Using Gauges in CamSoft

[Steve Etter]

Hi all, glad to find you guys.

Got a question. I am on my second installation using CamSoft Professional, and in both cases now, I am not having any luck using their GAUGE displays.

My goal is to have a "real-time" display of my spindle speed setpoint. At the moment, I have code in the Timer.fil (and, yes, the Timer.fil is enabled) but for some reason, the display does not work as I would expect. The timer is set to update every 1000 ms.

This is my code:
\66={s*(\74/200)}
GAUGE1 \66;12

What I end up getting is the needle "over-writing" itself and disappearing. I other words, I have been able to make it display (by issuing a GAUGE1 0;10 command from the diagnostics command line) but once the Timer.fil fires two more times, the needle disappears.

I tried this code in the Timer.fil:
IF\999=1 THEN GOTO :HERE
\66={s*(\74/200)}
GAUGE1 \66;12
\999=1
EXIT
:HERE
GAUGE1 0;12
\999=0

When I did, the gauge worked, but cycled between 0, the speed value, and "disappeared". Very weird.

If this makes any sense, can anyone tell me how to successfully set up a gauge like I am wanting?

Thanks,
Steve

[HuFlungDung]

Hi Steve,

Glad you found your way here.

Did you properly set up the range of your guages in cnc setup?

[Steve Etter]

Hi,

Yes, I am sure the basic setup is correct for the gauge. I can get it to display ok if I simply remove it from the Timer.fil and then issue the GAUGE1 1000;12 command from diagnostics screen. Doing it that way works fine. Just not with the Timer.fil.

Steve

[HuFlungDung]

If I were going to use the Gauge functions, I would want some kind of "real time" external input for the guage to read. I have not researched how that would happen.

Anyways, having said that, would I be out of line to suggest that you simply use a Display to show the value of "s"(spindle rpm command value)? This value is of necessity being pulled right out of your nc code, so I can't see the need to monitor it unless there is some way in which "s" is being altered which causes it not to be known at any given moment.

Even if you are using a spindle override switch, this could have its own logic built into the switch event to trigger a new updated guage display, without actually having the gauge update running continuously in the timer file.

[Steve Etter]

Actually, the "s" value (speed setpoint) IS being trimmed via an analog input (\74) whose range is 0 to 200, hence the calculation \66={s*(\74/200)}. The trim pot is assigned to variable \74 in the CNCSETUP.

And, as you suggest, I am already using a display to show the "s" value. Since it is static, it displays well.

Now if I can just get that darned gauge to work....

Steve

[camsoft]

Steve,

We have a simple solution.

Instead of trying to calculate the real spindle RPM you can simply inquire on it. Calculating is fine but has so many outside variations to figure in. If you use the example in the TIMER.FIL file as found in the Default CBK file you will find a command called SPINDLERPM which gets the real-time true RPM even if the cutter is being bogged down into heavy material or wearing out.

After getting the RPM you can move the needle gauge, graph bar or update a numeric display with the actually RPM. You may set the timer interval in milliseconds.

TIMER.FIL
SPINDLERPM \1
GAUGE1 \1

Tech Support
CamSoft Corp.
(909) 674-8100
support@camsoftcorp.com
www.cnccontrols.com

[Steve Etter]

Hey camsoft,

Thanks for the reply....found one little problem with it though (in my particular application)....seems you gotta have a spindle encoder for this to work. I don't have one unfortunately.

Because of time limitations, I gave up on using gauges for now and opted for using bar graphs instead. And because I need a real-time display that includes the pot trimming, I found and used the ANALOG command in my Timer.fil.

My code now looks like this:

ANALOG2 \66
\66={s*(\66/5)}
BAR 1;\66;2

So, I am routing my analog input directly to variable 66 and then taking that value, dividing it by 5 (0 to 10 corresponds to 0 to 200%) and mulitplying the speed setpoing by the result. This is placed immediately back into variable 66. BARGRAPH 1 looks at this value and displays it in Dark Blue.

Now that I have this and one other bar graph working, I actually like them better anyway.

Steve