Re: [Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 22:37:59 Jon Elson wrote:

> On 02/23/2017 08:31 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.
> >
> > They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.
> >
> > And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going
> > to cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received
> > occurs just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some
> > milliseconds later after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you
> > stop moving it, it goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.
>
> OH, MY!!!  Thanks for finding this stupidity!  Explains why
> there are in the sale bin at M. P. Jones!
>
> I wonder if there's a jumper pad inside that can defeat this
> behavior?
>
> Jon

No clue Jon. Do you feel brave? I'm generally up to it with the missus & 
running out of back before I get to this lathe.

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Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Chris Albertson]

I don't think it works this way.  It does not power down.   But it does
work exactly as per the specification.  There are 100 detented divisions
per revolution.  The A and B phase of course only change when there is
movement.

In theory you can get 400 steps per rev but the wheel has detents so there
is no good way to move it to a place between the marks.

This is OK because we get to define what "one revolution" means.  It one
rev is 0.01 inches them each mark is 0.0001 Will can define it to be inches
or metric.  The division are as fine or course as you like.   If you are
building a user interface with this wheel I think what's needed is a
selector that defines what one revolution means.   It will also need a
"zero" button and and axis selector

My plan is to place a small micro controller inside the pendent with the
wheel and an LCD screen and some other controls.  The uP will do the
translation.



On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 6:31 PM, Gene Heskett  wrote:

> But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.
>
> They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.
>
> And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going to
> cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received occurs
> just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some milliseconds later
> after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you stop moving it, it
> goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.
>
> This is looking at the A/B terminals, I have not yet checked the -A/-B
> terminals for their behavior.  It may be that this problem may disappear
> if differential receivers with lots of histerisys(sp?, when do we get a
> spell checker that knows these technical words?) would just ignore this.
>
> But be aware its there guys if you feed it straight into the encoder
> module as is. You have effectively only those positions at rest
> corresponding to A,B=0.  None of the other three combo's are available
> to you in the detent at rest condition. So you will move in a modulo4 at
> the start, and end of a move, always ending up in the 0/0 position when
> the wheel is at rest.
>
> I just checked the - terminals, it is not powering down, at rest they are
> both at the 5 volt rail. I was hopeing that we might have a true fine
> tune by using a straight edge went by=one motor microstep, but thats not
> going to happen, best we can do is one micro-step per detent felt.
>
> Now we know why such a precision looking and seemingly well built wheel
> was only a 20 dollar bill. ;-)  You can only use 1/4 of its real
> resolution.
>
> Now I need to find some cat5 intended for jumpers, eg stranded wire for
> use in the cable chain to the saddle. But the last jumper I bought was
> made from flat cable.  It works ok, but..., 8 wires isn't enough for
> everything either, I still need independent home switches, so thats 10.
> Sigh.  When does it end and you can switch to use it mode?
>
> I did measure how far I can move the crossfeed in w/o exposing the ball
> screw, 3.35". Thats enough to  put the tool tip on centerline, and work
> on something 6.7" in diameter w/o throwing swarf into the slot.  Said
> another way, stuff will need to be zeroed and an air cut made to check
> if its still covered at the smallest diameter of the job.  If not, move
> the toolpost mount, rezero, and cut some more air.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> Genes Web page 
>
> 
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> engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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>



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Re: [Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Kurt Jacobson]

Gene, my MPG works great. Does not have any lag at all. The 400ppr did
throw me off at first when the machine jogged four times the jog scale. I
put a fix for that in the MPG comp I wrote, it just divides the jog scale
by whatever the mpg-pulses parameter is set to, 4 in this case.

I like the 400ppm as I don't need to use a lowpass like with the 100ppm
MPGs to get smooth motion.

Kurt

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 10:44 PM, Jon Elson  wrote:

> On 02/23/2017 08:31 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.
> >
> > They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.
> >
> > And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going to
> > cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received occurs
> > just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some milliseconds later
> > after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you stop moving it, it
> > goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.
> >
> >
> Sorry, Gene, you are wrong.  They don't power down, but the
> detent draws the dial to the state where A=B=0.
> If you hold the dial between detents, the A or B outputs
> hold at whatever level they should.  When you let go, it
> drops into the detent again, and outputs are zero.  This is
> all as it should be.
>
> YES, it gives 400 quadrature counts per rev, so you need to
> scale the encoder by a factor of 4 to get rational units per
> detent step.
>
> Jon
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-users] MPG HAL component

[Kurt Jacobson]

Jon, I actually got the idea for using diodes to multiplex my single pole
switches form that page you linked. I simplified it a bit by soldering the
diodes directly to the switch. See attached schematic.

Thanks for explaining your hal file, makes sense now. I do like having it
all in one component though as I have multiple machines I will be using it
on and trouble shooting should be easier with only one component name to
spell wrong. Its hard to mess up MPG, but I did spell it as MPJ once and
could not figure out what the errors were about!


On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 10:34 PM, Jon Elson  wrote:

> On 02/23/2017 01:32 PM, Kurt Jacobson wrote:
> >
> > I tried to edit Jon's HAL file found here
> >  to fit my needs but
> I
> > never did get it to work. I guess I don't understand how he used select8
> > and wsums.
> So that I could use a single-deck switch, I used a diode
> matrix to encode the axis selector into binary code.  Zero
> is not implemented, so that an enable switch has to be
> pushed to select an axis (or whatever) to jog.
> A schematic is linked to on the bottom of this page :
> http://pico-systems.com/pendant.html
>
> This ends up creating 3 bits for up to 7 active selections
> (0 being reserved for nothing selected).
> So, the 3 bits are then sent into 3 inputs of a weighted
> sum, which then produces an integer from zero to 5 in the
> case I had set up. This is then sent to a select 8 as the
> sel input.  The outputs of the select8 are then sent to
> enable jogging and feedrate overrides.
>
> Actually, putting all these things into one HAL component is
> more efficient.  My code used about a dozen, I think.
>
> Jon
>
> 
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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Erik Christiansen]

On 23.02.17 13:14, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> Thanks for pointing the wiregauge() function--it's quite useful; I
> note that it works in Google too:
> 
> https://www.google.com/#q=wiregauge(24)+in+mm&*

That didn't work with brwiregauge (British wiregauge), so it's probably
a parallel implementation, I figure.

The "units" help for wiregauge needs to be cranked back a page (with ^B)
to grab the start of section, so we can read that wiregauge is AWG, and
that is the same as B (which I didn't know):

$ units
You have: help wiregauge   # Puts wiregauge at top of page.
   # Hit ^B to go back a page.

Incidentally, if we forget the full name of that darned "wire" unit,
hitting TAB once completes it, as the given characters are already
unique. If there's a BELL instead, hit TAB again for a list of name
completion options.

