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That's great news, glad you got it sorted out!

As I'm planning to do live coin minting at some events I attend, I will retrofit a proxon milling thing to make my own coin dies.
Model is this one:
forum.drucktipps3d.de/file-download/12960/
I'm in contact with a nice austrian guy, who has done that before LinuxCNC exists (uses some old DOS software via par port). So the mechanical part is quite proven.
Plan is as follows:
- replace all threads with ballscrews
- a mesa 7i96s (have that from a dead project)
- stepper motor and microstepper driver (from yet another dead project)
- maybe place a 1:6 gear between stepper and ballscrew (this is actually trick from the austrian guy) for higher detail
My main question is about the milling spindle. As I will mill little amounts of material, I was aiming for some small spindle (partially for lower weight to have faster and more precise movements). On the other hand it should have quite high rpm and very good concentricity.

So far I was thinking a AMB 530 FME. At least I couldn't find a lighter one that would serve the purpose.

Please let me know if my plan might generate a working machine or if I have a major f-put in my plan.

Just getting started with Flex; I've never really done a GUI from scratch so I haven't internalized any 'best practices' or anything.

Goal is something like below.  I started fiddling last night but quickly realized I needed some experienced advice on how to organize & lay-out this thing.

Details aren't set in stone now, but I want a GUI with no on-screen controls/jogging on the main page.  Will be used with 15.6" touchscreen 1920x1080p monitor - so I can't cram lots of small stuff in.

Maybe something like:

• Main window
  • Horizontal layout
    • Frame (variable displays top)
      • Vertical layout
        • Stacked widget (left)
        • Frame for stacked widget buttons (right)
    • Frame (fixed displays middle)
      • Vertical layout
        • Frames across for each 'section'
    • Frame (fixed indicators btm)
      • Vertical layout
        • indicators + estop/on btns

Or is there a better way of laying this out that doesn't wind up with me painting myself in to a corner?  I don't like tabs, so no tabbed widgets.

Thx
 

Make a new config and give it a try.
If that does not work:
-make sure the analog wires are properly making contact inside the connectors
-check if analog is correctly wired as reversing polarity of those two wires can cause most of the issues you have

all you need to do is type
sudo apt-get install linuxcnc-uspace linuxcnc-uspace-dev

This will get you 2.94 which is  a couple of bug fixes behind the current 2.98 version

If you want to get to 2.98 (which is probably not a big issue  for now), follow the directions here
linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/html/getting-st...th_preempt_rt_kernel

Laptops are not good candidates for linuxCNC because of all the latency inducing features in them but its worth trying. If you do need a better PC, go to 2.98 then. Install with the ISO on the downloads page
linuxcnc.org/downloads/

I have a few installation videos on my @MrRodW YouTube channel

Is there a way to create custom widgets without directly editing /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/qtvcp/ items?

I'd prefer to store these custom widgets in user directory to track modifications easier.  Otherwise I have to edit as root.

I've tried and failed to pinpoint where the include directory is defined.

why not get a kit of closed loop steppers and use them with say a 7i97t in velocity mode. or use a 7i96s and add an encoder board later.
Then you might be able to get your scales going in position mode at your leisure and have a dual feedback system.
But I have a similar Seig SX3 and it may be overkill for what it is. A friend has an early Syil CNC machine which is based on a SX3.... open loop steppers and he does some really intricate stuff.
 

Okay i see so i dont get away with a cheap stepper driver like those from steppersonline.
I need one which has real closed loop capability. Like  leadshine el8  I mean this is a total different price class
I wonder if it makes sense on a cheap chines benchmill... Probably not my bad I bought the mill with the glass scales.

The leadshine el8 has this external encoder plug. This cheap chines glass scales have only VGA plug.

The question also would be if the glass scales provide the right signal via the cabel for the stepperdriver.

Has anybody have experience with that?

raggielyle1@gmail.com wrote:

Sorry about the delay. I cant upload the file because it has a sh extension. Please email me This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I send the file.
 

just change it to end in .sh.txt

Thanks, I don't know how good a teacher I will be...
I'm almost there on my state_tag_arcs branch at github.com/rodw-au/linuxcnc

I've got all of the calculations tested and working in the interpreter. For some reason, data is getting lost on its way to motion. I will troubleshoot that in the next day or so.

Its been more complicated than I remember. I've got a better method of setting the tags but they are only updated at the beginning of a gcode segment but we want to get real time headings all the way around a G2/G3 arc. To do this, I needed to calculate the heading in real time (eg with the servo thread) in motion. No wonder no-one has tried to do this before!

 

Hello everyone,

I would like to announce the release of NativeCAM 2.0b — a community port 
of the original NativeCAM (by Fernand Veilleux) migrated to Python 3 and GTK3.

The original NativeCAM was written for Python 2.7 / GTK2, which is no longer 
available on modern distributions. This port makes it fully compatible with 
LinuxCNC 2.9 on Debian 13 Trixie.

