Re: [Emc-users] How to set certain AXIS settings to defaults?

[Gary Fixler]

>
> [TRAJ]
> DEFAULT_LINEAR_VELOCITY =
> DEFAULT_ANGULAR_VELOCITY =
>

Interesting. I don't have DEFAULT_LINEAR_VELOCITY, but I do have
DEFAULT_VELOCITY, which seems to be the same. Has the name changed, or does
EMC accept either?

I had been skipping over those ini values, because they're wildly different
from what I see as the startup values in EMC. Now I see why. The ini file
should be IPS, whereas EMC's sliders show IPM. That's why I was getting in
the 1300s in EMC for my DEFAULT_VELOCITY = 22. That doesn't explain why it's
1312 in EMC (22 * 60 = 1320), but at least it's close, and I can set more
realistic values now. Awesome.

Also, are any values NOT in the default install? I seem to recall in my
travels finding some variables that weren't anywhere in my config file. It
makes me wonder what cool features I might be missing. Maybe there's a list
I haven't found yet?


> delete /usr/share/axis/images/axis.ngc or set the environment variable
> AXIS_OPEN_FILE to the ngc you want to open as default


It doesn't seem to be respecting my environment variable here, even if I
immediately run '$ emc' after setting it in the same shell. I haven't tried
the file delete trick yet, but am glad to know where it resides now. Thanks.


> > Sadly, the EMC2 AXIS default file is also set to run at a higher speed
> > than my sad little machine can handle
>
> This isn't a problem with EMC2. Your machine's MAX_VELOCITY is configured
> wrong. The machine should not be able to lose steps simply by being
> commanded too fast. Why would you want to command the machine to move
> faster than is physically possible?
>

I wouldn't! I just haven't managed to understand all of the settings yet.
I've read a lot, and have toyed with things like MAX_VELOCITY (which is at
30 currently - no wonder it seems limitless! That's 1800 IPM!), but I've
gotten such strange results for so many things, I haven't yet learned to
trust myself, or any of the settings yet. That's why I'm here, though. You
guys have been extremely helpful already. I'm considering giving back
eventually (when I know enough) by writing up very simple explanations for
simple folk like me, who feel a bit overwhelmed in the beginning.

I'm thinking now that a lot of my troubles, and strange occurrences in this
particular area have been me incorrectly assuming that the conf settings are
supposed to be in IPM (or forgetting that I read otherwise, as now it does
sound familiar). I guess IPS just doesn't make sense to me, and as such I
wouldn't presume it, because my mill has trouble moving just 1IPS. What's
the use counting in floating points <1? :)

The hissing noise is due to 'noise' believe it or not. Check your setup
> for ground loops and capacitive coupling and all that good stuff. Or maybe
> you should just buy some stepper drivers of higher quality.


Step 1 for me now is to figure out what ground loops, and capacitive
couplings are! I don't think I can afford any more stepper drivers. I have
Sherline's only offering, and it was $600. Being a total newbie, and having
decided I liked, and could afford their 5400 CNC package (completely
non-profit, hobby use only), I've for simplicity, and guaranteed
work-togetherness limited my purchases to their catalog. Still, $600 did
seem very high, and it's missing things that I've since assumed come with
other, possibly cheaper packages. For example, I have no option for a 5th
axis, encoder inputs, servo anythings, a probe, actual e-stop button,
spindle on/off, coolant on/off, that coffee maker attachment someone
mentioned in here this week...

How do people normally add things like contact stops, and probes? Are these
part of better driver systems? I've also wondered if there was anything that
could be done in-line. For example, the Sherline box would plug into another
box, which would then plug into the serial port. That box could insert codes
into the stream for the missing features above. This is probably an insane
notion, and might quickly overflow any buffers it encounters along the way
with too much data.

If other drivers do all of this cool extra stuff, maybe I should just
upgrade, and sell the Sherline box to someone who will undoubtedly then show
up in here at some point, with all of my same problems, and I can instruct
him to sell the box, and get something better. The circle of life continues.

To keep the steppers cool, you can rig up some CPU fans to blow on them.
> But you really shouldn't leave the machine unattended. You can pause and
> resume if you need to leave in the middle of a job. If you must turn the
> drivers off, you can stop the program at a convenient place, and then edit
> the g-code file so that it starts there next time. (run-from-line is not
> quite ready yet.)


I'm excited that a run-from-line is even in the works! It was one of the
features I've already wished for, several times. I've taken to jotting down
a sensible number from the scrolling lines, killing out, and then deleting
everything befor

Re: [Emc-users] How to set certain AXIS settings to defaults?

[ben lipkowitz]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Gary Fixler wrote:
> Anyone know how I can change the default jog speeds (linear/rotary) in AXIS?

[TRAJ]
DEFAULT_LINEAR_VELOCITY = 
DEFAULT_ANGULAR_VELOCITY =

these values are in your preferred units per second, so for example in/s 
or degree/s

> Also, is there a way to have it start up with no default file loaded?

delete /usr/share/axis/images/axis.ngc or set the environment variable 
AXIS_OPEN_FILE to the ngc you want to open as default

> Sadly, the EMC2 AXIS default file is also set to run at a higher speed 
> than my sad little machine can handle

This isn't a problem with EMC2. Your machine's MAX_VELOCITY is configured 
wrong. The machine should not be able to lose steps simply by being 
commanded too fast. Why would you want to command the machine to move 
faster than is physically possible?

> Relatedly, I often can't finish an operation before it's time to leave for
> bed, work, or the rare social occasion. I ran a part this week that took
> between 6 and 8 hours. I hate leaving my controller on while out. It runs
> the steppers on a duty cycle that makes a pretty loud hissing noise, and
> they heat up, and I'm afraid of returning to (or waking up in!) a fire. That
> said, I turn off the machine when I leave. When I start it up, sometimes it
> just whines, and then starts hissing. Other times I hear one or more loud
> clunks, as it appears the steppers are being relatched onto.

The hissing noise is due to 'noise' believe it or not. Check your setup 
for ground loops and capacitive coupling and all that good stuff. Or maybe 
you should just buy some stepper drivers of higher quality.