I'm tempted to edit the file to change brwiregauge to wiregaugeSWG, and
wiregauge to wiregaugeAWG, so that TABing "wire" will offer American or
British, and we can do this:

You have: 0.3 mm
You want: wire
wiregaugeAWG  wiregaugeSWG  
You want: wiregaugeAWG 
28.586071
You have: 0.3 mm
You want: wiregaugeSWG 
30.73622

Yup, that makes the other gauge easier to find, I think.
(I backed up the original before fiddling, as that change couldn't be
done in a supplementary `.units.dat' file in your home directory.)

Erik



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Re: [Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Jon Elson]

On 02/23/2017 08:31 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.
>
> They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.
>
> And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going to
> cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received occurs
> just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some milliseconds later
> after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you stop moving it, it
> goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.
>
>
Sorry, Gene, you are wrong.  They don't power down, but the 
detent draws the dial to the state where A=B=0.
If you hold the dial between detents, the A or B outputs 
hold at whatever level they should.  When you let go, it 
drops into the detent again, and outputs are zero.  This is 
all as it should be.

YES, it gives 400 quadrature counts per rev, so you need to 
scale the encoder by a factor of 4 to get rational units per 
detent step.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Jon Elson]

On 02/23/2017 08:31 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.
>
> They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.
>
> And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going to
> cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received occurs
> just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some milliseconds later
> after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you stop moving it, it
> goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.
OH, MY!!!  Thanks for finding this stupidity!  Explains why 
there are in the sale bin at M. P. Jones!

I wonder if there's a jumper pad inside that can defeat this 
behavior?

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] MPG HAL component

[Jon Elson]

On 02/23/2017 01:32 PM, Kurt Jacobson wrote:
>
> I tried to edit Jon's HAL file found here
>  to fit my needs but I
> never did get it to work. I guess I don't understand how he used select8
> and wsums.
So that I could use a single-deck switch, I used a diode 
matrix to encode the axis selector into binary code.  Zero 
is not implemented, so that an enable switch has to be 
pushed to select an axis (or whatever) to jog.
A schematic is linked to on the bottom of this page :
http://pico-systems.com/pendant.html

This ends up creating 3 bits for up to 7 active selections 
(0 being reserved for nothing selected).
So, the 3 bits are then sent into 3 inputs of a weighted 
sum, which then produces an integer from zero to 5 in the 
case I had set up. This is then sent to a select 8 as the 
sel input.  The outputs of the select8 are then sent to 
enable jogging and feedrate overrides.

Actually, putting all these things into one HAL component is 
more efficient.  My code used about a dozen, I think.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Martin Dobbins]

Hi Dave,


Being able to step through your program might not be the only advantage 
according to this guy:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=648Tx5N9Zoc


Good luck and let us know how you get on.


Martin




From: Dave Cole 
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 9:02 PM
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

Wow,

Thanks guys...  lots of great info!

I did end up buying the Atmel ICE.   It turned out to be $80 plus
shipping and tax after a $50 coupon which expires on 2/28.   I will feel
better having it available.

This is the full Atmel ICE kit, not the basic kit.

http://www.microchip.com/developmenttools/productdetails.aspx?partno=atatmel-ice
Atmel-ICE - ATATMEL-ICE | Microchip Technology 
Inc.
www.microchip.com
Atmel-ICE is a powerful development tool for debugging and programming ARM® 
Cortex®-M based SAM and AVR microcontrollers with on-chip debug capability.




Thanks
Dave





On 2/23/2017 11:53 AM, Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
>> Search on ebay for STM32F103.  These are 72MHz ARM Cortex M3 (if I recall).
> I use STM32 and they are indeed very good, the others are similar so if they 
> are the best I do not know.
>
> --
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> engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters. Timely news source for technology 
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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Dave Cole]

Wow,

Thanks guys...  lots of great info!

I did end up buying the Atmel ICE.   It turned out to be $80 plus 
shipping and tax after a $50 coupon which expires on 2/28.   I will feel 
better having it available.

This is the full Atmel ICE kit, not the basic kit.

http://www.microchip.com/developmenttools/productdetails.aspx?partno=atatmel-ice

Thanks
Dave





On 2/23/2017 11:53 AM, Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
>> Search on ebay for STM32F103.  These are 72MHz ARM Cortex M3 (if I recall).
> I use STM32 and they are indeed very good, the others are similar so if they 
> are the best I do not know.
>
> --
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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Erik Christiansen]

On 23.02.17 17:51, Nicklas Karlsson wrote:
> Atmel ICE and Atmel Studio is useful but a micro controller with a
> Cortex-M*- CPU is probably a lot better choice.

Nicklas, we are all entitled to our personal preferences, but "Which is
the god-ordained cpu to use" is in this case not the question asked. ;-)
Before saying to a working developer busy debugging an existing
software/hardware implementation, "Chuck out what you're using.", it
just _might_ be worth taking a deep breath and considering that
developer's war chest full of software libraries, reusable components of
past projects, toolchain familiarity, and far from least, understanding
of all the fiddly details of initialising and using the plethora of
peripheral hardware on the chosen microcontroller.

Secondly, "best for _which_ application? In between other stuff, I've
just started on a day/night switch to turn off my brother's goat-paddock
electric fence at night. Rather than lashing together comparator and
timer chips, I can do it on one 8 pin ATtiny15, and add battery
monitoring for free. Is it _really_ vital that we have quad-core 32 bit
cpu power with MMUs for this task? Conversely, why is the ATtiny15
"best" for the job at hand? Answer: Because it has a few ADC channels, I
have a few of them in my goodies box, AND I'm set up to develop with
them. A good cook can make a hearty soup with whatever's in the larder,
and is experienced with local ingredients.

> They are very good, cheap, very common and used by many manufacturers.

Nicklas, that is true for all the microcontrollers doing well on the
market. They are also all fit for a broad variety of purposes, and it
makes no difference on the outside of the box which microcontroller is
inside.

> Most of them if not all will be able to do PWM for DC or 3-phase
> motors and probably the same with a quadrature encoder.

Yes, that is true for so many microcontrollers, and the Atmel AT90PWM[123]
are great little chips for implementing e.g. a 3-phase motor drive, as
they have multiple PWM channels interlinked in hardware. BUT we don't
know that the task at hand _is_ a 3-phase motor drive, do we?

> Most of them if not all have UART and SPI for communication while the
> more expensive also have Ethernet.

If you can find a common and popular microcontroller range which does
_not_ have as much of that as needed, then I'd like to take a look at them.
(For 8 bit, USB can sometimes be more useful than Ethernet, though.)

As the original question specifically referred to Arduino development,
it may also be that being able to talk to the Arduino community is also
a tangible benefit. It is doubtless more useful than mere CPU evangelism.