--- What's new in 2.0b ---

* Full Python 3 / GTK3 migration
* New: Side Drill feature — horizontal drilling from Top / Bottom / Left / Right 
  faces of the workpiece, designed for multi-spindle machines like Biesse Rover
* New: Horizontal tool visualization in AXIS — tool rotates correctly in the 
  3D view when a side spindle is active (uses tool table Q column: 10-13)
* Fix: Phantom GTK popup windows no longer remain on screen after LinuxCNC exits
* Fix: About dialog now shows version correctly (Python 3 bytes decode bug)
* Fix: Validation Messages menu now uses checkboxes showing current state
* Debian packaging updated for modern build tools

--- Download ---

GitHub: github.com/cnc-proton/nativecam-py3-gtk3
Releases: github.com/cnc-proton/nativecam-py3-gtk3/releases

Install:
  sudo apt install ./nativecam_2.0b_all.deb

--- Tested on ---

* Debian 13 Trixie + LinuxCNC 2.9
* Biesse Rover 336 (multi-spindle, 4-side horizontal drilling)

Any feedback, bug reports or pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

Credits to Fernand Veilleux (FernV) for the original NativeCAM project.

Best regards,
CNC Proton

You are using DC. Confirmed.

All four slaves show "Distributed clocks: yes, 64 bit" and all four report 0x1C32:01 = 0x0002 which means DC Sync0. Your drives are running in DC synchronized mode right now. This is the best mode for a CNC machine.

The only thing that does not work for you is the alternative sync strategy where the master follows the reference slave clock instead of the other way around. But that is just a different way of keeping everyone in sync, not a better or worse one. What you have now, master as reference with refClockSyncCycles=1, is perfectly fine and is DC.

One thing I notice is that your reference clock, slave 0, is not one of the SD700 drives. It is a separate device, the first on the bus. That could be related to why syncToRefClock=true causes problems, if that device reports timing that my PLL does not handle well. If there is an opportunity to test this any time in the future within a better setting, I'd love to debug it remotely.

I'm actually at the client's site performing the installation. This machine was already running Debian 10, but I wanted to test Debian Trixie and we're encountering these problems, which we seem to have solved.

The output of the ethercat slaves -v command is:

=== Master 0, Slave 0 ===
Device: Main
State: OP
Flag: +
Identity:
Vendor Id: 0x0000022b
Product code: 0x0531ec01
Revision number: 0x00000003
Serial number: 0x0001894b
DL information:
FMMU bit operation: yes
Distributed clocks: yes, 64 bit
DC system time transmission delay: 0 ns
Port Type Link Loop Signal NextSlave RxTime [ns] Diff [ns] NextDc [ns]
0 MII up open yes - 3151034175 0 0
1 MII up open yes 1 3151039505 5330 935
2 N/A down closed no - - - -
3 N/A down closed no - - - -
Mailboxes:
Bootstrap RX: 0x1000/1024, TX: 0x1400/1024
Standard RX: 0x1000/128, TX: 0x1080/128
Supported protocols: EoE, CoE, FoE
General:
Group:
Image name:
Order number:
Device name:
CoE details:
Enable SDO: yes
Enable SDO Info: no
Enable PDO Assign: yes
Enable PDO Configuration: yes
Enable Upload at startup: no
Enable SDO complete access: yes
Flags:
Enable SafeOp: no
Enable notLRW: no
Current consumption: 0 mA
=== Master 0, Slave 1 ===
Device: Main
State: OP
Flag: +
Identity:
Vendor Id: 0x00850104
Product code: 0x01030507
Revision number: 0x02040608
Serial number: 0x00000000
DL information:
FMMU bit operation: no
Distributed clocks: yes, 64 bit
DC system time transmission delay: 935 ns
Port Type Link Loop Signal NextSlave RxTime [ns] Diff [ns] NextDc [ns]
0 MII up open yes 0 3730859530 0 935
1 MII up open yes 2 3730862990 3460 855
2 MII down closed no - - - -
3 MII down closed no - - - -
Mailboxes:
Bootstrap RX: 0x0000/0, TX: 0x0000/0
Standard RX: 0x1000/128, TX: 0x1080/128
Supported protocols: CoE
General:
Group: ServoDrive
Image name: DRIVE
Order number: SD700_ECAT Drive
Device name: SD700_ECAT_V1.2_G
CoE details:
Enable SDO: yes
Enable SDO Info: yes
Enable PDO Assign: yes
Enable PDO Configuration: yes
Enable Upload at startup: no
Enable SDO complete access: no
Flags:
Enable SafeOp: no
Enable notLRW: no
Current consumption: 0 mA
=== Master 0, Slave 2 ===
Device: Main
State: OP
Flag: +
Identity:
Vendor Id: 0x00850104
Product code: 0x01030507
Revision number: 0x02040608
Serial number: 0x00000000
DL information:
FMMU bit operation: no
Distributed clocks: yes, 64 bit
DC system time transmission delay: 1790 ns
Port Type Link Loop Signal NextSlave RxTime [ns] Diff [ns] NextDc [ns]
0 MII up open yes 1 3711076970 0 855
1 MII up open yes 3 3711078720 1750 875
2 MII down closed no - - - -
3 MII down closed no - - - -
Mailboxes:
Bootstrap RX: 0x0000/0, TX: 0x0000/0
Standard RX: 0x1000/128, TX: 0x1080/128
Supported protocols: CoE
General:
Group: ServoDrive
Image name: DRIVE
Order number: SD700_ECAT Drive
Device name: SD700_ECAT_V1.2_G
CoE details:
Enable SDO: yes
Enable SDO Info: yes
Enable PDO Assign: yes
Enable PDO Configuration: yes
Enable Upload at startup: no
Enable SDO complete access: no
Flags:
Enable SafeOp: no
Enable notLRW: no
Current consumption: 0 mA
=== Master 0, Slave 3 ===
Device: Main
State: OP
Flag: +
Identity:
Vendor Id: 0x00850104
Product code: 0x01030507
Revision number: 0x02040608
Serial number: 0x00000000
DL information:
FMMU bit operation: no
Distributed clocks: yes, 64 bit
DC system time transmission delay: 2665 ns
Port Type Link Loop Signal NextSlave RxTime [ns] Diff [ns] NextDc [ns]
0 MII up open yes 2 3704486570 0 875
1 MII down closed no - - - -
2 MII down closed no - - - -
3 MII down closed no - - - -
Mailboxes:
Bootstrap RX: 0x0000/0, TX: 0x0000/0
Standard RX: 0x1000/128, TX: 0x1080/128
Supported protocols: CoE
General:
Group: ServoDrive
Image name: DRIVE
Order number: SD700_ECAT Drive
Device name: SD700_ECAT_V1.2_G
CoE details:
Enable SDO: yes
Enable SDO Info: yes
Enable PDO Assign: yes
Enable PDO Configuration: yes
Enable Upload at startup: no
Enable SDO complete access: no
Flags:
Enable SafeOp: no
Enable notLRW: no
Current consumption: 0 mA

