Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On 22.09.14 13:31, Gregg Eshelman wrote: Instructions that assume prior knowledge of something, or do not have pointers as to where else in the instructions (or online) all required information can be found are often not much better than no instructions at all. Traditionally, most manpages are not tutorials - they all require a threshold level of understanding for them to be of much use. And they very often minimally document _how_ to invoke stuff, barely alluding to _what_ that might be good for. I remember in the early days, cycling through the manpages in SEE ALSO on many a unix manpage, in order to gain sufficient overview to try some experiments, in order to clarify my understanding of the command's many option combinations. After a few decades, it does seem infinitely easier. Even the on-line manual embedded in vim can be remarkably inscrutable, despite the fact that it _is_ example-rich and full of detail, simply because we only know the best search keyword once we know at least half the solution to the gaping lack of knowledge which initiated the search in the first place. Mutt is in a similar boat; a very detailed linked manual, full of wonderful information - but all of it hidden by our ignorance of the right keyword to take us straight to the thing we want to do. On the other hand, it often does not occur to the guru creating the manpage to document stuff which is dead obvious after just having finished coding the relevant service or module. That's where we users come in - we can whip up an explanatory paragraph or two when a documentation omission has been explicated. As for pointers as to ... all required information, I suspect that our doughty¹ developers are thinking Use the wiki, Luke., after all, that is the pointers as to ... all [available] information Erik ¹ Used here not only in the sense Able; strong; valiant; redoubtable;, but also Danish dygtig (skilful). -- Tragically, Liberia - which already ranks fourth-last in the world for numbers of doctors per population - has lost almost 20 doctors to Ebola. They only produce 10 doctors per year in a medical class. - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-13/australian-doctor-says-time-running-out-to-contain-ebola/5741858 -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On 2 October 2014 13:15, Erik Christiansen dva...@internode.on.net wrote: As for pointers as to ... all required information, I suspect that our doughty¹ developers are thinking Use the wiki, Luke., after all, that is the pointers as to ... all [available] information Actually, the Wiki is (I find) of limited use, but I go to this page a lot: http://www.linuxcnc.org/docs/html/ -- atp If you can't fix it, you don't own it. http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
Very well expressed!!! -- In der Wissenschaft siegt nie eine neue Theorie, nur ihre Gegner sterben nach und nach Max Planck -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
Hi . I have to be agree with Gene on the man pages interpretation/description/decoding . I'm not criticizing anyone and I appreciate the efforts that the project stuff is making everyday . But reading some hal component man pages sometimes the description is hermetic and cryptical and even missing a clear example on the usage and the correct instantiation . For sure for the most of you (gurus and geeks) everything is clear but for a medium brained like I am sometimes is really hardful (even impossible) to understand correctly what the man page mean . Regards Alex On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Jon Elson el...@pico-systems.com wrote: On 09/20/2014 06:39 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: So, could we at some point, have a gearchange that works like the man page says it does, or an accurate man page? Please report to John Thornton, or file a bug report with the LinuxCNC group. They will have to decide if it is an actual bug, or just a documentation problem. I think John Thornton was actually the author of gearchange, so even more appropriate that he look at the docs for it. Jon -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=160591471iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On Monday 22 September 2014 03:55:47 alex chiosso did opine And Gene did reply: Hi . I have to be agree with Gene on the man pages interpretation/description/decoding . I'm not criticizing anyone and I appreciate the efforts that the project stuff is making everyday . But reading some hal component man pages sometimes the description is hermetic and cryptical and even missing a clear example on the usage and the correct instantiation . For sure for the most of you (gurus and geeks) everything is clear but for a medium brained like I am sometimes is really hardful (even impossible) to understand correctly what the man page mean . Regards Alex On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Jon Elson el...@pico-systems.com wrote: On 09/20/2014 06:39 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: So, could we at some point, have a gearchange that works like the man page says it does, or an accurate man page? Please report to John Thornton, or file a bug report with the LinuxCNC group. They will have to decide if it is an actual bug, or just a documentation problem. I think John Thornton was actually the author of gearchange, so even more appropriate that he look at the docs for it. Jon I have PM'd John, but its now been 11 days since his last post here. I hope he is ok and just out of pocket on a vacation or something. And I certainly hope that I have not caused him to feel insulted. That is not and never has been my intention. His recent work on engrave.py is an example of something we should all be offering thanks for. However it appears that we, this group, do not have a checklist of requirements than a man page should fulfill. IMO an example usage stanza should be shown. Sure, it might make the page as much as 10 lines longer to do so, but as Confucious said, 1 picture=10,000 words. Even if it is a word picture. ;-) Features that aren't apparently connected to anything either in the various config files, nor in the manpages are particularly puzzling. For instance, axis, when running a lathe, has a checkbutton, actually 3, in the left panel when in the F3 display mode, one for brake, one for mist coolant and one for flood coolant. The linkage between the axis display and how it is merged into motion or iocontrol is simply not 100% traceable, and yet a checkbutton labeled lowgear is precisely, exactly what I need to effect a mux2.N.sel =true|false in the .hal file that switches in a gain of nominally 1.8 between the pid.s.out and the pwmgen.N.value input when the headstock is in low backgear. I say nominally 1.8 because the target is a near neutral pid.s.error in either gear. One of those 3, documented even if is an xml2 file format like most of the