All that said, I've long thought it would be fun to play with ARM, or
the MSP30 (as it has a higher resolution ADC than AVR, IIRC.), but
starting again at the bottom of the chip learning curve is definitely
not the quickest or most efficient way to achieve a working application
when microcontroller product ranges are mostly much of a muchness.

Erik

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[Emc-users] Those encoder dials have a gotcha

[Gene Heskett]

But I think its something we may be able to outwit in the hal file.

They appear to have a power save shutdown, and a power up lag.

And seem to have timings independent from each other.  This is going to 
cause, unless we scale the encoder down by 4, one edge received occurs  
just as you start to turn it by hand, and again some milliseconds later 
after YOU have stopped turning the dial. When you stop moving it, it 
goes back to zero volts a few milliseconds later.

This is looking at the A/B terminals, I have not yet checked the -A/-B 
terminals for their behavior.  It may be that this problem may disappear 
if differential receivers with lots of histerisys(sp?, when do we get a 
spell checker that knows these technical words?) would just ignore this.

But be aware its there guys if you feed it straight into the encoder 
module as is. You have effectively only those positions at rest 
corresponding to A,B=0.  None of the other three combo's are available 
to you in the detent at rest condition. So you will move in a modulo4 at 
the start, and end of a move, always ending up in the 0/0 position when 
the wheel is at rest.

I just checked the - terminals, it is not powering down, at rest they are 
both at the 5 volt rail. I was hopeing that we might have a true fine 
tune by using a straight edge went by=one motor microstep, but thats not 
going to happen, best we can do is one micro-step per detent felt.

Now we know why such a precision looking and seemingly well built wheel 
was only a 20 dollar bill. ;-)  You can only use 1/4 of its real 
resolution.

Now I need to find some cat5 intended for jumpers, eg stranded wire for 
use in the cable chain to the saddle. But the last jumper I bought was 
made from flat cable.  It works ok, but..., 8 wires isn't enough for 
everything either, I still need independent home switches, so thats 10.  
Sigh.  When does it end and you can switch to use it mode?

I did measure how far I can move the crossfeed in w/o exposing the ball 
screw, 3.35". Thats enough to  put the tool tip on centerline, and work 
on something 6.7" in diameter w/o throwing swarf into the slot.  Said 
another way, stuff will need to be zeroed and an air cut made to check 
if its still covered at the smallest diameter of the job.  If not, move 
the toolpost mount, rezero, and cut some more air.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Ralph Stirling]

Draftsight is a free (but not open source) clone of Autocad (by the
maker of Solidworks) that works pretty well on Linux (64 bit).  You
have to renew it every year, but I've found it to be pretty good.  I
like the UI for it better than LibreCAD.

FreeCAD is nice for 3d work, but Draftsight is my go-to for 2d.

-- Ralph

From: Lester Caine [les...@lsces.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 12:59 PM
To: emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

On 23/02/17 19:42, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> LibreCAD.
>>
> Not exactly a barn burner. Greenhorn here couldn't figure how to rotate
> it on the y axis for a pseudo 3d effect.  So it gives me no clue as to
> the expected thickness of the materiel.  Is there a gcode export module
> I need to add to its export offerings?

Alternative - FreeCAD

Developing nicely
...http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Path_Workbench

but DXF licences are a pain!
http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=FreeCAD_and_DXF_Import

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Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Lester Caine]

On 23/02/17 19:42, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> LibreCAD.
>>
> Not exactly a barn burner. Greenhorn here couldn't figure how to rotate 
> it on the y axis for a pseudo 3d effect.  So it gives me no clue as to 
> the expected thickness of the materiel.  Is there a gcode export module 
> I need to add to its export offerings?

Alternative - FreeCAD

Developing nicely
...http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Path_Workbench

but DXF licences are a pain!
http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=FreeCAD_and_DXF_Import

-- 
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Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - http://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 15:09:44 andy pugh wrote:

> On 23 February 2017 at 18:05, Gene Heskett  
wrote:
> > I am not familiar with this format.
>
> DXF is an AutoCAD drawing format.
>
Humf, I knew it left a bad taste, but could not recall who was 
responsible. I was still at the tv station when some vendor sent me a 
dxf. Thats when I discovered Autocads sky-high per seat costs, so we 
never did buy Autocad. Compounded at the time by the only x86 machine at 
my disposal already had a very smoothly running linux on it.

The vendor was amazed when I told him there was not a copy of Autocad 
anyplace on the then 46 win95 pc's in the building. Needless to say we 
didn't buy either.  Took Jim about a week to do that whole project for 
the control room in linux.

> Inkscape can open them. Or try https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/ for
> an online viewer.

Inkscape only shows one cutout pattern so I assume it doesn't understand 
a step & repeat construction. Strike 6 for Autocad.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] MPG HAL component

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 14:32:24 Kurt Jacobson wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I just finished writing my first HAL component. I am setting up an MPG
> on a 4 axis mill and I wanted to have the axis selector switch as well
> as the jog scale switch multiplexed to use fewer inputs.
>
> I was able to demux the jog increment using mux4 just fine, but I
> could not figure out how to demux the axis select switch and enable
> only the selected axis.
>
> I tried to edit Jon's HAL file found here
>  to fit my needs
> but I never did get it to work. I guess I don't understand how he used
> select8 and wsums.
>
> Since I could not get that to work and I wanted to learn more about
> HAL I decided to write an MPG component to do exactly what I wanted. I
> though it would be difficult since I don't know a thing about coding,
> but boy was I mistaken. I got the component to compile and run
> correctly after the first try. I fall deeper in love with LinuxCNC
> everyday!
>
> My MPG component is very simple. Basically, it takes four mpg-scale
> parameters and selects one based on two inputs from the multiplexed
> mpg scale switch.  It divides the selected mpg-scale by the specified
> number of encoder pulses per detent and outputs this as mpg-scale.
> This would be connected to axis.N.jog-scale in a custom.hal file.
>
> For the axis selection the components sets the bit on the output pins
> named enable_x, enable_y, enable_z, and enable_a, to true for the
> selected axis, otherwise false.
>
> In the HAL file the enable_x etc. pins are connected like this for
> each axis.
> net mpg-x axis.x.jog-enable <= mpg.0.enable-x
>
> I though someone else here might find it useful so I have attached the
> mpg.comp and MPG.hal files and a picture of how I multiplexed the
> switches with two small signal diodes. Hope the attachments are OK.
>
> Thanks,
> Kurt

Thank you Kurt.  And I'm sure a .jpg of the finished device would be 
eagerly viewed by several of us when its done. I have i/o to throw away, 
so I thought I'd see if I can find a flexible cable with enough wires in 
it that might fit in a 3rd SS pipe across the right side of the saddle 
to carry those 6 signals and power and a button closure (2 more wires) 
near each of the two dials that would steer the encoder to a gain setter 
for that channel. Push the button and let the encoder wheel change the 
gain, on a 1,2,5,10 etc progression if I can hack that up.. So I wind up 
with two dials on the apron, with a pushbutton near each dial so one 
hand could do it. Both at the same time even.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[andy pugh]

On 23 February 2017 at 18:05, Gene Heskett  wrote:
> I am not familiar with this format.

