Revers Run

can you explain the process you would use to restart a former line after pause.
is it pause program, click wanted line, press start?

Chris M

Chris

Thank you for the reply. The bit about hal_sourceview.py is a good hint. What is an IRC channel?

I have the open source parts of the commercial plasma system running as a Gscreen sim on one of my boxes. Took me a while to figure out how all the parts spliced together. In the end I found that Gscreen was easier than Gmoccapy to customize. Most all of the proprietary stuff aside from the proprietary hardware is in the their launcher and configuration programs that are only distributed as 32 bit binaries for a distro I don't use. At one point I even started to convert it for my hardware but that effort stalled because I already have a working production system. I got as far as moving axis with limits and homing but a long ways from a functional plasma system.

Well as with most things plasma it is hard to tell the exact interaction of all the parts without moving the hardware with a live torch. The documentation and the sim do work the same. When the Gcode program is paused due to an error condition or the operator pausing the program you can select any line (block) of the Gcode program as the new starting point in the Gcode preview pane. This causes the pointer that LCNC uses to the Gcode file line (block) to be changed to the new line (block). When the program is started again by pressing the pause/resume button the program execution starts at the new line (block). On a plasma system one usually backs up to the end of the last cut. The documentation for this system is available on line.

Rod

My whole system is still a RIP install, never have made debs and moved the code. Is it possible to use the Gmoccapy UI with the Plasmac branch or is it too dependent on the Axis UI?

John

I modified Gmoccapy so I could press the run from line button when paused.
i could then set a specific line to start from but then linuxcnc would complain that you can't start a program when paused.

looking at the commandcnc_handler.py code more closely:

This line:
self.emc_cmd.srfl_auto(linuxcnc.AUTO_RUN, self.cur_line_number)
implies that the python module that sends commands to the linuxcnc motion control has been modified too..
My guess is it allows you to restart a program at a certain line without resetting the motion controller.

This file in linuxcnc is called emcmodule.cc
Would need the code changes from it to add the capability to linuxcnc.
It could also lead to more changes in the motion controller to support that code.

Chris M

Phill

Thank you for the reply. I can see that I now have a lot of work to do to try and splice my modified Gmoccapy UI, hals, Python handlers onto your Plasmac foundation. 99% of the time all I need to do is go back to the beginning of the current cut segment.

Chris

Thank you for the reply and the code analysis. I am quite lost with anything beyond a simple Glade screen and it's simple handler/hal connections. When I got the commercial app to run it was from a compressed update file that had all the configuration files in it but no directory map (it isn't met to be a RIP build). I figured out it was a Gscreen app when reading the license info in one of the files. Needless to say it took quite a while to figure out what files had to go where. The underlying RIP install I had at the time was the external offsets branch, I am now using the master branch from about 2 months ago. I did this almost a year ago and only spent a short time working with it. As I recall I only added directories and files in the following places:
~/linuxcnc-dev/configs/...
~/inuxcnc-dev/share/gscreen/...

There was also a special theme needed to get the correct icons in the UI and I don't remember where I had to put that.

I will try and see if I can get the sim to run again tomorrow when I am in the shop. I very well could have broken it with switching back to the master branch.

John

John, I think all you need is to build PhillC's system and copy your existing config over to it. You should still have a working system as you have now. You might have some minor fixups if you currently don't have the newer multispindle version of Master branch.

So then you could work on just incorporating the reverse run. In fact, I'd explore connecting one of the 7i76e MPG inputs to it. Skunkworks on his Youtube channel where he is samcoinc from memory) has a video of this working....

So there is no need for you to adopt plasmac, you just want the reverse run

Rod

Thanks, I most likely don't have the terminology correct. My current configuration is new enough to have all the multiple spindle stuff. It was a tense day when I did that update and my system stopped working and I didn't know why.

What I will do is download and compile Phill's branch into it's own directory structure separate from my current build, something like
~/linuxcnc-dev/plasmac/... Then copy my working configuration over to the ~/linuxcnc-dev/plasmac/configs directory and see if I can make it fly. This sounds simple but will be a real adventure for me. I think I have the Github cheat sheet that Phill posted some time back that has all of the instructions for doing this. I do have have a feedrate override widget on my UI but I am sure that it doesn't go negative right now so it is off to Glade land to see if I can fix it.

John