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if this is your first machine build and you have not actually been using cnc in production, my guess is you are over analyzing it a bit perhaps. for my use case, when my head is inside the machine with the mpg im not even looking at the screen for the most part. i am simply lining up a probing event or maybe an indicator to measure something. the only time i even revert to looking at the screen is if i am maybe doing some mpg machining for a quick surface or edge cleanup etc. my advice would be to ask yourself why its important, is it something you are creating in your head or a specific proven reason its important in your specific use case.

not personally i don't use them, i use a very basic mpg as stated above and rarely if ever change the in ui increments. my mpg increment settings are strictly set for the mpg alone and not the ui jogging which in my opinion should remain separate. ie the wheel is tied to whats on the mpg and the ui axis directional buttons are tied to the on screen increments.

I understand.
Can you recommend me any USB MPG?

How I think I would attack this would be to use a probing routine to look for a switch that indicates alignment of the pin with the hole in the tailstock. Then use a couple of m-codes to unlock the tailstock and engage the pin. Then use another set of m-codes to relock and disengage the pin after moving. This all could be saved in two subroutines one called "move-tailstock" and another "lock-tailstock".

Writing these as sub routines will let you call the M-codes to move the pin and lock or unlock the tailstock. Rather than try to make the M-codes be the whole subroutine.

If you want to use g-code subs as your M-code, then you must use g-code remapping.

The problem I had was fitting the x ballnut under the cross slide. I ordered a 8mm ballscrew (AliExpress) and still ended up grinding off part of the nut and milling the cross slide. If you grind a ballnut with plastic ball returns use cooling or you can melt the returns...
   

After some trial and error, I settled on 1u magnetic encoder for x.

 

Photo also shows crude but effective solid tool post. You can sell all your now unnecessary lathe parts on eBay. You will never go back to change gears or manual dials. No regrets selling my compound. Use the $ for x encoder and tooling.

Finally get Andy's lathe macros working and I use the wired Logitech keypad on all my machines for jogging.

Nice!

Photo of my toothed wheel with three encoders and planned update if I ever get around to it.
 
 

If anyone is itching to check it out, you should be able to run my sim config from github.com/tangentaudio/linuxcnc-bridgeport

Look in configs/sim.qttangent in that repo.  Start LinuxCNC with qttangent.ini

 

however the caveat for using momentary buttons being that without some way to know which mpg momentary button is active you would need to remember the last setting, check the screen setting or repress the momentary button increment you desire for each move or you could crash from using a larger increment setting than you intended to use. some of the usb mpg's have a display which might show the user what the currently active increment setting is.

Here's a demo video of what I have so far.  It's intended primarily for a 1920x1080 touchscreen though I am demoing it here with a mouse so the demo is not quite as fluid as it could be.  The design is somewhat influenced by PathPilot but it isn't a 1:1 clone of it (that's another potential project...)

I am first going to be using this on a converted Bridgeport mill, and my goal is something of a manual-automatic hybrid workflow.  Ultimately I'd like to have something like NativeCAM baked in, so it can kind of function like a ProtoTrak system.

I also intend to use this with a physical HMI panel that will replace some of the onscreen controls like feed/speed overrides and cycle start/stop etc. buttons.  But for now I'm leaving them in the UI to make it more generally useful.



As for developing so far - yes, I have a sim config directory and I just have a handler.py and my .ui file in there.  As you know, I've also developed some new widgets for Qtvcp for this GUI, and those are merged into master now.
 

that is strictly determined by what you are trying to accomplish. any mpg that works with linuxcnc will work with probe basic really, but if you want to tie the increments in the ui to the mpg and have true bidirectional support, then whatever mpg you use will need to be able to change the physical state of the switch for increments.

in other words if you use an mpg with a rotary switch, its a static output based on the rotary switch position. if you change the ui increment setting there is no way to physically change the rotary switch's position so it become unsynchronized. if you use an mpg with momentary buttons for increment settings, then there is no static constant output which means it could remain synchronized regardless of where the increments are physically changed by the user..(ui buttons or mpg buttons).

personally i use very basic mpg and my increments setting in PB is pretty much always set to jog for long travel moves where don't want to ring the mpg to death.

you may be able to use a usb style mpg and tie the increments to the ui with halpins or perhaps even if the existing mpg code has provisions already simply set it up in the mpg software. but no there is no PB specific mpg.