DXF is an AutoCAD drawing format.

Inkscape can open them. Or try https://a360.autodesk.com/viewer/ for
an online viewer.

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 13:11:44 Mark wrote:

> On 02/23/2017 01:05 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > I am not familiar with this format. And synaptics search only finds
> > a library. No clue what editor/viewer uses it. clicking on it offers
> > to open it with geany but it displays the text only as text.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> LibreCAD.
>
>
> Mark
>
Not exactly a barn burner. Greenhorn here couldn't figure how to rotate 
it on the y axis for a pseudo 3d effect.  So it gives me no clue as to 
the expected thickness of the materiel.  Is there a gcode export module 
I need to add to its export offerings?

Thanks Mark.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Todd Zuercher]

That is what I did, the problem is you still have to "plow" those 1st cuts the 
full witdh of the tool.  And I had to "plow" for about 112ft. before I could 
start widening the groove. (The cleanup pass wasn't any problem)

- Original Message -
From: "Jon Elson" 
To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" 
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 12:58:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

On 02/23/2017 10:03 AM, Todd Zuercher wrote:
> There is also the fact that our CAM doesn't do HSM tool pathing as it is 
> geared more towards wood working and sign making.
> http://enroutesoftware.com/
>
> What would the g-code look like for an HSM millout of something like the 
> attached dxf.  (I would imagine it might be quite large.)
See

http://pico-systems.com/gcode.html

under Milling a rectangular cutout.  This "trepans" a 
cutout, milling around the edge, stepping down until it goes 
through, then milling around the edge to bring it to final 
dimension and give a smooth finish.  I have some newer 
versions that do the ramp down.

There is a DOS executable as well as C source code that can 
be compiled on Linux systems.  (You'll need the C compiler 
if you don't have that, but I imagine you do.)

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Przemek Klosowski]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Erik Christiansen
 wrote:
> On 22.02.17 22:43, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
>> This is my cue to remind everyone that Google has a built-in units
>> converter with tons of units built in, not just inches. You can simply
>> type your expression (44mm sqrt(3)/3) and ask for the result "in
>> inches":
>
> Didn't know that. But then, I have not needed to venture past
> "Unix is the (multifaceted) IDE". ;-)
>
> $ units
> ...
> I sometimes use the wiregauge to mm conversion

It's not inconceivable that google actually uses units behind the
scenes; there are some differences in syntax but the coverage is quite
similar.
Thanks for pointing the wiregauge() function--it's quite useful; I
note that it works in Google too:

https://www.google.com/#q=wiregauge(24)+in+mm&*

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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Bengt Sjölund]

https://www.google.se/search?q=dxf+viwer=dxf+viwer=chrome..69i57j0l5.4328j0j8=chrome=UTF-8#q=dxf+viewer&*



Den 2017-02-23 kl. 19:05, skrev Gene Heskett:
> I am not familiar with this format. And synaptics search only finds a
> library. No clue what editor/viewer uses it. clicking on it offers to
> open it with geany but it displays the text only as text.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett


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Re: [Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Mark]

On 02/23/2017 01:05 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> I am not familiar with this format. And synaptics search only finds a
> library. No clue what editor/viewer uses it. clicking on it offers to
> open it with geany but it displays the text only as text.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett


LibreCAD.


Mark


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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Przemek Klosowski]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 2:13 AM, Chris Albertson
 wrote:

> 2) I let my wife read the Chinese.  But it still makes little sense.  The
> characters can have several meaning depending on context and without a
> technical education you can't "get" the context.I think this is why
> Google Translate does so poorly with the Chinese data sheets.

 FWIW, I translated an entire instruction manual from Chinese by
dumping it into GT and fixing up the result by what I knew about the
device, reverse engineering and plain common sense.
https://github.com/przemekklosowski/mhs52xx/raw/master/MHS5200.pdf
I believe it's good enough for many purposes, if you know what you're
looking for.

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[Emc-users] Whats a good visual displayer for a dxf?

[Gene Heskett]

I am not familiar with this format. And synaptics search only finds a 
library. No clue what editor/viewer uses it. clicking on it offers to 
open it with geany but it displays the text only as text.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Jon Elson]

On 02/23/2017 10:03 AM, Todd Zuercher wrote:
> There is also the fact that our CAM doesn't do HSM tool pathing as it is 
> geared more towards wood working and sign making.
> http://enroutesoftware.com/
>
> What would the g-code look like for an HSM millout of something like the 
> attached dxf.  (I would imagine it might be quite large.)
See

http://pico-systems.com/gcode.html

under Milling a rectangular cutout.  This "trepans" a 
cutout, milling around the edge, stepping down until it goes 
through, then milling around the edge to bring it to final 
dimension and give a smooth finish.  I have some newer 
versions that do the ramp down.

There is a DOS executable as well as C source code that can 
be compiled on Linux systems.  (You'll need the C compiler 
if you don't have that, but I imagine you do.)

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Jon Elson]

On 02/23/2017 09:35 AM, Jim Craig wrote:
> Yep, you should have done a HSM slot about 3/8" wide with the 1/4"
> cutter and you would have had little trouble. I try to avoid a
> conventional full width slot in aluminum where possible. lube definitely
> helps or is required.
>
>
Yes, the hardest part of this is what I call the "plowing 
cut", where the cutter is cutting the full width into the 
material. There's no great way to do this, but ramping down 
helps, some. There might be some inventive ways to ramp 
several times down the cut, then make a pass at constant 
depth taking off the tops of the ramps, then repeat at next 
depth, etc.
until you break through.

I never cut slots the same width as the cutter, I always 
somehow manage to plow the first, full-width cut, and then 
climb mill the sides to bring the slot to the desired dimension.

Jon

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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Nicklas Karlsson]

> Search on ebay for STM32F103.  These are 72MHz ARM Cortex M3 (if I recall).

I use STM32 and they are indeed very good, the others are similar so if they 
are the best I do not know.

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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Nicklas Karlsson]

Atmel ICE and Atmel Studio is useful but a micro controller with a Cortex-M*- 
CPU is probably a lot better choice. They are very good, cheap, very common and 
used by many manufacturers. Most of them if not all will be able to do PWM for 
DC or 3-phase motors and probably the same with a quadrature encoder. Most of 
them if not all have UART and SPI for communication while the more expensive 
also have Ethernet.