To keep the steppers cool, you can rig up some CPU fans to blow on them. 
But you really shouldn't leave the machine unattended. You can pause and 
resume if you need to leave in the middle of a job. If you must turn the 
drivers off, you can stop the program at a convenient place, and then edit 
the g-code file so that it starts there next time. (run-from-line is not 
quite ready yet.)

> I imagine that when it doesn't happen, they're lined up with the original
> stepper positions (A, B, C, or D). Does EMC remember which pins were active,
> or in the case of microstepping, which values/duties were on which pins? I'd
> love to see it save that data on exit, or maybe on machine off/e-stop?

Yes, EMC does this already, look at /position.txt

The problem is that your stepper drive does not remember the position 
between power cycles. It will happily start up and move to the nearest 
full step, since that's how stepper motors work. Also there is typically 
some noise on the lines when you turn on the power supply. A better method 
is to set up home switches, since this will calibrate the motor position 
in the case they were moved while the machine was off.

   -fenn

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[Emc-users] How to set certain AXIS settings to defaults?

[Gary Fixler]

Anyone know how I can change the default jog speeds (linear/rotary) in AXIS?
It always starts up in the thousands, and when I [often] forget, I end up
jogging fast enough to lose steps, which has screwed me up a few times. It's
also a pain to have to slide them way down each and every time I fire up the
app. I've grepped through everything in my directories, and scoured the
menus, but can't find a way to set/save these.

Also, is there a way to have it start up with no default file loaded? It
starts with the "EMC2 AXIS" path, and just this week while hitting hotkeys
to turn off E-Stop, and turn on the machine, I somehow grazed either my
mouse, or the R key, sending it off into my part. It being a simple
mini-mill with not a lot of strength in the clamping (enough to mill,
though), it knocked everything out of whack, ruining quite a lot of setup,
and centering work. I feel it would be safer to load up my own file when I'm
ready, despite the machine power toggle. Sadly, the EMC2 AXIS default file
is also set to run at a higher speed than my sad little machine can handle,
and so another time when I somehow grazed something, and sent it off again
on that file, it skipped a ton of steps immediately with a loud buzzing
noise, forcing me to start all of my keying off the part over again. It's a
cool test path, and looks nice, but now that I've seen it a few hundred
times, and had it ruin things for me, it's lost some of its charm, and I'd
just like to open to a blank state.

Relatedly, I often can't finish an operation before it's time to leave for
bed, work, or the rare social occasion. I ran a part this week that took
between 6 and 8 hours. I hate leaving my controller on while out. It runs
the steppers on a duty cycle that makes a pretty loud hissing noise, and
they heat up, and I'm afraid of returning to (or waking up in!) a fire. That
said, I turn off the machine when I leave. When I start it up, sometimes it
just whines, and then starts hissing. Other times I hear one or more loud
clunks, as it appears the steppers are being relatched onto.

I imagine that when it doesn't happen, they're lined up with the original
stepper positions (A, B, C, or D). Does EMC remember which pins were active,
or in the case of microstepping, which values/duties were on which pins? I'd
love to see it save that data on exit, or maybe on machine off/e-stop? Then
when it starts back up, it could just grab on right where I left it, holding
the motors where they were. I don't see it being a problem, as if it starts
on A every time, it's as arbitrary, and non-destructive to the system as any
other pin. Having it remember pins would in many cases (most for me) find
the machine where it was left last, and I could trust power cycles between
machining sessions on a single part more. Some of my operations lately have
been nearly impossible to recenter, as I have so little travel room, and the
only places I can key from are past those limits (and I never had any place
prior - I just started in an eyeballed position, and just wanted it to start
again later relative to where it left off last time when I power back up).

Yes, I know... I'm needy.

Thanks!
-Gary
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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gary Fixler]

It sounds like you're having the opposite problem, able to send through
Thunderbird, and not the web service. At any rate, I'm much more interested
in joining the real festivities in this group, and learning EMC a lot
better, so now that I have Gmail up and working, I'm going to leave
well-enough alone.

Oh, and I checked out your setup at your site. I love the rubber band
mounting solution :) Seriously, though, I'm very jealous of all of you guys
with your huge router tables, and simply must have one some day. I'm on a
mini mill, so all of my work has to be done on stock smaller than my hand.

-g

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 8:07 AM, Rob Jansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>  Gary,
>
> I also have problems with the mail servers (from sourceforge that is).
> For some reason, most of my mails I write through Thunderbird arrive with
> a normal delay but last Sunday I wrote an email (Re on "How do I calculate
> leadscrew push/pull forces?" but that mail only arrived 2 days later.
> Somehow it hung for 2 days between my provider's mailserver and my own.
>
> Both webmail and Thunderbird use the same (my own local) mailserver to
> deliver the mail to my provider and in both cases they use the same outgoing
> mailserver at my provider. Still, mails I write via webmail are mostly late
> or do not arrive at all where mails I write via Thunderbird normally arrives
> within a minute or so on the mailing list.
> (it is now Wed. 07:06 CET so about Tue 22:06 local time according to
> sourceforge)
>
> I keep forgettting this and since I tend to be away a lot (spending too
> much time in the shop ...) these days I keep trying to use webmail.
>
> But GMail is nowadays also providing IMAP access so maybe I'll switch back
> to GMail again. I setup a "your domain on GMail" account long ago so all
> mail for myvoice.nl can go via their services.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rob
> -- May the forge be with you
>
> Gary Fixler wrote:
>
> I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host,
> but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at
> home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of
> it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it
> there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from Thunderbird,
> though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it
> would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from
> the web interface.
>
>
>
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>
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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gary Fixler]

I just tested that out:

telnet outgoing.verizon.net 25

It worked. It let me in. I have lots of different addresses through my host
for different services, or groups, several of which have been for other list
serves (PHP, a few for Maya - the 3D package, etc.), and haven't seen this
particular issue yet. That's why it felt so confusing, and out of the blue.