camview stuff, would probably supply enough info that I could easily add such a button to the expanse of unused space in the left axis panel. Along that same line of thought, a slider similar to one of the jog or feed override sliders that could be hooked to an integrated for de-noising, signal from pid.s.error should be possible so that we have an active indicator of how hard the spindle motor is being pushed to maintain its speed. Since my toy lathe has neither mist or flood coolant, I may see if I can highjack one of those buttons, which can be sent out to the BOB to do that, and use it instead in the .hal file. But a funny thing happens when you cd to the linuxcnc directory, and do a grep -R brake *, mist| flood or brake. Other than a comment line in a hal file that I put there, no hits on brake. So how is that done? In the meantime I will high jack one of these below: I did try to do this first, based on the iocontrol man page: net lube = iocontrol.0.lube = mux2.gc.sel No error, but no lube button was created either. net coolant-mist = iocontrol.0.coolant-mist = hm2_5i25.0.gpio.010.out net coolant-flood = iocontrol.0.coolant-flood = hm2_5i25.0.gpio.009.out To do my gear changing. Using the flood checkbox works. But I'll be the only one on the planet that knows the flood checkbox is actually the headstock gearchange function. I'm with Jackie Gleason, what a revolting development that is. ;-) 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 http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On 22 September 2014 12:22, Gene Heskett ghesk...@wdtv.com wrote: IMO an example usage stanza should be shown. Most of the component manpages are auto-generated by comp, but in many cases it is hard for comp to auto-generate a valid usage example. What would probably be needed would be a new keyword for comp -- atp If you can't fix it, you don't own it. http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On 9/22/2014 1:55 AM, alex chiosso wrote: Hi . I have to be agree with Gene on the man pages interpretation/description/decoding . I'm not criticizing anyone and I appreciate the efforts that the project stuff is making everyday . But reading some hal component man pages sometimes the description is hermetic and cryptical and even missing a clear example on the usage and the correct instantiation . For sure for the most of you (gurus and geeks) everything is clear but for a medium brained like I am sometimes is really hardful (even impossible) to understand correctly what the man page mean . Instructions that assume prior knowledge of something, or do not have pointers as to where else in the instructions (or online) all required information can be found are often not much better than no instructions at all. Of course a problem with documenting a rapidly developing system like LCNC is the rapid development. Most such projects, especially when worked on by people working physically far apart, suffer from an initial lack of standard practices for documentation, user interface and internal conventions. They start off with many people each expecting to do some things their own way and inevitably collisions happen. A couple of examples. The GIMP, an open source image editing program. It works but is an inconsistent mess due to contributors putting their additions wherever they like instead of where they logically ought to go. ZenCart, an open source e-commerce system. It works well enough and from the customer side appears the be pretty slick. But for the retailer's view it's rather awful. Just one of its faults is the inconsistency in terms for enabling or disabling something. Various parts use 1/0, on/off, true/false and just about every other such pair of terms. As a project reaches a plateau of completeness and usability, it needs to be put through a rationalization process where external and internal consistency is reviewed and fixed as needed. Code gets cleaned up and documentation spiffed up and multiply checked for accuracy. That process benefits the programmers as much or more than the users! Being able to go to the docs and finding current and correct information on someone else's part, and knowing that something like a named variable is not going to be changed on a whim, or actually is what the docs say it is, makes the work much easier. It's also a good practice for one person projects. Shovel out the junk, make sure what is left works, then document it. One of the very best instruction manuals I ever encountered was the one for the IBM PC jr. A person could sit down with that book, having completely zero knowledge of computers, and be able to plug everything in, boot it up and be using it. And lo! The computer 'elite' who learnt their craft in hallowed halls quaked in their boots that mere peons who knew not what a transistor was would be joining the ranks of the users... ;-) I do recall some whinging from certain sorts of people in the 80's about computers becoming too easy to use. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
[Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
Hi all; Today has been a major fight, about a 3 rounder, but I lost 2 of them due to less than useful man pages. Take limit3 for instance, has features that make it usable IF you can understand the docs. min, max, and maxv are moderately explained, IF one is cogniszant of the lingo, but what the heck is maxa? Yes, its mentioned in the 1/2 screen man page, but no explanatory text. Badly needs it. Then gearchange, which sounds as if it would be useful to keep the requested speeds fairly consistent between what you typed, and whats displayed in the tach display. In the man page it says the gain2 ranges from 1.0 up to whatever floats our boat. So I measured the difference between the two physical gears and came up with a 1/2.28 ratio. sounds good and closely matches what I had previously measured. So I put it in low gear at about 120 revs, and toggled the .sel line, to be greeted by 28 rpm on the tach, its not a multiplier, but a divisor! So, could we at some point, have a gearchange that works like the man page says it does, or an accurate man page? Thanks. 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 http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=160591471iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
Re: [Emc-users] Tuning a spindle servo
On 09/20/2014 06:39 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: So, could we at some point, have a gearchange that works like the man page says it does, or an accurate man page? Please report to John Thornton, or file a bug report with the LinuxCNC group. They will have to decide if it is an actual bug, or just a documentation problem. I think John Thornton was actually the author of gearchange, so even more appropriate that he look at the docs for it. Jon -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=160591471iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
