Gscreen -usability development

Chris,

First congratulations and thank you for your work and help.

In my humble opinion.

1) exchange the "set override", give 3 click to get to modify them. I think that should appear enabled on each mode. if you are in manual mode, you see the "jog speed", "jog increments". and if you are in auto mode one can view others.

2) it is simple, but we can not use operators watch or phone during office hours, at least here in Colombia. would be good something simple like an hour.
because it works in full screen.

3) I would place MDI as a separate window, type a command there only then should disappear, would give more space. for example when we do the run-in-line, appears only when we press the button then disappears.

4) I think there should be a button to turn off your computer, do not know if that's possible, but would be excellent. I think the computer should shut down from LinuxCNC, gives a professional touch.

5) This following is not GScreen, but I'm trying to integrate a better way for the lathes in GScreen programming, I think it is undervalued by the community.

6) It would be excellent once graphic simulation. I do not recommend "DRY RUN" the machines we have here with trade controls, when running reference lost.

7) remove the axes buttons in AUTO mode, if they appear values in Gremlin, you can put other options and take advantage of all that space.
for the program for example.

Thanks again for your work, I hope my comments help improve that is my intention.


Jorge Viloria

1) I agree the jogging controls are not very convenient. It was always my thought that most every one would add real switches for these selections.
As is, the 'set override' button can not be enabled all the time as it changes how the +- keys work, you couldn't jog with the on screen buttons, or
zero / set the origin
I could add pop up controls like run-at-line complete with there own +- keys

2) OK - done on next update.

3) Can you explain why you need more space on the MDI page? Sounds like you want to get rid of the MDI page.

4) Actually the is a bit of a pain to do...linux normally requires the password to be entered to shutdown,
The window manager does some tricks to get around this.
We would need to add some permission tricks to the make file to do this - not sure what the developer opinion is on that -I'll try to look into it.

5) Lathes are undervalued - yes I could agree with that. I am interested in lathe work (I have a big one I'm linuxcncing)
2.6 release is not going to get much for lathes, I hope to add wear offsets to 2.7. There are large changes coming under the hood in 2.7 - so I
will wait till that settles.

6) Not sure what your saying here. A graphic 'dry run' would be great. It would be nicer with graphic representation of tool holders and chuck.
The Gremlin display could probably be hacked to do a 'dry run' - it runs through the whole program to display the path each time it loads a
program already. Not something I'm going to try.

7) pressing the full view button hides the DRO and axes buttons - what I could do is make that 'sticky' so the next time you go to AUTO is
remembers that what you want.

Thanks for the feedback.

In the next 'push' I will have added angular axes separate jog speed and increments. and the spindle controls will be pop ups.
oh and a clock

Chris M

Chris,

I'm in my new retrofit and GScreen is my GUI selected.

my lathe has 4 axes and live tool. I require 5 axis so visible in my GUI.

of mdi, I will not delete it. but you only see when we want to run and that is separate from the GUI, for example I add buttons and other to GScreen, personalized to my machine, and if you see the image you uploaded, there is no where to put most anything. is saturated in my opinion the GUI. because almost everything appears in any mode.

the idea is to clean what is not needed in the active mode.

trade controls, they do display buttons.

I understand the philosophy of you developers is that gremlin should appear in all modes of operation. but I think there is less need forever. MDI mode, what else we can do to run a command.

DRY RUN, I saw that someone asked, this option is not more to run the program in a vacuum but with a fast forward. in the G1, G2, G3. but as I say it is dangerous in the machines we have here, with this option lose the reference machines.


also ... with the time that makes me happy, rather than cycle time you were saying that it is very difficult to get right because it includes many variables, accelerations and others.


because they add a time record machine on and program execution time.

is that there must be clear.

every time I run a program timer starts. and stop when the program ends. so we look at productivity of the machine.

versus the time the machine was turned on.


for example hard 8 hours the machine on.
and program execution time is 5 hours
means that we take 3 hours of preparation machine (programming, tool assembly, setear tools, finishes and sizes adjust)
can improve preparation time to optimize the process.

course I say all this knowing that this is hard ..!



thanks,

Jorge Viloria

Ah you like the new design with pop up spindle controls. I can fit 6 axes on the screen a once.