But anyway, I seem to be able to use Gmail, and I like it, so at least now I
no longer need help on getting help in the first place :)

Thanks!
-g

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 6:04 PM, Eric H. Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> Gary,
>
> Some band width providers will block socket 25 as a measure to cut down on
> spam. When you receive mail, that goes through another service (POP3 is
> the
> most common) which is on a different port (110 for POP). This can explain
> why you are able to receive, but not send. The way to test this is to do
> the
> following in a terminal session (command prompt on Windoze):
>
> telnet  25
>
> The SMTP server name is the one you set up for outgoing mail on your
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] email account and '25' specifies the SMTP socket.
>
> If the connection times out, then socket 25 is being blocked. If you get a
> telnet session (it should start "220 ...) then you have
> a
> different problem. Additionally, if this is the problem, then you should
> not
> be able to send to any email address, not just this list.
>
> Having said that, I also have Verizon at home and it is not blocking
> socket
> 25 for me.
>
> Regards,
> Eric
>
> I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my host,
> but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at
> home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of
> it. I had to click through to the site (from Thunderbird), and confirm it
> there. I then couldn't send, nor reply to any message ever from
> Thunderbird,
> though I tried several times to do both over the past few weeks, hoping it
> would finally take. It would, however, always let me send, and reply from
> the web interface. I'm not sure why, as it's the same account - just a
> different interface on my end, and a different outbound server (verizon at
> home / probably my host - hostrocket - at work).  Thunderbird was
> receiving
> every list message, including the ones I'd sent through the web interface.
> Every message sent through the web version always made it, and promptly.
> Clearly, the Verizon server's version of my mail was just being dropped,
> probably by the list, as I've not had that problem sending mail anywhere
> else, and have for years now, including to about 5 other list serves.
>
> Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this, with details, in case anyone in
> here has power over these things. Maybe it's just a flipped switch, or
> someone's chair is on the internet cable ;)
>
> Also, a big thanks to Gene Heskett for answering my RTAPI error question
> from last night. I forgot about my mail troubles, and downloaded the
> messages into Thunderbird this morning, and of course, can't reply to that
> one now from in there. It would seem I can use this new Gmail address from
> now on, so I'm moving to this account, and dumping the cnc@ address from
> my
> host. I use Gmail daily anyway, so it's not a big deal, but it's
> frustrating
> that I can't use any personal email through my own server.
>
> I may have more questions about RTAPI issues, but I'll start a new thread
> with this address should it come to that.
>
> Thanks again.
> -Gary
>
>
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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 47

[John Thornton]

Jon, that's great! 

BTW, what is a system log and how do I know to look there to find the correct 
interpretation of the error message?

Thanks
John

On 19 Mar 2008 at 8:56, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> > No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints
> > once. The message needs to be changed to state that it will only
> > appear once. 
> The version of the message that is written in the system log 
> DOES say that.
> 
> Jon



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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[John Thornton]

Ray,

I also think that if real time errors are bad enough to give you a warning that 
it 
should stop motion. Anything that might cause you to loose steps while your 
away 
and not looking should at least stop motion. Just my 2 cents...

John


On 19 Mar 2008 at 8:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> John,
> 
> No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints
> once. The message needs to be changed to state that it will only
> appear once. 
> 
> John
> 
> I favor user selectable here.  Do it once, do it all the time, keep a
> count of overruns, etc.
> 
> Rayh



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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[John Thornton]

Ken, I normally do #3. I have looked at the code for stepconf and it's just a 
bit 
above my skills to try and add to it as it uses some clever coding. 

If I knew how to submit a patch I would but I can't find any info on how this 
is done. 
It's another of those things that if you know it's easy but if you don't know 
it's 
impossible to figure out. 

If your going to add something to wiki on the subject I will not. 

Thanks
John

On 19 Mar 2008 at 8:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> There are a few ways to get things like, "The message needs to be
> changed..." done.
> 
> 1 -- Become a developer and make the change yourself.
> 2 -- Submit a patch for inclusion by a developer.
> 3 -- Submit either a feature request or a bug report via sourceforge.
> 
> Mentioning it on this list might cause it to be done, but there is
> little guarantee. #1, above, just gets it done. #3, above, makes sure
> it doesn't get lost, but doesn't guarantee a time. Submitting a patch
> (#2), may or may not get action.
> 
> So, I would suggest you get on sourceforge and submit a report.
> 
> [Normally, I'd just drop you a note, but this comment is intended for
> all those who have suggestions, requests, bugs, etc. The general
> philosophy is that if it isn't written down, it doesn't exist. The
> signal to noise ratio on this list is such that this doesn't count as
> being written down for the purpose of getting something fixed.]  Now I
> guess I ought to follow my own advice and make sure the Wiki says
> something like this. :-)
> 
> Ken



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Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

[Jorge Barrera]

Comments and feed back it what I am seeking the most, a really appreciate the 
participation

>This list is not the place to stir up that interest.  We tend to be much to 
>independent but then that is a very different lecture that I refer to as 
>Explorers vs Settlers.

I see this list as the most forward thinking groups out there, with both 
Explorers and Settles. However I would love to hear a short version of your 
lecture.
I also would like to point out a few things. I don't pretend to be independent 
but our discourse is more about vision rather than a pitch. We envisions a day 
when a machinist apprentice instead of making practice parts he or she makes 
parts that can be assembled into a machine for them selves. I personally see a 
huge potential to democratize access to manufacturing tools around the world. 
Growing up in a third world country i now about the needs and the high cost 
(200-300%) of what it cost in the US. If it wasn't for the US, Japan and 
Western Europe's investment in China they wouldn't be able to produce anything 
cheaply even with low cost labor. 

>It is easy to imagine a place in an open machine project for a "broker" like 
>MFG.  But a business like that assumes a demand for a specific number of 
>widgets on the customer side. 

A project like this has little impact on the bottom line of MFG we are really 
exploring here...that is why we created MFG Labs to play in a sand box. I've 
been at Bell Labs and HP and I never liked the secrecy thing. I am 
experimenting here having an open discussion with a user community. 

>The cost of production might go up a bit over a Haas or similar machine 
>because of quantity discounts and after market sales and service. 

indeed, however a 50% cost reduction DIY is what we are looking at. I 
personally would like something a bit more precision than a Hass, plus this 
wouldn't be for everyone, some user will stick with what they have and know.