On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 19:09:54 +1100
Erik Christiansen  wrote:

> On 22.02.17 09:50, Dave Cole wrote:
> > Is anyone using the ATMEL ICE and Atmel Studio 7 IDE to do Arduino 
> > programming and debug?
> > 
> > http://blog.solutions-cubed.com/debugging-arduino-sketches-with-atmel-studio-7/
> 
> The Atmel ICE referenced there is fancier than the one I used more
> than a decade ago, at least in the range of targets it supports.
> 
> (I just use the GNU toolchain, as "Unix _is_ the IDE" in my little
> world, and GUIs don't seem worth the inconvenience.)
> 
> > Apparently when using that combo you can do breakpoints during debug.   
>  
> ISTR that even the old one provided several breakpoints, which are
> needed if you have to capture which way the code branched, and there are
> several possibilities.
> 
> > The ICE uses the 6 pins on the Arduino rather than the USB port
> 
> Yes, it talks SPI to on-chip hardware which does the actual RT breakpoint
> matching, IIRC. (So the USB port is a completely unrelated peripheral in
> this context.)
> 
> > and circumvents the regular Arduino boot loader that is used with the
> > Arduino IDE.
> 
> Yes, it also functions a programmer, just like an STK500 or any of the
> AVR programming dongles swarming on the intertubes. It's great for
> programming a new bootloader too, if needed.
> 
> > However Atmel Studio can also be used without circumventing the
> > Arduino boot loader as well. So what is the best way to go?
> 
> Debugging and programming need not be performed with the same device,
> but is most convenient if the debugger doesn't have to be disconnected
> when downloading new code. That should be possible with USB download as
> well, probably, so whatever is easier with a cup of coffee in the other
> hand.
> 
> > I need to do some code debug which is going to be really difficult to
> > debug without using breakpoints.
> 
> For the first two decades of RT embedded software development, I always
> had an ICE, and believed they were essential for the task. Over the
> following decade I learned that a hell of a lot can be done without, and
> stopping at a breakpoint can be inferior to capturing a snapshot byte or
> two in RAM, then logging them via the UART, to a monitoring PC. BUT,
> even in that last decade, there _were_ times when we made sure there was
> an ICE at our elbow, even if it had to be shipped in from Japan, as in
> the case of the NEC V850 target.
> 
> At $60, I'd snaffle one, just as insurance for meeting project deadlines.
> (Even if the project is just DIY stuff.)
> 
> > Print statements via the Arduino IDE is not going to cut it.  Life is
> > too short.
> 
> When developing an 8-channel PABX phone interface card, using an
> ATmega64, I made sure we had the UART going first, and logged such
> things as per-channel state transitions via that. It turned out better
> than an ICE, because it gave more insight _and_ didn't stop the
> multi-threaded multi-instance state machines; the itty-bitty OS kept
> chugging, with its timer service, so that software timers could still
> elapse, even as we were capturing debug guff.
> 
> A breakpoint is a crowbar in the gears - not always the best debugging
> solution in RT applications. Development can be faster without an ICE,
> if you hold your mouth right. ;-))
> 
> > Is using the Atmel ICE the way to go, or is simply using the Atmel
> > Studio 7 IDE sufficient for difficult debugs.
> 
> > The Atmel  ICE interface is only $60, Atmel Studio is a free download,
> > so its really not expensive.
> 
> Yep, it's amazingly cheap, and it is comforting to know it's in the box
> under the desk. I'd give it a whirl, but e.g. building the code up from
> a little round-robin scheduler blinking a LED, to running two tasks,
> each blinking at a different rate, to multi-threaded multi-instance
> state machines, means each capability increment has little to debug, and
> logging might be just as good, in practice.
> 
> It's cheap peace of mind, innit?
> 
> Hopefully attempting to answer your questions is a bit more useful than
> chirruping names and numbers of other CPUs that you're not using. Yes,
> we all have our favourites, and the use-my-cpu-with-cream-cheese-and-pickles
> non-answers crop up on other lists as well. Sigh.
> 
> Sometimes I pick up a sub-$10 (including postage and USB cable) Arduino
> board and a bare "shield" on Ebay, just to use as cheap quick hardware,
> blow away the bootloader, and use it as a bare ATmega328P, hitting it
> with GCC and a programmer. (Just don't tell anyone 

Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Jim Craig]

Yep, you should have done a HSM slot about 3/8" wide with the 1/4" 
cutter and you would have had little trouble. I try to avoid a 
conventional full width slot in aluminum where possible. lube definitely 
helps or is required.

I don't think rigidity of your machine was the issue.

Just remember what you learned from the experience. Then apply it next 
time. . .

Jim

On 2/23/2017 9:27 AM, Todd Zuercher wrote:
> It is a pretty big heavy machine (about 12,000lbs), one just like this.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U6HtvfKUYg
>
> Part of the problem was I was just slot milling everything, didn't want to 
> make more mess milling bigger grooves than I had to.
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Chris Albertson" 
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" 
> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 12:45:05 AM
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.
>
> Yes, WD40 works well on aluminum.   I'm betting your wood mill is not
> nearly rigid enough to cut metal.
>
> What most people did early on was use a manual Bridgeport type knee mill
> with hand cranks.  Doing this it is easy to see and feel how it works.
>   With my small mill I use an order of magnitude slower RPM and a lot slower
> then 120 rpm.
>
> The other thing is that with wood you can make a deep 1/2" wide slot with a
> 1/2" bit.  With metal you'd cut one side of the slot at a time with a
> smaller than 1/2" bit
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Todd Zuercher 
> wrote:
>
>> Yuck, if I don't ever have to mill that crap again it will be too soon.
>> Started out dry and trying to mill .12 deep per pass. 1st try (1" long ramp
>> in) tool ramped in to full depth nicely and then promptly snapped, 400imp
>> @18krpm is too fast.  150imp went about 2 inches, gumming up badly.  Half a
>> dozen bits later, having some success with a .06" cut depth @120imp and
>> soaking it with WD-40.
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "Roland Jollivet" 
>> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" 
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 3:17:27 PM
>> Subject: [Emc-users]  Milling Aluminum.
>>
>> Why don't you just get someone to water-jet cut, and carry on cutting wood?
>>
>>
>> On 21 February 2017 at 17:34, Todd Zuercher 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I am a wood worker in a large wood working CNC shop. But I need to mill
>>> some aluminum for a project (a jig for another process in our company)
>> but
>>> I know next to nothing about milling such material. What I need is to
>> cut a
>>> large grid out of a 5ft x 10ft sheet of 1/4inch thick MIC6 AL. The
>> machines
>>> I will have to do this are large wood working cncs with flat vacuum
>> tables.
>>> We normally cut flat sheet material like MDF or plywood on a MDF
>> fall-board
>>> (vacuum sucking right through the fall-board (holes, no jig tape, just
>>> porous MDF) These machines have no provisions for coolant Just compressed
>>> air blast and dust/chip collection (big centralized dust collector
>> system).
>>> I will obviously have to disable the dust collection, because I'm pretty
>>> sure the local farmers who pick up our dust won't appreciate AL shavings
>> in
>>> their cow bedding. The machine I am probably going to use has a 12kw
>> 24krpm
>>> spindle. I would like to mill this with a 1/4" 2 flute carbide end mill.
>>> Should I use an up or down spiral cutter? What feed speed and RPM would
>> be
>>> appropriate? What depth of cut per pass? Do I need to arrange some sort
>> of
>>> mist system for cooling? What to use and how much liquid in the mist?
>>> (Don't want to cause problems with the MDF fall-board or vacuum hold down
>>> system.) The grid is only going to be about 2 inches wide, with 12
>> windows
>>> in the 5x10 frame (a lot of wasted material). At this point the plan is
>> to
>>> set the milling up with lots of bridges to hold the grid to the scrap
>> then
>>> go back and trim those off with a final finish pass.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> Todd Zuercher
>>> mailto:zuerc...@embarqmail.com
>>>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>>> engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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>> 
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Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Todd Zuercher]