while the command:
ethercat upload -p 0 -t uint16 0x1C32 0x01 = 0x0002 2
ethercat upload -p 1 -t uint16 0x1C32 0x01 = 0x0002 2
ethercat upload -p 2 -t uint16 0x1C32 0x01 = 0x0002 2
ethercat upload -p 3 -t uint16 0x1C32 0x01 = 0x0002 2

A USB wifi adapter is also fine for a second network connection. I have often used one with an external antenna. If the PC is in your enclosure, run a SMA cable up to a bulkhead connecter and place the antenna on the outside of the enclosure. You just need to drill a hole for the connector. Something like this but check if you need male or female. www.amazon.com.au/Boobrie-Bulkhead-Exten...BRMR/ref=sr_1_4_sspa

The problem with wifi, often you need to search for  drivers and often you need to build them from source. Like my current wifi dongle. But it is bulletproof now its built. The wired NIC I use for Ethercat.

Hi,

I am retrofitting a CNC lathe right now. In that process, I ran into a problem: my Z axis, which already worked, stopped doing so. I was messing with the encoder wiring, but I don’t think that is related. So X still works fine, but Z does not. I still get encoder feedback and see that when the machine is enabled, the Z axis drifts slowly.

I use a 7i97T and Chinese AASD motor drivers.

Troubleshooting I already did:

Driver: I confirmed that all the I/O still works. External E-stop, enable line from LinuxCNC, these are fine and work as expected. I then injected voltage into the analog line from the Mesa connector. The drive moves and stops after the following error gets too big, and the enable signal is removed by Mesa.

So I don’t think it is the driver or the wiring to it.

PWMgen: I then switched the pluggable connectors for X and Z on the Mesa and changed the HAL accordingly. Still, the X axis works fine and Z does not. In HAL Show I watched .pwmgen.nn.value, which started to grow after the machine was enabled and the Z axis started drifting. After a few seconds, it reached 60, which is the value of output-scale. With that, I would expect 10 V on that line, but I measure barely a few mV.

That really seemed like a hardware defect to me, but as I said, I switched the outputs between X and Z, and the PWMgens are confirmed to both be OK.

So in my head, only the software (e.g. HAL and INI) is left, but I did not really change anything there, at least I cannot think of anything.

With that, I am at the end of what I can think of. Please, if anyone has an idea, I am going insane trying to find this. I swear, if it is the equivalent of a missing semicolon in C…

I have the current .hal and .ini in the attachments.

At the end, I want to describe what I was doing immediately before this problem appeared. I cannot think of a reason how this would be connected, but still:

I had both axes moving and mostly tuned. I was testing the repeatability of the hall switches I use for homing. I found these to not be reliable and wanted to use the index pulses from the motor encoders. But I have linear scales on the machine, so I wired only the index pulses from the motor drivers to the Mesa inputs, while the A and B lines from the linear scales go directly to the bed and cross slide.

I changed only HOME_USE_INDEX = NO to HOME_USE_INDEX = YES and started the machine, at least that is what I remember. Since then, the INI and HAL have changed slightly as I tried to solve this. The HOME_SEQUENCE has changed as I wanted to check if the index thing worked for the X axis at least. It does.

So yes, I would be thankful for any help you can provide.