>> I've never build a
>> CNC machine before, however I like the challenge of reducing the price
>> of proprietary hardware.

>I wonder if the advantage of an open or collaborative project is not in
>reducing cost of production, but the cost of distribution or similar
>costs by cutting out the "middle man" (and maybe the tax man). This has
>a history too.

What about empowerment? having control over what the hardware can do? One of 
the reasons I don't like new cars

>> We tend to be much to independent ...

>The frustrating part is that one person can only do so much. So we are
>relegated to pastime or hobby activities (not that that is bad).

That is way I want to go big, and ask the question what do people need?



- Original Message 
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) 
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 11:44:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.


This list is probably as good a place to carry forward a bit of thinking about 
open hardware and virtual CNC machine companies as any because this is THE 
place to find the control software for a wide range of these kinds of devices.  

I'll snip both Kirk and Jorge quite a bit and I suggest you do the same if you 
reply to this.


--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I am trying to see if through innovative sourcing and design the price
> of VMC of HMC could be brought down. Way down.

The current innovative sourcing, and increasingly the design, is called
China, or the next poor country lucky enough to get a chance to gain
what many take for granted. Trying to get people to do more work for
less money has a long history. 

Um yes in a way but the low-cost labor advantage works best for mass produced 
products which CNC has never been.  Consider even the largest room full of CNCs 
and it's a small handful compared to toasters or automobiles.  And yes many 
Chinese machine tool companies, all of the ones I've visited, have engineering 
staffs that are hungry to design and develop these kinds of projects.  They 
also have managers and bean counters that compel cost effective work and 
distribution agreements within the constraints of international trade.  IMO the 
issue of low cost labor out there doesn't prevent the development of a low-cost 
CNC machine elsewhere -- ie this list.  Certainly it will lower the bar that we 
have to slide under and in the long run our cost effective designs will become 
their next round of released products.

> The over all objective is to try and create open source hardware
> designs. I am not doing this on my own I am being sponsored by my
> company MFG.com to try and get this off the ground. 

It is easy to imagine a place in an open machine project for a "broker" like 
MFG.  But a business like that assumes a demand for a specific number of 
widgets on the customer side.  Any open design is going to take a while to 
place the first few.  I think this was one of the issues with Kirks first 
suggested project.  It doesn't just happen out of a cou

Re: [Emc-users] incremental jogging

[Chris Radek]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 11:41:29AM -0500, Stuart Stevenson wrote:

> When jogging the machine an incremental amount and the feedrate
> over ride is set to 10% the jog amount is 50% of the set amount ie.
> .010 yields .005 of movement.

Cannot reproduce.  I always get the full incremental jog at the
requested speed (jog speed * feed override).  I tried jogging with the
keyboard and mouse both.  I tried various feed overrides and jog
increments.


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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>>Yes.  There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these
>>>errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug
>>>level to be set to export that pin.  Do you know what that debug
>>>level is?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Jon
>>
>>And that would explain why I see zero there, always.
>
>No, it does *not* explain it!
>
>There are some HAL modules that may change the pins they export based on
>some debug setting (not a DEBUGLEVEL in the ini file, a debug parameter
>passed at load time).  In every case that I'm aware of, the same
>variable that controls the export of the pin/param also controls the
>updates of the pin/param.  This means that if you see the param in HAL,
>it is being updated.
>
>- Steve

So I do not in fact, have a real, ongoing problem.  But I'll duplicate that 
from its own keyboard before I lay my hand on the bible.  Yet today.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Stephen Wille Padnos]

Gene Heskett wrote:

> [snip]
>
>>Yes.  There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these
>>errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug
>>level to be set to export that pin.  Do you know what that debug
>>level is?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Jon
>>
>>
>
>And that would explain why I see zero there, always.
>  
>
No, it does *not* explain it!

There are some HAL modules that may change the pins they export based on 
some debug setting (not a DEBUGLEVEL in the ini file, a debug parameter 
passed at load time).  In every case that I'm aware of, the same 
variable that controls the export of the pin/param also controls the 
updates of the pin/param.  This means that if you see the param in HAL, 
it is being updated.

- Steve


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Re: [Emc-users] rt error

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>From: "John Thornton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
>Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44
>Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:12:48 -0600
>
>John,
>
>No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
>The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once.
>
>John
>
>I favor user selectable here.  Do it once, do it all the time, keep a count
> of overruns, etc.
>
>Rayh
>
I'd favor the latter. All the time might impinge on the loop speed.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #3

Birds of a feather flock to a newly washed car.

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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Jon Elson wrote:
>John Thornton wrote:
>> John,
>>
>> No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
>> The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once.
>
>The version of the message that is written in the system log
>DOES say that.
>
>Jon
>
Humm, for all the messages I have seen on screen, there is only one such 
message in the logs:

Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821765] kobject_register failed for 
parport_pc (-17)
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821798]  [kobject_register+69/80] 
kobject_register+0x45/0x50
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821838]  [bus_add_driver+78/160] 
bus_add_driver+0x4e/0xa0
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821854]  [pnp_register_driver+47/96] 
pnp_register_driver+0x2f/0x60
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821869]  [pg0+546189486/1069859840] 
init_module+0x1e/0x80 
[probe_parport]
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821878]  [sys_init_module+158/384] 
sys_init_module+0x9e/0x180
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.821889]  [sysenter_past_esp+99/103] 
sysenter_past_esp+0x63/0x67
Mar 18 17:41:05 localhost kernel: [ 3248.831012] config string '0x378'

Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.686350] RTAPI: ERROR: Unexpected 
realtime delay on task 1
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691958] 1631: ERROR: Unexpected 
realtime delay: check dmesg for 
details.
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691970]
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691971] In recent history there were
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691973] 1600992, 1395691, 1401153, 
1400095, and 1405671
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691975] elapsed clocks between calls 
to the motion controller.
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691979] This time, there were 1682846 
which is so anomalously
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691981] large that it probably 
signifies a problem with your
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691991] realtime configuration.  For 
the rest of this run of
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691993] EMC, this message will be 
suppressed.
Mar 18 17:41:07 localhost kernel: [ 3250.691994]

I do not know what I had the base_thread set at when that single instance
occured.  I believe that was the one time when I actually had 2 popups to
clear before I could enable emc at startup time.  Normally there is only one.

