A better JOG routine

[Karl_T]

I've had a Camsoft CNC mill for six years now. I've never been completley satisfied with how the machine jogs. Over the years several trials have been made. The recurring issues are a hesitation before the jog starts and/or errors coming directly from the Galil card.

This mill has a nine push button key pad for jogging. Three rows of three buttons. its set up so the perimeter buttons are the eight directions to jog the 4 axis machine. The middle button determines slow or fast jog. This layout is common on many CNC mills.

I connected these buttons directly to the Galil 1900 ICMs with inputs 1-8 for the eight jog directions and input 9 for slow/fast jog. Then I wrote a custom Galil routine to jog the machine. See the attached 4AXISJOG.txt (change to .DMC if you use it) There are a fair bit of comments in this program for those that are interested in Galil programs.

A couple lines are needed in the Camsoft .CBK

In startup.fil, load the Galil program:
DOWNLOAD C!/AS3000/CNC/JOG4AXIS.DMC 'load jogbuttons into Galil card

In your jog macro use this line to start the Galil program:
COMMAND XQ #JOG

and this line to halt when done:
COMMAND HX:COMMAND JG 0,0,0,0:COMMAND ST


This JOG routine is awesome. Hit the buttons as quick as you want in any order, it won't crash and it responds immediately.

Karl

[Farmers Machine]

Can you specify a distance to jog and then just touch the button, and a specific jog feedrate?

[Karl_T]

Originally Posted by Farmers Machine Can you specify a distance to jog and then just touch the button, and a specific jog feedrate?

That would be a different program. But, piece of cake. I'll do it for you, just for fun. If you use Pro, PM me your .cbk

Tell me exactly what you want. I'm thinking press one of the user defined buttons, popup a question for distance, direction, and speed. Of course, many many other ways to do it.

Karl

[Farmers Machine]

On your numeric keypad, does it have a wire for each button to connect to the break out box? Is it possible to use the number key pad on a regular key board that is connected by a USB wire? Has anyone figured out why there is a lag using the cam soft jog ?

Thank You
The Farmer

[Karl_T]

Originally Posted by Farmers Machine On your numeric keypad, does it have a wire for each button to connect to the break out box? Is it possible to use the number key pad on a regular key board that is connected by a USB wire? Has anyone figured out why there is a lag using the cam soft jog ? Thank You The Farmer

A wire from each button goes to the 1900 ICM. The keypad wouldn't work with this routine.

The lags appear to be there to stop errors coming from the galil card. One of my first trials got rid of the lags and things were worse with criptic Galil errors. Think about it, too much communication from the operator interface to the camsoft program to the Galil card and back. You've got to have delay. Or get rid of the overhead.

Karl

[HuFlungDung]

Good job Karl, I never noticed this thread before.

I don't have any extra I/O available, unfortunately, or I might have tried it out. Even if I had to purchase an extra numeric keypad to go along with the keyboard, and make use of the PC's virtual I/O.

Improvements like this should be built into the Camsoft UI, IMO, as some sort of an incentive to purchase a maintenance update.

[Karl_T]

Originally Posted by HuFlungDung I don't have any extra I/O available, unfortunately, or I might have tried it out. Even if I had to purchase an extra numeric keypad to go along with the keyboard, and make use of the PC's virtual I/O...

You may not want to do the work, but additional IO for Camsoft is really inexpensive, especially if you buy PC cards direct from the vendors and opto 22 stuff off eBay. IMHO, it should be considered a crime to have a world class control like Camsoft and not have tons of extra IO.

Karl

[Farmers Machine]

Is it possible to use the numeric keypad on a regular keyboard to make camsoft move or does it have to be hooked up to the IO inputs of the breakout box?Cam Soft uses an inexpensive USB connected joy stick kinda like a nintendo game would have, which will jog in 8 directions so there must be a way to use USB connected devices without connection to the IO box,

The Farmer

[Karl_T]

Originally Posted by Farmers Machine Is it possible to use the numeric keypad on a regular keyboard to make camsoft move or does it have to be hooked up to the IO inputs of the breakout box?Cam Soft uses an inexpensive USB connected joy stick kinda like a nintendo game would have, which will jog in 8 directions so there must be a way to use USB connected devices without connection to the IO box, The Farmer

I've seen the game device advertised but never played with it. No reason a jog program around the number keys couldn't be done. I would suspect you'd need the delays to make it work well.

Karl