You can get a quadrature signal using the same slots and offsetting another detector approx 1/2 the spacing. It can be a little finicky to adjust but gives you 4x resolution and lets you track direction too. ( Important if you want to use spindle like a dividing head)

I added another detector to pick up index, missing tooth should be fine.

I expect the omron install will be a lot easier. I could probably just wrap a belt around the spindle shaft. The omron encoder spins with imperceptible drag to the spindle just about any belt or string is enough to spin it. I also have an omron encoder that I can position on my mill drawbar for rigid tapping. Janky but functional. It worked with a rubber band while I waited for a gt2 belt. After the mill install I ordered another for lathe but haven't gotten around to installing it.

Hi All,

it seems that i found the issue by accident   : it seemed that some part of motion still checks the home-switch-in even if they don't have a direct influence on my homing-procedure. (that is completely outsourced to pokeys, i just await the home status, the home-switch information is there but more or less for informative purposses. i didn't use these switches at all, but it seems theres some part of motion which checks that in background)

Hi,

this is on Almalinux 9 (RHEL9 clone), kernel 5.14.0-503.23.2.el9_5.x86_64.

Ethercat is from github, release 1.6.3.

Ethercat was built from source, loads correctly and shows something meaningfull with the command "ethercat master". Other than that, nothing was configured yet. 
Ethercat master alone is stable, but when two slaves are present on the same network, it crashes after some time.

Crash:
[  719.621831] BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at 000000009ee0e10f (stack is 00000000e1d2d8c3..00000000a409be87)
[  719.621834] stack guard page: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
[  719.621837] CPU: 1 PID: 722 Comm: EtherCAT-IDLE Kdump: loaded Tainted: G           OE    

---

 ---  5.14.0-503.23.2.el9_5.x86_64 #1
[  719.621840] Hardware name: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. NUC14MNK-B1/NUC14MNB1, BIOS MNADLCPX.0009.2024.1006.0803 10/06/2024
[  719.621841] RIP: 0010:ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x10/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.621885] Code: 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 0f 1f 44 00 00 41 55 49 89 fd 41 54 49 89 d4 55 <53> 8b 2a bb 03 00 00 00 48 69 ed 70 03 00 00 48 03 af 90 07 00 00
[  719.621886] RSP: 0018:ffffc004c0d1c000 EFLAGS: 00010286
[  719.621887] RAX: ffff997f0ae55b90 RBX: 0000000000000003 RCX: 0000000000000004
[  719.621888] RDX: ffffc004c0d1fe7c RSI: ffff997f0ae55820 RDI: ffff997e86d6c000
[  719.621889] RBP: ffff997f0ae55820 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffc004c0d1fd20
[  719.621889] R10: ffffc004c0d1fd18 R11: ffffffffb9de93e8 R12: ffffc004c0d1fe7c
[  719.621890] R13: ffff997e86d6c000 R14: ffff997e86d6c6d8 R15: ffff997e86d6c080
[  719.621891] FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9981ef880000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[  719.621892] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[  719.621892] CR2: ffffc004c0d1bff8 CR3: 00000001019e8000 CR4: 0000000000750ef0
[  719.621893] PKRU: 55555554
[  719.621894] Call Trace:
[  719.621895]  <#DF>
[  719.621896]  ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1c4/0x2df
[  719.621900]  ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1c4/0x2df
[  719.621902]  ? ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.621927]  ? __die_body.cold+0x8/0xd
[  719.621929]  ? die+0x2b/0x50
[  719.621931]  ? handle_stack_overflow+0x49/0x60
[  719.621933]  ? exc_double_fault+0x14b/0x180
[  719.621935]  ? asm_exc_double_fault+0x1f/0x30
[  719.621938]  ? ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x10/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.621961]  </#DF>
[  719.621961]  <TASK>
[  719.621962]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.621984]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622006]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622028]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622050]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622072]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622095]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622119]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
[  719.622142]  ec_master_calc_topology_rec+0x6d/0xa0 [ec_master]
(many more such lines)

Now i am a newbie to Ethercat and to Linuxcnc, so i may be doing something wrong here.
So i have some basic questions:
- is ethercat master to be used on a separate ethernet port, so do i need two NICs in my linuxcnc computer? Or does it coexist with the rest of Linux/IP ?
- is the "daisy chain" ethernet cabling mandatory for ethercat? During the crash, i had everything connected to a mini-switch.
- how do multiple ethercat slaves get distinguished? Do i have to assign some slave-ID?

 

I've been doing some research but I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Is there any mpg compatible with probe basic?