FWIW, I always see the fail line I started this log clip with, nominally
1.8 seconds before the RTAPI message.  Possible clue?  Damnifiknow...

I also wonder why the log was rotated this morning, its not Sunday.
Does kubuntu do that differently? ntpd is running and the time is correct.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
heavy, adj.:
Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.

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Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

[Kirk Wallace]

On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 08:44 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
... snip
> ... It doesn't just happen out of a couple of posts.
> ...But it does require a real prototype that does some real work.

My vision of a real collaborative project has the collaboration start at
the very beginning with the concept development. The old model has one
person risking buckets of money to pay other people to go along. What
drives the project is money and not so much its merits.

> This list is not the place to stir up that interest.

EMC may be a major part of the whole and could be impacted by the
results.

> We tend to be much to independent ...

The frustrating part is that one person can only do so much. So we are
relegated to pastime or hobby activities (not that that is bad).

-- 
Kirk Wallace (California, USA
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/ 
Hardinge HNC lathe,
Bridgeport mill conversion, doing XY now,
Zubal lathe conversion pending)


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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Kenneth Lerman wrote:
>There are a few ways to get things like, "The message needs to be
>changed..." done.
>
>1 -- Become a developer and make the change yourself.
>2 -- Submit a patch for inclusion by a developer.
>3 -- Submit either a feature request or a bug report via sourceforge.
>
>Mentioning it on this list might cause it to be done, but there is little
>guarantee. #1, above, just gets it done. #3, above, makes sure it doesn't
>get lost, but doesn't guarantee a time. Submitting a patch (#2), may or may
>not get action.
>
>So, I would suggest you get on sourceforge and submit a report.
>
>[Normally, I'd just drop you a note, but this comment is intended for all
>those who have suggestions, requests, bugs, etc. The general philosophy is
>that if it isn't written down, it doesn't exist. The signal to noise ratio
>on this list is such that this doesn't count as being written down for the
>purpose of getting something fixed.]  Now I guess I ought to follow my own
>advice and make sure the Wiki says something like this. :-)
>
>Ken

And all I can do is add a silly grin :-)>

Seriously though, when I have come across an "odd" action, you all have been 
pretty diligent about getting it fixed and I have to give you all credit for 
caring about my often PEBKAC problems, thanks.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Old musicians never die, they just decompose.

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Jon Elson wrote:
>John Kasunich wrote:
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some
>>> this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I
>>> started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the
>>> stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER
>>> the startup, even when running at 200% speeds here.
>>
>> You never will.
>>
>> The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time
>> EMC notices a delay.  We don't print it every time because if you have
>> your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime
>> issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every
>> second.
>>
>> Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that
>> you really don't know how often you are getting a delay.  But DON'T
>> think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once.
>
>Yes.  There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these
>errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug
>level to be set to export that pin.  Do you know what that debug
>level is?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jon

And that would explain why I see zero there, always.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Old musicians never die, they just decompose.

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>Jon Elson wrote:
>>Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>>  (I actually
>>
>>>traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)...
>>
>>Yow, how do you fix that?
>
>I used ext2 on those systems, which doesn't do journaling.  They're
>headless and flash-disk based, so I just changed them to mount / read-only.
>
As an aside, Steve, I'm also on the lkml, and discussions there have indicated 
that ext2 on a flash is known to be murder on the flash.  Read-only would be 
an excellent idea, but I don't know if that actually stops ext2's 
housekeeping.  I'd assume it does, but the life of the flash would tell the 
tale I expect.

How did you do that, in fstab?

>- Steve
>
>
>-
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Take a lesson from the whale; the only time he gets speared is when he
raises to spout.

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Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Jorge Barrera wrote:
>Kirk,
>
>Thank you for the detail thoughts. I agree that there needs to be a special
> chemistry for open source hardware projects to take off and that people
> contribute. Its curerntly my job to figure this out or at least give it a
> hard long try. As soon as I have the project up I will share my thoughts on
> a portal for the project development. My initial strategy is to create a
> place where, you can a. explore a project and its content.
>b. view/edit/download all relevant engineering data (parts drawings,
> schematics) c. view/edit/download assembly instructions (think instructable
> and EMC) d. view/edit/download sourcing information
>My hope is to seed the site with the current project, I have a bunch of
> picturer in this facebook group
> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11911880588 

is a password protected site.

[...]

>Jorge Barrera
>Director of MFG Labs
>MFG.com

Is this the same business that sold me a grid dip meter a year ago?
It went to tv station WDTV at the time.  It works great, but the delivery was 
a bit slow.

[...]

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
You don't have to explain something you never said.
-- Calvin Coolidge

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[Emc-users] incremental jogging

[Stuart Stevenson]

Gentlemen,
Just discovered this 'feature' or 'bug' or 'problem here'.
When jogging the machine an incremental amount and the feedrate
over ride is set to 10% the jog amount is 50% of the set amount ie.
.010 yields .005 of movement.
Not knowing whether this is a feature or a bug or a problem here I
thought I would mention it on the list prior to filling a bug report.
:-)
The operator thinks this is not a bad thing. I just want to know
if this behavior is on purpose.
thanks
Stuart

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Stephen Wille Padnos]

Jon Elson wrote:

>Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>  (I actually
>  
>
>>traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... 
>>
>>
>
>Yow, how do you fix that?
>  
>
I used ext2 on those systems, which doesn't do journaling.  They're 
headless and flash-disk based, so I just changed them to mount / read-only.

