Gscreen - a GTK / Glade / Python based screen

Hello Norbert,

I created another thread named "Tool Touch off with G92 and Fanuc Tool Patch" in the Gcode section of the forum, so as not to clutter up this thread.

I honestly think its just an issue with me not really knowing Gscreen fully yet and not knowing how to perform the touch-off, I'm just used to the touch off button in the AXIS interface.

Thanks

Rick

Well not really - Gscreen's touch table touchoff procedure could use some work I think.
Most of the problem is i have never done it. The lathe I used didn't have an on screen tool table and I forget exaclty how we did it, but it would be close to Norberts suggestion.

How would you like it done?

Chris M

Hello Chris,

That thread I made "Tool Touch off with G92 and Fanuc Tool Patch" explains its fairly decent, how we currently do it. As far as I know, based from what the operators have told me, thats how the other machines work, and pretty much all of the big industrial turning centers that they have run in other shops. I hate to say, but I have to agree with the gentleman that had to put a terminal in his breakroom for the crew to look at so they would except it. Our guys in the shop have been a little hesitant about the whole situation of retrofitting the machines, as the old saying goes " You can't teach an old dog new tricks". We finally got them to except the AXIS front end on our other machine that I finished a while back, the problem is we are setting these up with touch screens so axis isn't very friendly to fat fingers. We love the Gscreen front end and the operators have even said it looks a lot more comfortable to use, so their actually pretty receptive now that they see your screen. My boss has said many times that the G54 info is irrelavant to a lathe in our circumstance and it applies to milling for say milling multiple of the same part at the same time. I don't know if you could make it so when it see's "LATHE = TRUE" in the INI it could maybe make the ZERO ORIGIN or OFFSET ORIGIN button a "Touch Off" button and have it work and apply things the same way as "TOUCH OFF" works in AXIS. Any button really would work if would function the same way. Any R&D you need done we can do for you, we want to change this machine, the other machine thats been done, and 1 more lathe so far that we are going to retrofit over to linux with the Gscreen front end.

Thanks Chris

Rick

One thing I will say is that I dislike the way Touch-Off works in Axis.

The options to touch-off to the coordinate system (set machine) and touch-off the tool (set tool table) need to be more separate. The number of time I have touched-off a tool and moved the machine origin by mistake beggars belief.

I keep meaning to make it two different buttons.

I will definitly half to second that idea Andy, our guys have forgot to select Tool table in that drop down box and then they get all confused when they go to the tool table and their values aren't there. Then I hear them yell from across the shop at me because they can't figure out what's going on.

offset origin does work like AXIS except you can't select the user system it uses the current one.
zero origin is just a convenience button to set the offset to zero.
What it doesn't do is allow touchoff to tooltable, but yes I could add a button for that.

Using G92 seems odd, but whatever they are used to.
It seems that they are using G93 to add global offsets But I'm sure you can do that without using G92

I will let someone very familiar with such things to chime in though...
Chris M

I will remind you to please please do lots of testing with Gscreen it is under development so is not as stable or tested as something that has been released for a few years.

Chris M

cmorley wrote: offset origin does work like AXIS except you can't select the user system it uses the current one.
zero origin is just a convenience button to set the offset to zero.
What it doesn't do is allow touchoff to tooltable, but yes I could add a button for that.

Using G92 seems odd, but whatever they are used to.
It seems that they are using G93 to add global offsets But I'm sure you can do that without using G92

I will let someone very familiar with such things to chime in though...
Chris M

So after reading:
www.linuxcnc.org/docs/2.5/html/lathe/lathe-user.html

The concepts are:
tool offset - The difference between the tool lengths compared to a common point - Gscreen doesn't have a button this yet, but you could edit the tooltable directly.
origin offset - The way to move that common point - Gscreen has offset origin button for this.

I can add a tool offset button which I think use the Gcode G10 L10 or is it L11 I don't quite understand why you would use one over the other.

LAIRE82 I think your guys are using G92 to avoid the offset origin idea but G92 really accomplishes the same thing.
Chris M

Rick's boss here....We only G92 one tool in the turret set-up. It probably is cheating but we usually have a main tool that will be always be in that pocket on every machine we have like an 80 deg turning tool. We never really mess with using a G92 on the X axis except when loading the tool turret for the very first time so the maain tool will never have a value in the fixed or geometry offset we use the assignable or wear offsets to make fine adjustments this is why the FANUC Style patch is so important to us . We do however use G92 in the Z axis everytime we change a job or a lenght of material. Once all of the tools are set-up to with offsets we can use any tool to touch off the face of the part and G92 the new Z 0 position. We always program the face of the part Z 0.

Our use of G92 probably goes way back to a GE controller that nobody could figure out how to move the axis origin on....G92 just always worked and our guys could wrap their heads around it very easily. Your axis origin button is fine and in time we will teach our guys how to use it. I just want to say that the Gscreen is a very nice interface and much more touch screen friendly. My machinists keep putting a mouse on the machine with the Axis display and it drives me nuts just for the fact that the mouse will not last out there and we will end up with a mouse shortage....LOL