It is a pretty big heavy machine (about 12,000lbs), one just like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U6HtvfKUYg

Part of the problem was I was just slot milling everything, didn't want to make 
more mess milling bigger grooves than I had to.

- Original Message -
From: "Chris Albertson" 
To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" 
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 12:45:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

Yes, WD40 works well on aluminum.   I'm betting your wood mill is not
nearly rigid enough to cut metal.

What most people did early on was use a manual Bridgeport type knee mill
with hand cranks.  Doing this it is easy to see and feel how it works.
 With my small mill I use an order of magnitude slower RPM and a lot slower
then 120 rpm.

The other thing is that with wood you can make a deep 1/2" wide slot with a
1/2" bit.  With metal you'd cut one side of the slot at a time with a
smaller than 1/2" bit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Todd Zuercher 
wrote:

> Yuck, if I don't ever have to mill that crap again it will be too soon.
> Started out dry and trying to mill .12 deep per pass. 1st try (1" long ramp
> in) tool ramped in to full depth nicely and then promptly snapped, 400imp
> @18krpm is too fast.  150imp went about 2 inches, gumming up badly.  Half a
> dozen bits later, having some success with a .06" cut depth @120imp and
> soaking it with WD-40.
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Roland Jollivet" 
> To: "Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)" 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 3:17:27 PM
> Subject: [Emc-users]  Milling Aluminum.
>
> Why don't you just get someone to water-jet cut, and carry on cutting wood?
>
>
> On 21 February 2017 at 17:34, Todd Zuercher 
> wrote:
>
> > I am a wood worker in a large wood working CNC shop. But I need to mill
> > some aluminum for a project (a jig for another process in our company)
> but
> > I know next to nothing about milling such material. What I need is to
> cut a
> > large grid out of a 5ft x 10ft sheet of 1/4inch thick MIC6 AL. The
> machines
> > I will have to do this are large wood working cncs with flat vacuum
> tables.
> > We normally cut flat sheet material like MDF or plywood on a MDF
> fall-board
> > (vacuum sucking right through the fall-board (holes, no jig tape, just
> > porous MDF) These machines have no provisions for coolant Just compressed
> > air blast and dust/chip collection (big centralized dust collector
> system).
> > I will obviously have to disable the dust collection, because I'm pretty
> > sure the local farmers who pick up our dust won't appreciate AL shavings
> in
> > their cow bedding. The machine I am probably going to use has a 12kw
> 24krpm
> > spindle. I would like to mill this with a 1/4" 2 flute carbide end mill.
> > Should I use an up or down spiral cutter? What feed speed and RPM would
> be
> > appropriate? What depth of cut per pass? Do I need to arrange some sort
> of
> > mist system for cooling? What to use and how much liquid in the mist?
> > (Don't want to cause problems with the MDF fall-board or vacuum hold down
> > system.) The grid is only going to be about 2 inches wide, with 12
> windows
> > in the 5x10 frame (a lot of wasted material). At this point the plan is
> to
> > set the milling up with lots of bridges to hold the grid to the scrap
> then
> > go back and trim those off with a final finish pass.
> >
> > --
> >
> > 
> >
> > Todd Zuercher
> > mailto:zuerc...@embarqmail.com
> >
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> > engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> > ___
> > Emc-users mailing list
> > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
> >
> 
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Redondo Beach, California

Re: [Emc-users] Is there any linuxcnc pre-build image for raspberry pi3?

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 08:20:54 andy pugh wrote:

> On 22 February 2017 at 19:35, Gene Heskett  
wrote:
> > Not that I am aware of but its not magic, the basic jessie install
> > is the first step, then the rtai kernel is next
>
> ...
>
> > Linux raspberrypi 4.4.4-rt9-v7+ #7 SMP PREEMPT RT Mon Mar 7 14:53:11
> > UTC 2016 armv7l GNU/Linux
>
> Just to clarify, that is not an RTAI kernel, that it a mainline
> PREEMPT-RT kernel.

With the 7i90 handling the the actual machines motion hardware, it 
appears the preempt-rt is more than sufficient to run lcnc.  The rest of 
the pi runs pretty normal whn lcnc is running. FWIW, its 11 days uptime 
and 11 megs into swap at the moment. Doing a swapoff -a didn't kill any 
of the 78 tasks. But 2 Gb of memory sure would be helpfull.  One does 
tend to be aware that a firefox session can be 300 megabytes on a 
machine so limited on ram.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Mark]

On 02/23/2017 03:35 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote:
>
> Didn't know that. But then, I have not needed to venture past
> "Unix is the (multifaceted) IDE". ;-)
>
> $ units
> 2526 units, 72 prefixes, 56 nonlinear units
>
> You have: 44 mm * sqrt(3)/3
> You want: inches
>  * 1.0001343
>  / 0.99986569
>
> The manpage has interesting examples, such as converting grains to
> aeginamina, and just finding what a jansky is. I sometimes use the
> wiregauge to mm conversion.
>
> And for Gene, it is happy to convert:
>
> You have: furlongs per fortnight
> You want: m/s
> * 0.00016630986
> / 6012.8727
>
> (Add --verbose to the invocation if the output is too cryptic.)
>
> Erik

Damn.  According to 'units' I have a few too many jansky's running 
around the house here.  Not to worry though.  According to the man page, 
jansky's can be absorbed by copious quantities of aeginamina.