- Steve


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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Stephen Wille Padnos]

Jeff Epler wrote:

>On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:55:07AM -0400, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>  
>
>>It's hard to tell what the "ideal" base period is.  Stepconf is probably 
>>choosing something that will work for whatever scaling and max 
>>velocities you've chosen.  I don't know if it takes PWM 
>>period/resolution into account when choosing the BASE_PERIOD though.  
>>
>>
>
>Presently, stepconf only considers step rate when choosing BASE_PERIOD.
>Ideally, PWM output and spindle encoder input would also figure into the
>calculation.  I'm happy to take a look at patches intended to improve
>this.  Look for 'def ideal_period' in stepconf.py for the place to add
>these calculations.
>  
>
Thanks for the pointer.  This may be something easy enough for even me 
to do (in Python :) )

- Steve


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Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

[rehenry]

This list is probably as good a place to carry forward a bit of thinking about 
open hardware and virtual CNC machine companies as any because this is THE 
place to find the control software for a wide range of these kinds of devices.  

I'll snip both Kirk and Jorge quite a bit and I suggest you do the same if you 
reply to this.


--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I am trying to see if through innovative sourcing and design the price
> of VMC of HMC could be brought down. Way down.

The current innovative sourcing, and increasingly the design, is called
China, or the next poor country lucky enough to get a chance to gain
what many take for granted. Trying to get people to do more work for
less money has a long history. 

Um yes in a way but the low-cost labor advantage works best for mass produced 
products which CNC has never been.  Consider even the largest room full of CNCs 
and it's a small handful compared to toasters or automobiles.  And yes many 
Chinese machine tool companies, all of the ones I've visited, have engineering 
staffs that are hungry to design and develop these kinds of projects.  They 
also have managers and bean counters that compel cost effective work and 
distribution agreements within the constraints of international trade.  IMO the 
issue of low cost labor out there doesn't prevent the development of a low-cost 
CNC machine elsewhere -- ie this list.  Certainly it will lower the bar that we 
have to slide under and in the long run our cost effective designs will become 
their next round of released products.

> The over all objective is to try and create open source hardware
> designs. I am not doing this on my own I am being sponsored by my
> company MFG.com to try and get this off the ground. 

It is easy to imagine a place in an open machine project for a "broker" like 
MFG.  But a business like that assumes a demand for a specific number of 
widgets on the customer side.  Any open design is going to take a while to 
place the first few.  I think this was one of the issues with Kirks first 
suggested project.  It doesn't just happen out of a couple of posts.

Several years ago, a fellow named Hassan designed and built a nice, low-cost 
benchtop mill as part of his graduate degree and brought it to NAMES and Fest 
(EMC-Monday).  I believe that he is still receiving this list.  That mill 
created a LOT of interest at the show and quite a few folk were ready to sign 
up to purchase a kit that included all of the aluminum and leadscrew parts.  
Just guessing but I'd say he could have sold 25 kits on the spot.  The point is 
that it is possible to stir interest that would lead to a first round of 
ordering.  But it does require a real prototype that does some real work.

This list is not the place to stir up that interest.  We tend to be much to 
independent but then that is a very different lecture that I refer to as 
Explorers vs Settlers.

> I've never build a
> CNC machine before, however I like the challenge of reducing the price
> of proprietary hardware.

I wonder if the advantage of an open or collaborative project is not in
reducing cost of production, but the cost of distribution or similar
costs by cutting out the "middle man" (and maybe the tax man). This has
a history too.

The cost of production might go up a bit over a Haas or similar machine because 
of quantity discounts and aftermarket sales and service.  It's a bit like the 
cost of a PC being lower if it includes that other OS because of all the 
advertising and steering of next expenditure provided by that company's install.

But you are right that there are savings to be had at nearly all levels.  Put 
on top of that the customer supplying the assembly, tuning, and testing and we 
have some real advantage.

Rayh



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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Stephen Wille Padnos]

Jon Elson wrote:

>[snip]
>  
>
>Yes.  There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these 
>errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug 
>level to be set to export that pin.  Do you know what that debug 
>level is?
>  
>
I don't think there's any specific debug level for the pin to show up.  
I mentioned those pins (motion.servo.last-period also)  to Gene and they 
were available on his version ...

- Steve


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Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

[Jorge Barrera]

Kirk, 

Thank you for the detail thoughts. I agree that there needs to be a special 
chemistry for open source hardware projects to take off and that people 
contribute. Its curerntly my job to figure this out or at least give it a hard 
long try. As soon as I have the project up I will share my thoughts on a portal 
for the project development. My initial strategy is to create a place where, 
you can 
a. explore a project and its content.
b. view/edit/download all relevant engineering data (parts drawings, schematics)
c. view/edit/download assembly instructions (think instructable and EMC)
d. view/edit/download sourcing information
My hope is to seed the site with the current project, I have a bunch of 
picturer in this facebook group 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11911880588
I will be looking into a conversion, project some of the points brought up make 
perfect sense to me

As for bringing down the cost, China will play a roll, as will cutting away at 
the middle man. Doesn't EMC with some IO boards cut aways at some appropriately 
controllers. I've spoken with two CNC manufactures and distributors and they 
both pointed out how are going to get the motors and controllers "those guys 
make all the money in this business" 

On the business side - well there is no business plan besides reaching out to 
the machine shops of the world with our brand. There will be opportunities for 
others to consult, be integrators or sell kits. What I do see is the 
opportunity to put some funding and administrative support behind open source 
hardware - perhaps we should do routers too. I've been a big fan of Niel 
Gershenfeld and his work with fab labs at MIT and around the world. He has a 
phrase that sums up what we are trying to accomplish. "the world has had a 
software revolution - free software tools are here, but that hardware to make 
use of the software has not had a revolution, the means of producing it are 
still in the hands of a few" 

Is this making any sense?

Jorge Barrera
Director of MFG Labs
MFG.com


- Original Message 
From: Kirk Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) 
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:12:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] home-mad CNC machine project.

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 18:52 -0700, Jorge Barrera wrote:
> Jim, 
> 
> At some point I would like to do a retrofit, I know it would be the
> most ecomical way to go if frames are available.
> However the purpose of my project is a bit more complicated. 

I learned allot on my first conversion. Don't underestimate the value of
traveling the beaten path to get the lay of the land. Plus, you will
have a machine to make parts for the real project.

> I am trying to see if through innovative sourcing and design the price
> of VMC of HMC could be brought down. Way down.

The current innovative sourcing, and increasingly the design, is called
China, or the next poor country lucky enough to get a chance to gain
what many take for granted. Trying to get people to do more work for
less money has a long history. 

