Homemade, cheap, plasma CNC

rodw wrote:

Try

BUTTON_2_NAME = LASER
BUTTON_2_CODE = toggle-halpin hm2_7i96.0.ssr.00.out-01

I think that won't work. Based on previous conversations with Phill, hal.set_p (what toggle-halpin uses) cannot write to an output pin.

That said, if he wants a separate laser button to control power to the laser outside of the touchoff LASER button that will appear based on the info in my previous post, he could probably do this:

Probably not what you want to hear, but any aversion to switching over to QtPlasmaC? Tons more features, bug fixes from the PlasmaC days, etc.

It does require being on 2.9 (master branch). At any rate, some of the stuff you are asking for has been made way easier/possible in QtPlasmaC. Plus, no more development/limited support on PlasmaC.

If you are on Buster, it's a much easier task, but I can understand the frustrations of lack of internet, etc.

No chance to take the pc to the house to do most of the heavy lifting, then work on the config in the shed?

I think it's all it's cracked up to be, but perhaps I am biased. I'd recommend a good thumb through the docs: linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtplasmac.html

Somewhere around here I've made a list of key features/upgrades, etc, and it's only grown since then. That said, 2.9 is the development version, and as such it doesn't come risk free. Generally issues are quickly resolved, but they do pop up from time to time. To me the reward > the risk. But obviously everyone needs to weigh the benefits for themselves. All that disclaimer stuff said, QtPlasmaC has been stable.

At any rate, I can appreciate your situation and why you'd want to stay put. If you decide to switch over, there are plenty of people here willing to help get you going.

rodw wrote:

I think have QTplasmac sorted but I'm not in love with it. It is very sluggish on my hardware[/code]

It works fine on my old Dual-Core 2.80GHz Pentium with 2gb RAM and also a Gigabyte Brix Dual Core 1.5GHz Celeron with 4Gb RAM.