The MDI page does something else beside just display the MDI window - it switches linuxcnc from manual to MDI mode.
Mode switching in linuxcnc is a pain to hide from the user. Not saying it can't be done - just a pain.
My intention was also to add MDI scripts to the buttons - just never got to it yet.

Gremlin is always displayed because non industrial users like that. I understand industrial users think it's often in the way.
My intention is to make it removable / hide able in Industrial first.

Yes dry run would require an adjustable plot speed. Gee losing your reference seems a pretty stupid design! What controls are these?

While it's easy to have Gscreen tell you when cycle start was pressed I'm not sure I can get linuxcnc to tell me when the program is finished.
If I could then actual cutting time could be displayed.

I just added a clock -it's a start.
I will add an entry into the alarm page when cycle start id pressed.

Chris M

newbynobi wrote:

Thanks for your compliment!
I will stay with the linuxcnc comunity for a while, and surely go on developing gmoccapy. Even if my testers are quiet quiet at the moment, there are only two reasons, they do not use the GUI any more, or they do not have additional wishes;-)

Norbert

I have only been reading this thread now with a lot of interest. Just to let you know that your testers are still busy with Gmoccapy and mostly very happy. I am almost finished with my all in one touch controller that will run Gmoccapy. As soon as I have the first one made up it will be fitted to my own mill that has just been converted as well.
I have spread the word at our CNC club and I do believe that you have received some feedback from the guys already. They all loved what I showed them.
One thing I discovered and it came as a bit of a shock is that most linuxcnc users dont know about master and the dev environment and thus miss out on the goodies as they happen. I hopefully planted some seeds.

cmorley wrote:

Ah you like the new design with pop up spindle controls. I can fit 6 axes on the screen a once.

The MDI page does something else beside just display the MDI window - it switches linuxcnc from manual to MDI mode.
Mode switching in linuxcnc is a pain to hide from the user. Not saying it can't be done - just a pain.
My intention was also to add MDI scripts to the buttons - just never got to it yet.

Gremlin is always displayed because non industrial users like that. I understand industrial users think it's often in the way.
My intention is to make it removable / hide able in Industrial first.

Yes dry run would require an adjustable plot speed. Gee losing your reference seems a pretty stupid design! What controls are these?

While it's easy to have Gscreen tell you when cycle start was pressed I'm not sure I can get linuxcnc to tell me when the program is finished.
If I could then actual cutting time could be displayed.

I just added a clock -it's a start.
I will add an entry into the alarm page when cycle start id pressed.

Chris M

Chris could this not be done by checking for M30 or say % marker at the end of gcode

cmorley wrote:

Yes dry run would require an adjustable plot speed. Gee losing your reference seems a pretty stupid design! What controls are these?

If you don't know what your doing you can seriously screw things up with the dry run (and Z inhibit) buttons on Fanuc controls . In fact, with the potential for mistakes and the ease of accidentally pushed buttons, it would probably be time well spent for me to put the effort into disabling these "features" on a few of our machines.

Hello Guys,

A little late to the ballgame, but my two cents anyway,

For the lube issues, we encountered what you are talking about Norbert, and handled it in Classic ladder, with a few rising edge contacts, one shot timers and and I have exactly what you are wanting.

1. On machine start up, the luber runs for 2 minutes and then stops,
2. While program is running, it runs every 30 minutes for 10 seconds.
3. While machine is Idle, but on, it will run every hour, for 10 seconds.

I have to run it for 10 to 15 seconds to operate properly, cycle the valve on and off in 3 second intervals.

I am all for an Interlock or Cycle Inhibit input pin, I think it could be a generic pin and then through the use of the status bar error reporting and a little ladder plumbing It would tell you exactly what is stopping it from starting. I think I have almost 30 different faults and errors that the machine will report to the operator if there is a problem.

I see the maintenance pin idea, we installed a Milacron 1250 Lancer about 4 months back, and it will report back in various increments, different maintenace related things that should be addressed.

Thanks

Rick

@Rick,

may I get your classicladder Programm? Just to see how you handled it?

And also your error list? It can be used as a basic configuration.

Thanks Norbert

Heres a copy of the files,

Let me know if you have any questions,



Rick