> The over all objective is to try and create open source hardware
> designs. I am not doing this on my own I am being sponsored by my
> company MFG.com to try and get this off the ground. I've never build a
> CNC machine before, however I like the challenge of reducing the price
> of proprietary hardware.

I wonder if the advantage of an open or collaborative project is not in
reducing cost of production, but the cost of distribution or similar
costs by cutting out the "middle man" (and maybe the tax man). This has
a history too.

> Now you may be thinking Open Source Hardware? What am I smoking, Well
> projects like EMC have created expectation that perhaps this would be
> possible. If software can be open source why not hardware? Well I've
> been giving this lots of thought. And although there are projects out
> there like OSCAR (open source car) and a number of machine designs
> (mostly pictures), I am out to create a full set of detail drawings
> and a detail BOM, together with a site for collaborative engineering
> that works. I am also looking to get off the bench top into something
> in 2-4 ton range. I like some of the project on Instrutable but I want
> to go bigger. 

I agree that an open source project is worth trying, but I tried twice
to start a small collaborative project and got no response.

The latest was a project to make a batch of router type machines with
each person contributing their specialty, be it design, drafting, cheer
leading, sales of extra machines, manual writing, machining, welding,
etc or just plain spending cash. I have no idea why it didn't go
anywhere. So I am thinking that many of the problems you will face will
not be technical at all.

> Collaborative work is a piece of the puzzle and the tools for
> collaborative software development have been here for a long time
> (with low cost to entree). For hardware we have not been so lucky but
> with the right tools

Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Jon Elson]

Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
  (I actually
> traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)... 

Yow, how do you fix that?

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[Jon Elson]

John Thornton wrote:
> John,
> 
> No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
> The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once. 
The version of the message that is written in the system log 
DOES say that.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Jon Elson]

John Kasunich wrote:
> Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
> 
>>In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented some 
>>this 
>>afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns when I started, 
>>reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running most of the stuff in the 
>>nc_files dir to test, and never did see another error AFTER the startup, even 
>>when running at 200% speeds here.
> 
> 
> You never will.
> 
> The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time 
> EMC notices a delay.  We don't print it every time because if you have 
> your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime 
> issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every second.
> 
> Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that 
> you really don't know how often you are getting a delay.  But DON'T 
> think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once.
Yes.  There is a HAL pin that reports the total number of these 
errors, motion.servo.overruns, but it seems to need a debug 
level to be set to export that pin.  Do you know what that debug 
level is?

Thanks,

Jon

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[Emc-users] axis display

[Stuart Stevenson]

Gentlemen,
While watching the cone in the display window of the axis gui I
noticed the cone follows the A axis but not the B. The cone shows the
angle of the A axis position but it doesn't show the angle of the B
axis position.
Is this an easy fix? I have tried to find the place to modify but
so far I cannot find it.
Would someone point me the way? (careful - I can be dangerous when
I plink around in code) I have become adept at reloading EMC2.
Having fun now. :-)
thanks
Stuart

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Re: [Emc-users] rt error

[rehenry]

--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

From: "John Thornton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:12:48 -0600

John,

No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once. 

John

I favor user selectable here.  Do it once, do it all the time, keep a count of 
overruns, etc.

Rayh


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Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[Kenneth Lerman]

There are a few ways to get things like, "The message needs to be 
changed..." done.

1 -- Become a developer and make the change yourself.
2 -- Submit a patch for inclusion by a developer.
3 -- Submit either a feature request or a bug report via sourceforge.

Mentioning it on this list might cause it to be done, but there is little 
guarantee. #1, above, just gets it done. #3, above, makes sure it doesn't 
get lost, but doesn't guarantee a time. Submitting a patch (#2), may or may 
not get action.

So, I would suggest you get on sourceforge and submit a report.

[Normally, I'd just drop you a note, but this comment is intended for all 
those who have suggestions, requests, bugs, etc. The general philosophy is 
that if it isn't written down, it doesn't exist. The signal to noise ratio 
on this list is such that this doesn't count as being written down for the 
purpose of getting something fixed.]  Now I guess I ought to follow my own 
advice and make sure the Wiki says something like this. :-)

Ken



- Original Message - 
From: "John Thornton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44


> John,
>
> No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
> The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once.
>
> John
>
>
> On 18 Mar 2008 at 19:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>
>> > In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented
>> > some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns
>> > when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running
>> > most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see
>> > another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds
>> > here.
>>
>> You never will.
>>
>> The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time
>> EMC notices a delay.  We don't print it every time because if you have
>> your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime
>> issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every
>> second.
>>
>> Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that
>> you really don't know how often you are getting a delay.  But DON'T
>> think just because you get it only once that it is happening only
>> once.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> John Kasunich
>
>
>
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> 

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Jeff Epler]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 01:55:07AM -0400, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
> It's hard to tell what the "ideal" base period is.  Stepconf is probably 
> choosing something that will work for whatever scaling and max 
> velocities you've chosen.  I don't know if it takes PWM 
> period/resolution into account when choosing the BASE_PERIOD though.  

Presently, stepconf only considers step rate when choosing BASE_PERIOD.
Ideally, PWM output and spindle encoder input would also figure into the
calculation.  I'm happy to take a look at patches intended to improve
this.  Look for 'def ideal_period' in stepconf.py for the place to add
these calculations.

Jeff

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Re: [Emc-users] EMC list troubles, and thanks, Gene Heskett!

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 19 March 2008, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>>[snip]
>>
>>>Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that
>>>you really don't know how often you are getting a delay.  But DON'T
>>>think just because you get it only once that it is happening only once.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>John Kasunich
>>
>>Hummm, much food for thought, does it hit the logs or is that skipped too?
>
>There are two different places where overruns may be displayed.
>
>One of them is available in HAL as the parameter
>"motion.servo.overruns".  You can stick a halmeter on that and see if it
>increases over time.  Note: that parameter may go up by 5 every time
>there's one overrun - it looks at 5 samples and it's possible that the
>error will be reported as long as the "bad" sample is in the buffer.

