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I'm working on a press brake retrofit and need a GUI for it. This is going to be a full fledged GUI hopefully somewhat universal in hopes of making future press brake retrofits much easier. My goal is to come up with a couple example configs that could be packaged with LinuxCNC. I think I will create it using FlexGUI. My big problem is, I have little experience actually operating press brakes and will need some guideance on what features are required and which ones will just waste screen space.
Any offers to help with the coding will also be appreciated, however, I am willing to jump in myself and see what I can do with it.

I assume it will need at least:
0. Touchscreen freindly.

1. A "status" ribbon across the top displaying current operational status, including color-coding; like red for errors, yellow for warnings, green or blue otherwise.

2. DRO displaying position of movable beam (the die). How about also displaying positions of all axis? I performed service work on a 12 axis press brake a year or two ago, it had Y1, Y2 (left and right side of upper beam). The backstop consisted of two independant 3-axis stops: R1, R2, X1, X2, Z1, Z2. Crowning was 9th axis. Variable width bottom die was 10th axis. Sheet lifter in front of press had height and angle (axis 11-12)...

3. Program bends table. The program will need to contain various parameters for each 'bend' in the part. The table on the 'Run' screen hardly needs to display every fine detail. I'm thinking maybe 4 columns: 'Bend Number', 'Length', 'Angle', 'Notes'.

4. Tonnage control: how visible does this want/need to be for the operator? Least visible = just set it in the programming screen, or more visible, say a big guage displaying tonnage live?

5. Editting the 'part program' should probably be done on a separate tab or screen.
5.a My first version of the editor will be basic: enter the go-to positions for each axis to configure that specific bend.
5.b My goal for a 'real' editor is one where you can select dies, enter tab lengths and bend angles, and it produces the parameters for the bending program. This editor should have a 2D display of dies and plate and can possibly be a separate app.

Am I overlooking anything?

I will start drawing the ui...

Base period is in the .ini file inside your configuration folder, usually
/home/cnc/linuxcnc/configs/sim.axis
instead of cnc you will have your user name
As for latency screenshots, see those colorful vertical lines on both sides of the graph? Those mean there are latency excursions outside the visible area, so add --show at the end of latency-histogram line and test again.

See immediate homing :
linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/ini-homing.html#_immediate_homing

Mark wrote:

So I stopped trusting Chat gtp and started to think more for myself

 

great! pncconf will calculate out the step calibration but there is a shortcut if you dare!
You can review you mach3/uccnc and look for what Mach3 calls steps-per (steps per inch or steps per mm)
This directly equates to what linuxcnc calls STEP_SCALE in the ini file. so just edit your ini file to use your known values. But at this point you will be doing stuff manually in a text editor from here on. Which is not a bad thing in my book! Also try using geany for text editing. Our ISO's install it but otherwise type sudo apt install geany. Its very similar to notepad++ in Windows.

I often use pncconf to create a basic config and edit it by hand to correctly scale the axes and set velocities and acceleration.

slowing down in a cut is done by the motion controller. It knows from your ini file what the velocities and accelerations are and will adjust them accordingly. G64 is probably new to you but it sets the closest distance away from a corner you want to allow and should be in every gcode file (and set in the ini file). Without it, the motion will stay at your maximum velocity which cause you to cut corners significantly. Read up on it.

Yes, buttons to allow you to override limits should appear if you violate them.

This forum is far better than any AI as its where the AI's come to get their info. I prefer Elon Musk's Grok as it lies less even though it has quoted info I wrote here back to me a week later   

I am from Taiwan and want to modify a decommissioned laser etching machine into a CNC router. I purchased MESA 6i24 and 7i36 cards from EuSurplus. my old PC can now detect the 6i24 (5i24_16_sv8_7i36x2d.bit), and I've started configuring Pncconf.My machine and PC software configuration are as follows:
1. Linear motor: HIWIN, LMSA22
2. Driver: Maga-Fabs, D1-36-S2-2-0-00 (refer to D1-User-Manual_CN2.pdf)
3. Optical scale: Renishaw, 20μm
4. Decoder: MicroE Veratus VX 0.5μm
5. Debian 12+Linuxcnc2.9.8+mesa 6i24+mesa 7i36
6. X-axis travel: 500mm, maximum speed: 50mm/sec (for testing purposes only, not for actual use)
The generated INI and HAL files after configuration are attached. I'm not sure that it's correct?

