pins varies some use . where - should be.

Chris M

karlkec wrote:

cmorley wrote:

In reference to a cycle start button:

I have to decide on behaviour for run-at-line.

Do we select the line with run-at-line dialog then use cycle start or
Do we select the line with run-at-line dialog and start the cycle from that dialog button?

We don't use run-at-line much. Mostly too scared that something won't be right.

But I'd favor your first option.

Karl

Setting spindle on in manual or MDI then restarting at a rapid point would seem the safest.
i should talk to Mocca's Tom about exactly how he did run at line...

To use cycle start would require the user to press it with the run-at-line dialog showing.
I wonder it that is enough of an indicator. cycle start without dialog starts from beginning, cycle start from dialog starts at the requested line.

Chris M

cmorley wrote:

Karl are you using the metric sample config?

1) i see in the metric example similar behaviour I don't see 60 but 15 as the velocity but the jog rate say 381mm
This is a conversion error that doesn't happen in imperial configs (so I missed it) I will see whats going on
2) You must be talking of external joystick and jogwheel. Gscreen has a jogging button that must be toggled on.
This is automatically toggled off when you change to MDI or AUTO mode. This button also changes linuxcnc to manual mode.
There is a jogging-enabled HAL pin that follows it.
I did this so if running a program or a MDI move you could go to manual or MDI page without causing an error.
Maybe this is unnecessary. And I could have linuxcnc's mode changed as you change Gscreens mode....
3) hmm I see the Snn change in auto or MDI mode. It always says 0?
4) double click the graphics screen makes it bigger and the readout show (with velocity)
I will add velocity to the status box though.
5) I will see if i can figure that out.
6)Ah good thanks for testing.
7) Yes I fixed that on the industrial screen - forgot to do the rest.

1. I see Data.jog_rate_max = 60 on gscreen line 256. Could this be it?
2. Yes this is with external jogwheel and joysticks. The problem is that linuxcnc is left in MDI mode when Gscreen is in Manual mode with jogging enabled. What I do is this: a) start Gscreen, b) press "homing" button to take it out of homing mode, c) press "jogging mode", d) test that external joysticks work, e) press "mode" button four times (through other modes, and back to manual), f) press "jogging mode" button. Joysticks no longer work because Linuxcnc is still in MDI mode. Pressing an axis and either of the +/- buttons in Gscreen will put linuxcnc back in manual mode, and the joysticks will work again. Could Gscreen put linuxcnc back in manual mode when Gscreen is returned to manual mode and jogging mode is enabled?
3. It's working for me too. I'll revisit this next time I'm at the mill.
4. OK I see this -- very neat. Is there a way other than double click to get this? Double clicking requires the cursor not move while tapping, which is hard to do on a touchscreen.
7. I think I'm using the industrial screen, at least it says Gscreen-industrial in the title bar. On my simulator it's one digit when at a stable speed, but lots of digits when slowing down or speeding up. The simulator has a filter on the spindle, to simulate inertia, so the values are not precise. I'll check this on the mill next time I'm there.

Couple more things:
A. On my simulator -- when Gscreen is set to full screen, after clicking the "Launch Keyboard" button, the onboard keyboard doesn't show. When set to full screen, is Gscreen set to always on top? Do they fight each other?
B. Could the tabs near the top ("Main Level", "Preferences", etc.), be made 50% taller? They're a bit hard to hit using the touchscreen.

Thanks Chris. It's getting better and better.

Karl

1) yes - actually I forgot to have Gscreen read the INI for the max linear velocity and that was the default speed.
2) ok now when jogging button is pressed Gscreen explicitly puts linuxcnc into manual mode.
3) good
4) on the auto page push the full graphics button
7) hmm it should be a integer only....

a) Yes i have noticed this too, a dialog will cause the tool bars to show too, not sure what can de done yet.
You can set Gscreen to run maximised or a particular size instead if you like. you have to edit the preference file for that.
b) i'll see - I'm starting to run out of height depending on the resolution used.

I added velocity to the status bar
fixed the max jog speed from INI
fixing the jog speed conversion will take a bit of time.
I added a standard Gscreen metric config to test with.

Chris M

Hay Chris,

I just was reading the data.maxvelocity for my custom screen to set up the slider.
But I get the speed in mm/s not in mm/min.

Have you just forgotten to multiply by 60 or is this on purpose?

Norbert

maxvelocity is in units per second.
It is the maximum velocity of the machine not the max jog velocity ( just so we are clear)

linuxcnc works in units per second, I convert some to per minute when the user interacts.

So... on purpose I guess.

Chris M

Hallo Chrtis,

I did know, that the internal speed is in units per second, but as far as I see, only the max_vel is stored in Data class in units per second, but you converted Jog-Vel and jog-vel-max and angular_jog_rate, and angular_-jog_rate_max to units per minute.

So only max_vel is in units per second. Shouldn't this be uniform?
I was a little confused.

Norbert

cmorley wrote:

I added velocity to the status bar
fixed the max jog speed from INI
fixing the jog speed conversion will take a bit of time.
I added a standard Gscreen metric config to test with.

Chris M

Thanks for all this, Chris. This is great. Jog speed is working right for me now, and having the current velocity in the active G-codes is great. I'll try it out again on the mill in the next few days.

The extra digits are still there on the spindle speed readout. I added a round() function to line 2665 in gscreen:
self.widgets.s_display.set_value(round(abs(self.halcomp["spindle-readout.in"]),1))
This fixed it for me, but this may well be masking a symptom of some other problem.

I wonder if the "Full Graphics" button shouldn't also be present after pressing the "Graphics" button to zoom, pan, etc.

Thanks again.
Karl