It, from here, just went through the axis logo, several times and is still at 
0 for motion.servo.overruns.  This is with a base_thread setting at 38 
u-secs.  The machine will run at 25 but pretty laggy.  I was running it at 30 
before the new single step stepgen came out

>There are a couple of other parameters as well,
>"motion.servo.last-period" (the last servo thread period in CPU clocks)
>and "motion.servo.last-period-ns" (the last servo thread period in ns -
>in some cases, this version won't be available).
>
It is, and from here, motion.servo.last.period is a 7 digit number left of the 
decimal, dancing but usually in the 137. range, 
motion.servo.last.period.ns also dances some, in the 97. range

NDI if these are good or bad.  Sounds large though..

>>Doing the test over an ssh -Y link, I see some decent numbers with a worst
>>case n about 5 minutes of web browsing of 14500ns, 14.5 u-secs.  I don't
>>believe its that good running on its own screen, giving numbers in the
>>17800ns area IIRC.  Still, even 20 u-secs is tolerable. The last time I ran
>>stepconf, it chose a 78 u-second base period, which did seem rather slow.
>
>That does sound a bit slow for PWM, but may be fine for step
>generation.  A period of 78 us gives you ~12800 steps/second.  If you
>have 8000 steps/inch, this gives you 96 IPM.

32000 x&y, and 34xxx on z.  and I just found the ini file is wrong, I must 
have entered the stepdown pulley teeth in the wrong order.  Fixed that from 
a -85xx.x to -34285.7142857. :(   20 tpi screws direct drive on x&y, 10 
tpi, but a 14/30 stepdown on z. A is direct to the worm, 10 degrees per 1600 
step motor rev so one turn of the table is 36 turns=57600 microsteps= 1 full 
turn.  Scale=160 in the .ini file so I assume thats a per degree setting.

>>However since the advent of one cycle steps in the stepgen these days, the
>>text is in bad need of updateing on the wiki page that discusses the
>>latency-test and how to use it.  That is at:
>>
>>>#Run_a_Latency_Test>
>>
>>Since it is assuming 2 cycles per step, the description gets confusing
>> fairly quickly as I'm not sure what I should throw out to make it sensible
>> in a one cycle step scenario.
>
>I wouldn't throw much out, but adding something on calculations for
>double-step might be a good thing.  Remember also that type 1 stepgens
>may not be the only thing running in the base thread.  Any of the phase
>drive outputs or quadrature can't use (and don't need) doublestep, and
>then there's PWM to throw in the mix.

Give the list a notice when that has been done please.

Which could be important for some, here it is only spindle control with 
updates at servo_thread rate, which is much faster than the 100 hz pwm rate.  
With the filter option set at 1 second on the PMDX-106, the response is slow 
& makes the servo sound soft, but I don't think it will be when cutting.  I 
didn't build my ammeter into the new circuit yet, ran out of panel room for 
it.

>>Its still running, and showing a base_thread of about 38500ns, and a jitter
>> of just under 14000ns, so what would be the ideal base_period, ignoring
>> the startup message that axis's drawing of its gui apparently creates?
>
>I wouldn't blame it on AXIS until someone shows that it doesn't happen
>with any other GUIs.  :)

Since axis came out, I haven't used anything else but, I'm NOT pointing the 
finger at axis, just gui's in general.

>Actually,  it's not AXIS in any case since 
>that's a userspace application - it could be your video drivers if it
>has something to do with the 3D preview, your disk drivers if it's from
>loading the startup g-code file, your file system itself (I actually
>traced a large, periodic RT bump to kjournald on one setup)...

Interesting, how the heck would one go about instrumenting to detect that?

>It's 
>also possible that the problem is within RTAI - like some kind of
>condition where some timer setup is done, but before the interrupt is
>enabled (or directed where we want), more time elapses than expected.
>That would cause one problem at startup, but isn

Re: [Emc-users] Emc-users Digest, Vol 23, Issue 44

[John Thornton]

John,

No one could possibly guess or assume that the message only prints once.
The message needs to be changed to state that it will only appear once. 

John


On 18 Mar 2008 at 19:27, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
> > In re the rtapi and unexpected realtime delay issues, I experimented
> > some this afternoon with my base thread which was set at 78000ns
> > when I started, reducing it to 38000ns for the last test, running
> > most of the stuff in the nc_files dir to test, and never did see
> > another error AFTER the startup, even when running at 200% speeds
> > here.
> 
> You never will.
> 
> The realtime delay error message is printed only once, the first time
> EMC notices a delay.  We don't print it every time because if you have
> your period set too low, or you have a computer with bad realtime
> issues, you could get hundreds or thousands of those messages every
> second.
> 
> Only printing the message once solves that problem, but it means that
> you really don't know how often you are getting a delay.  But DON'T
> think just because you get it only once that it is happening only
> once.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John Kasunich



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Re: [Emc-users] IMAGE-TO-GCODE PCB

[Cary Rohan]

GCAM and the eagle convertor work. I had alot of trouble getting GCAM to work 
with kicad .pho files, while jeff's file took to the water swimming right away. 
I had to finally run GCAM in xp instead of ubuntu 7.10 because of the freezes. 
Thanks to all, I milled my first circuit pcb.

   
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[Emc-users] EMC list troubles,

[Ian W. Wright]

Hi Gary,

>>>I set up an account for this list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - through my 
>>>host,
but couldn't reply to the confirmation email from Thunderbird on Linux at
home. It would send, and go into my outbox, but nothing would ever come of
it. >>

Check out your ISP's email policy and what you have the outgoing server set as 
in Thunderbird. I had a similar problem when I was using a free email account 
and had to change to another email provider. The latest version of Thunderbird 
will only let you send to POP3 servers other than one main SMTP server ( I 
think that's how it works). As my main email is an SMTP server, when I updated 
Thunderbird I lost the ability to set up a second SMTP one and the free email 
provider I was using, Fastmail, doesn't allow POP3 connections to its free 
accounts. So, I can now only send from my Fastmail account via their web server 
which sounds like your problem...

-- 
Best wishes,

Ian

Ian W. Wright
Sheffield  UK

"The difference between theory and practice is much smaller in theory than in 
practice..."


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