Whew.  Thankfully.

Mark

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Re: [Emc-users] Is there any linuxcnc pre-build image for raspberry pi3?

[andy pugh]

On 22 February 2017 at 19:35, Gene Heskett  wrote:
> Not that I am aware of but its not magic, the basic jessie install is the
> first step, then the rtai kernel is next
...
> Linux raspberrypi 4.4.4-rt9-v7+ #7 SMP PREEMPT RT Mon Mar 7 14:53:11 UTC
> 2016 armv7l GNU/Linux

Just to clarify, that is not an RTAI kernel, that it a mainline
PREEMPT-RT kernel.


-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1916

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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 06:49:04 Erik Christiansen wrote:

> On 23.02.17 06:07, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Thursday 23 February 2017 03:35:54 Erik Christiansen wrote:
> > > And for Gene, it is happy to convert:
> > >
> > > You have: furlongs per fortnight
> > > You want: m/s
> > >* 0.00016630986
> > >/ 6012.8727
> > >
> > > (Add --verbose to the invocation if the output is too cryptic.)
> > >
> > > Erik
> >
> > I must have forgotten the required smiley on those phrases somewhere
> > along the line, my apologies.
>
> Oops, guilty of same. Shoulda been :^), perhaps.
> (This medium is darned flat if we don't put a few in when mixing chat
> with info. And I've flunked mind-reading all my life.)
>
> > In this world, I've had a tendency to use that whenever the subject
> > has descended to about the level of pointing a finger and laughings
> > ones ass off. ;-)
> >
> > But I don't believe I am the only one quilty of emitting that phrase
> > either.  It does have a catchy cadence to it. :)
>
> It's made its way down under, even - though you don't hear it so much
> in the new millennium.
>
> Here's a conversion you might seriously use, though:
>
> $ units -1 $ -1 = Skip the reciprocal output.
> You have: 280 oz force in  # A stepper motor's torque.
> You want: N m
> * 1.9772345
>
> Or maybe the reverse conversion? (In USA, they still sell ozs in tins,
> I figure. They're extinct here. ;-)
>
> Erik
>
Yeah, ancient but normal here. We tried to get the public to use metric 
30 or so years back in the fog of time by selling gasolene by the liter. 
Everybody that jumped on that bandwagon converted their pumps back to 
gallons before they went bankrupt because the metric pumps got 5% of the 
usage the guy on the other corner with gallon pumps was getting. I think 
if it had been mandatory, it might have worked as the gallon holdouts 
would have been forced to buy liters when the tank gauge said I'm 
quitting in another 10 miles. We even have a highway marked in kilo's 
here and there, but the signs are fading.  Damn the fickle public. OTOH 
I was one of those who searched for pumps marked in gallons at the time, 
but not THAT hard. Had it been accompanied by roads in kilo's at the 
same time I think would have worked, but I also think some of our 
lawmakers would have had an early end to their careers. They should have 
bit the bullet and just did it. Speedometers in kilo's, the whole 
MaryAnn.

And its not going to happen here until a target date is set and its all 
metric or else big fine a day after that date.  Thats how they do us 
broadcasters, $27,500 fine for every day out of compliance. However, 
changing ALL the road distances to kilo's is a huge expense for the 
roads maintenance people, in some cases re-surveyed, so it should only 
be done as routine upkeep, which many of our roads need badly on the 
road surface itself.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] VFD recommendations

[einar]

It looks like it does.
But be aware that may require an option card.
It does in those I use. They have the connections and protocol, but need the 
option card to 
be installed as they do not have the RS485 interface as standard.

Regards
Einar

On 22 Feb 2017 at 11:24, dragon wrote:

> Here is a link to the manual for a VFD that I am considering...
> 
> http://www.hclub.ee/download/varia/KOC100%20Series%20User%20Manual--20150119(V1.1).pdf
> 
> If someone that is familiar with modbus could take a quick look and see
> if it looks to support the standard RTU protocol I would be most
> grateful. If it does, I think I can figure out the modbus-to-hal details
> to get it to work.



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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Erik Christiansen]

On 23.02.17 06:07, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 23 February 2017 03:35:54 Erik Christiansen wrote:
> > And for Gene, it is happy to convert:
> >
> > You have: furlongs per fortnight
> > You want: m/s
> >* 0.00016630986
> >/ 6012.8727
> >
> > (Add --verbose to the invocation if the output is too cryptic.)
> >
> > Erik
> 
> I must have forgotten the required smiley on those phrases somewhere 
> along the line, my apologies.

Oops, guilty of same. Shoulda been :^), perhaps.
(This medium is darned flat if we don't put a few in when mixing chat
with info. And I've flunked mind-reading all my life.)

> In this world, I've had a tendency to use that whenever the subject has 
> descended to about the level of pointing a finger and laughings ones ass 
> off. ;-)
> 
> But I don't believe I am the only one quilty of emitting that phrase 
> either.  It does have a catchy cadence to it. :)

It's made its way down under, even - though you don't hear it so much in
the new millennium.

Here's a conversion you might seriously use, though:

$ units -1 $ -1 = Skip the reciprocal output.
You have: 280 oz force in  # A stepper motor's torque.
You want: N m
* 1.9772345

Or maybe the reverse conversion? (In USA, they still sell ozs in tins, I
figure. They're extinct here. ;-)

Erik


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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 February 2017 03:35:54 Erik Christiansen wrote:

> On 22.02.17 22:43, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> > This is my cue to remind everyone that Google has a built-in units
> > converter with tons of units built in, not just inches. You can
> > simply type your expression (44mm sqrt(3)/3) and ask for the result
> > "in inches":
>
> Didn't know that. But then, I have not needed to venture past
> "Unix is the (multifaceted) IDE". ;-)
>
> $ units
> 2526 units, 72 prefixes, 56 nonlinear units
>
> You have: 44 mm * sqrt(3)/3
> You want: inches
> * 1.0001343
> / 0.99986569
>
> The manpage has interesting examples, such as converting grains to
> aeginamina, and just finding what a jansky is. I sometimes use the
> wiregauge to mm conversion.
>
> And for Gene, it is happy to convert:
>
> You have: furlongs per fortnight
> You want: m/s
>* 0.00016630986
>/ 6012.8727
>
> (Add --verbose to the invocation if the output is too cryptic.)
>
> Erik

I must have forgotten the required smiley on those phrases somewhere 
along the line, my apologies.