if you expect a CNC machine to be able to be moved without using the CNC control to move it you are outside the normal paradigm.
You could try immediate homing without limit switches but I think that may restrict you motion to just one quadrant.
Try changing the jog scale when jogging in the gui.
There is something to be said for a good pendant

From what I can see, touch off sets the part origin relative to the current position, but linuxCNC doesn't know what the real current position is because I moved it with the handwheels and not the jog function. So when I touch off, it thinks I'm still at home position and sets the part origin relative to home which causes the tool paths to be outside the machine limits.

Is there no way to set the current position relative to home directly? I can't use the jog function because my computer is too slow and the machine keeps moving long after I've let go of the mouse.

chrispriceab wrote:

Looking to join a thread on this topic and collaborate. Is there any progress on a Brake Press UI and a repo or something where I can use/contribute.
I'd prefer not to use a glade UI due to deprecation if possible.

I'm working on a press brake retrofit and will also soon be needing a gui for it. I originally planned to do it in glade, but have been looking at FlexGUI and am open to the idea of using that or similar instead. What do you say, we start a thread and get it rolling?

So I stopped trusting Chat gtp and started to think more for myself .   I started using the error log at the end of a mistake.  I finally figured out that i had mistakenly set the estop pin to invert and that was what was causing the hard limit and qtdragon not coming online(despite what chat said that it would not cause this is decided to try and uncheck it anyway).  SUCCESS.  I got xyz working and even ran the excellent facing wizard.  How exciting. After days of chat having me cut and paste(I really learned how to cut and paste in Nano and learned the shortcuts)  Wild goose chase.  I think I learned most from someone just going through the settings on Youtube, but it just seemed like everytime i did something and got somewhere something else happened.  Chat told me I should switch to the Axis Gui to do the calculate steps wizard I am used to using in uccnc and mach3 a long time ago.  When i went to change the name in the ini for axis instead of dragon it didnt work and then it said oh yeah that doesnt work.             What is the best way to get the xy and z calculated, like I mentioned in uccnc there is a calculator that tells you to enter a value and you measure that and it adjusts the steps per rev.         If it is only in axis i could make a new config and use it and copy the values.            Will linux compensate for slow down in the cut by changing pwm?  I will have a spindle encoder.     Is there a tutorial on halcustom files?  From my understanding using them for custom I/0s is the best way so I can have a base pncconf.      Should I try to get all the inputs and outputs I have wired so that i can use the pncconf as much as possible?   Which things should be put in the Hal custom?    Is there a button to overide limits to jog off in case they are tripped in QT Dragon?
  Last question.   Is there another AI that is better for linuxcnc than Chat?   My machine is a Bridgeport Series 2 I have had for 15 years and I started off retrofitting it with Mach 3 then moved to UCCNC.  I recently replaced the 4 hp original motor and made some custom mounts for a 7.5 HP motor hoping to be able to face mill more aggressively and hoping that will help with ridgid tapping.    Thank you in advance for your help.
 

andypugh
Is this the correct information?

Axis has a touch off features for each axis. Its not really any different to a manual mill when you set up your DR0. Use a edgefinder to locate X0 and  then touch off with an offset of 0.5 x radius. eg for a 6 mm dia edge finder, touch off at x -3 and repeat for Y axis y -3 (for top left hand corner)
then roll a drill or milling cutter (say 10mm dia) under the tool until you feel you have light drag. Then touch off Z +10
There are cheap Chinese edge finders but the Starrett is a class on its own by comparison

www.amazon.com/Edge-Finder-Single-End-0-...ps%2C474&sr=8-3&th=1

Congratulations and well deserved.

"I get all kinds of errors and will not load."

As you have not provided any info regarding the errors it is hard to diagnose the errors you are having.

Congrats mate.

Hello, I have a machine with handwheels that can be moved with the power off. For reasons that I won't get into, I want to be able to set everything up manually, move the tool to the part origin and then directly tell linux CNC that my tool is at X0 Y0 Z0.25" from home and then touch off the part.

I don't see a shortcut in AXIS to do this? Is there g code that I can put in the MDI to tell it where the current machine position is?

Thanks.