In this world, I've had a tendency to use that whenever the subject has 
descended to about the level of pointing a finger and laughings ones ass 
off. ;-)

But I don't believe I am the only one quilty of emitting that phrase 
either.  It does have a catchy cadence to it. :)

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Gregg Eshelman]

There's the STM Discovery boards like the STM32F3 and STM32F4.
There's a ton of aftermarket stuff for the F4 board.
Not so much for the F3 to start with, but a quick Google turns up some 
interesting addons for both. I also see there's a newer version of the F3 with 
some mention of mass storage support. The one I have is not that one, got it 
free right after product launch.

One of the first applications the F3 Discovery was put to was a quadcopter 
controller, utilizing its digital accelerometer and force sensors and compass. 
The F4 board can't do that because it doesn't have the gyro and compass. 
https://github.com/zegervdv/Quadcopter

Would be neat if someone wrote a dead reckoning navigation system for it that 
could bring a drone back to its launch point. During such action it would 
actually be a drone instead of an RPV.
I also have an Xmos startKIT dev board sitting unused. It has a PCIe x1 
connector (NOT actually a PCIe slot!) for their "slice card" peripherals. It 
has a spot to solder in an original Raspberry Pi compatible header. Xmos 
cheaped out on their freebie, none of the 0.1" headers are included.
Anyone want them? Send me $8 by PayPal and I'll put them both in a small flat 
rate box. Regular parcel post would likely be less but I'd have to pack them 
and know the address and get it weighed to find the postage.
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Re: [Emc-users] Milling Aluminum.

[Gregg Eshelman]

What I'd do is have the holes rough cut on a CNC plasma table (they can cut 
aluminum, with the right setup) then do full depth profile cuts with the wood 
router gantry.
A lot of those cuts, just past the point of chip thinning. 
http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/the-high-feed-high-reliability-process

If what goes into the holes has sharp corners you can drill them so when the 
end mill makes the turns it's cutting air or you can setup the path for it to 
cut past the corner both directions to leave open areas for the workpiece 
corners to fit into.
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Re: [Emc-users] Math Q

[Erik Christiansen]

On 22.02.17 22:43, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> This is my cue to remind everyone that Google has a built-in units
> converter with tons of units built in, not just inches. You can simply
> type your expression (44mm sqrt(3)/3) and ask for the result "in
> inches":

Didn't know that. But then, I have not needed to venture past
"Unix is the (multifaceted) IDE". ;-)

$ units
2526 units, 72 prefixes, 56 nonlinear units

You have: 44 mm * sqrt(3)/3
You want: inches
* 1.0001343
/ 0.99986569

The manpage has interesting examples, such as converting grains to
aeginamina, and just finding what a jansky is. I sometimes use the
wiregauge to mm conversion.

And for Gene, it is happy to convert:

You have: furlongs per fortnight
You want: m/s
   * 0.00016630986
   / 6012.8727

(Add --verbose to the invocation if the output is too cryptic.)

Erik

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Re: [Emc-users] OT - Arduino development - Atmel ICE useful ?

[Erik Christiansen]

On 22.02.17 09:50, Dave Cole wrote:
> Is anyone using the ATMEL ICE and Atmel Studio 7 IDE to do Arduino 
> programming and debug?
> 
> http://blog.solutions-cubed.com/debugging-arduino-sketches-with-atmel-studio-7/

The Atmel ICE referenced there is fancier than the one I used more
than a decade ago, at least in the range of targets it supports.

(I just use the GNU toolchain, as "Unix _is_ the IDE" in my little
world, and GUIs don't seem worth the inconvenience.)

> Apparently when using that combo you can do breakpoints during debug.   
 
ISTR that even the old one provided several breakpoints, which are
needed if you have to capture which way the code branched, and there are
several possibilities.

> The ICE uses the 6 pins on the Arduino rather than the USB port

Yes, it talks SPI to on-chip hardware which does the actual RT breakpoint
matching, IIRC. (So the USB port is a completely unrelated peripheral in
this context.)

> and circumvents the regular Arduino boot loader that is used with the
> Arduino IDE.

Yes, it also functions a programmer, just like an STK500 or any of the
AVR programming dongles swarming on the intertubes. It's great for
programming a new bootloader too, if needed.

> However Atmel Studio can also be used without circumventing the
> Arduino boot loader as well. So what is the best way to go?

Debugging and programming need not be performed with the same device,
but is most convenient if the debugger doesn't have to be disconnected
when downloading new code. That should be possible with USB download as
well, probably, so whatever is easier with a cup of coffee in the other
hand.

> I need to do some code debug which is going to be really difficult to
> debug without using breakpoints.

For the first two decades of RT embedded software development, I always
had an ICE, and believed they were essential for the task. Over the
following decade I learned that a hell of a lot can be done without, and
stopping at a breakpoint can be inferior to capturing a snapshot byte or
two in RAM, then logging them via the UART, to a monitoring PC. BUT,
even in that last decade, there _were_ times when we made sure there was
an ICE at our elbow, even if it had to be shipped in from Japan, as in
the case of the NEC V850 target.

At $60, I'd snaffle one, just as insurance for meeting project deadlines.
(Even if the project is just DIY stuff.)

> Print statements via the Arduino IDE is not going to cut it.  Life is
> too short.

When developing an 8-channel PABX phone interface card, using an
ATmega64, I made sure we had the UART going first, and logged such
things as per-channel state transitions via that. It turned out better
than an ICE, because it gave more insight _and_ didn't stop the
multi-threaded multi-instance state machines; the itty-bitty OS kept
chugging, with its timer service, so that software timers could still
elapse, even as we were capturing debug guff.

A breakpoint is a crowbar in the gears - not always the best debugging
solution in RT applications. Development can be faster without an ICE,
if you hold your mouth right. ;-))

> Is using the Atmel ICE the way to go, or is simply using the Atmel
> Studio 7 IDE sufficient for difficult debugs.

> The Atmel  ICE interface is only $60, Atmel Studio is a free download,
> so its really not expensive.

Yep, it's amazingly cheap, and it is comforting to know it's in the box
under the desk. I'd give it a whirl, but e.g. building the code up from
a little round-robin scheduler blinking a LED, to running two tasks,
each blinking at a different rate, to multi-threaded multi-instance
state machines, means each capability increment has little to debug, and
logging might be just as good, in practice.

It's cheap peace of mind, innit?

Hopefully attempting to answer your questions is a bit more useful than
chirruping names and numbers of other CPUs that you're not using. Yes,
we all have our favourites, and the use-my-cpu-with-cream-cheese-and-pickles
non-answers crop up on other lists as well. Sigh.

Sometimes I pick up a sub-$10 (including postage and USB cable) Arduino
board and a bare "shield" on Ebay, just to use as cheap quick hardware,
blow away the bootloader, and use it as a bare ATmega328P, hitting it
with GCC and a programmer. (Just don't tell anyone that I do most of the
programming in assembler, especially the state machines, for which I
have a mini "language" created with assembler macros.)

Erik

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