DynoMotion .Net

[bradodarb]

Hello Shannon,

I also wanted to follow up with your testing of Machine Manager.

Galil is on the list of devices to support, and general automation processes are being developed right now.

Would you mind explaining why MM would not work for your application? This could help drive development efforts to make it more flexible.


Thank you,
Brad Murry

[sdavenport]

Hi Brad,

Many of our HMI's have an embedded cad engine, VectorDraw Drawing components 3D and 2D ActiveX CAD CAM, that I use for 3d graphics and some math. The operator will scan a barcode and the job data will be sent to the cad engine where the operator will inspect and possibly modify the lines and arcs. After he is satisfied a dxf file will be created and another utillity extracts the vector data and sends it to the Galil. All have an automation direct PLC with ethernet interface and a Galil with Ethernet interface. The PLC controls and monitors safety devices, motor starters, process variables etc.. Some of the machines run several days on a single job without stopping and when there is a problem the PC calls or emails the operator.

After writing this and giving it more thought, I suppose MM would work although it would take a fair amount of rewriting my vb code. We have some tools like a laser etcher and stencil cutters that it would work as is on. Can MM be used without an interface? How much are you going to charge for it?

Shannon

[sdavenport]

Thanks for the quick and thorough response Brad,
Most of the questions below are now mute. I had to set check "make assembly com-visible" under assembly information in the *application tab. the intellisense is working and I can see all the functions but when I try to run I get a run time "Automation error". on Set controller = New KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller. I'll try to find the problem.

RESOLVED:
I followed the steps and everything went fine until here: Dim Controller As ... the intellisense in VB is not finding KMotion_dotNet. I was able to set a reference to the KMotion_dotNet.tlb without issue. I have written DLL's in VB and am familiar with how to reference. If I use "Dim Controller As KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller" anyway and try to compile I get an error "User Defined Type not Defined". I tried manually registering and I get an error that says dll loaded but no dllregisterserver entry point was found. In the C# Build, I tried setting configuration to release (it was set to debug by default) but got the same errors. BTW, I get no errors in the build and am using 2010 express. I did get 78 Warning 2 Missing XML comment for publicly visible type or member 'KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller.KM_Controller_MainStatus.IsVersionAndSizeValid' C:\KMotion428\KMotion_dotNet\DM Controller\KM_Controller_MainStatus.cs 12 26 KMotion_dotNet

Shannon

[bradodarb]

Hello Shanon,

I replied to your MM related quesitons here::

Machine Manager CNC and Automation Framework

To keep things tidy


-Brad Murry

[bradodarb]

Thanks for the quick and thorough response Brad,
Most of the questions below are now mute. I had to set check "make assembly com-visible" under assembly information in the *application tab. the intellisense is working and I can see all the functions but when I try to run I get a run time "Automation error". on Set controller = New KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller. I'll try to find the problem.

RESOLVED:
I followed the steps and everything went fine until here: Dim Controller As ... the intellisense in VB is not finding KMotion_dotNet. I was able to set a reference to the KMotion_dotNet.tlb without issue. I have written DLL's in VB and am familiar with how to reference. If I use "Dim Controller As KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller" anyway and try to compile I get an error "User Defined Type not Defined". I tried manually registering and I get an error that says dll loaded but no dllregisterserver entry point was found. In the C# Build, I tried setting configuration to release (it was set to debug by default) but got the same errors. BTW, I get no errors in the build and am using 2010 express. I did get 78 Warning 2 Missing XML comment for publicly visible type or member 'KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller.KM_Controller_MainStatus.IsVersionAndSizeValid' C:\KMotion428\KMotion_dotNet\DM Controller\KM_Controller_MainStatus.cs 12 26 KMotion_dotNet

Shannon

If I could get my hands on a legal copy of VS6 I would make this happen....

The KM_Controller should be available as it has a default parameterless constructor.

I'm afraid that I am going to need to do some more research. I will post back as soon as I find something.

In the mean time, I wonder how much effort it would be to skip the com exposed .net dll and just use the KMotion_dotNet_Interop dll that I created for use for the .net dll. It has all the methods labled for extern __stdcall
so they should be accessible. Can you try that?

Good luck,
-Brad Murry

[sdavenport]

In the mean time, I wonder how much effort it would be to skip the com exposed .net dll and just use the KMotion_dotNet_Interop dll that I created for use for the .net dll. It has all the methods labled for extern __stdcall
so they should be accessible. Can you try that?

I'll try it and let you know,
Thanks again,
Shannon

[sdavenport]

It has all the methods labled for extern __stdcall
so they should be accessible. Can you try that?

I tried it and when I call a function I get a "Can't find entry point" error.

[bradodarb]

grrr.......


OK Shannon, thanks for the effort.

Give me a little time and we will figure this out, there is no reason it should not work. I'm sure we are just missing some small implementation detail.

In the mean time, there is always .net.......

(just jerking your chain)

-Brad Murry

[sdavenport]

I'm afraid that I am going to need to do some more research.

Please don't spend a lot of time trying to make this work. I'll take a longer look at MM.

I really appreciate all your help.

Shannon

[sdavenport]

I don't know if this means anything but using
KM_Controller_MainStatus instead of .KM_Controller works fine

Dim controller As KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller_MainStatus ' .KM_Controller


Private Sub Form_Load()
Set controller = New KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller_MainStatus ' .KM_Controller

Debug.Print controller

End Sub

[bradodarb]

Shannon,

That does not make a lot of sense.

The Main_Status class is actually of type::

KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller.KM_Controller_MainStatus

So in .net, that means that KM_Controller_MainStatus class is a nested class of KM_Controller in the KMotion_dotNet namespace

I have to imagine the instance you created is null yes?

-Brad Murry

[sdavenport]

Brad,
Yes, the Debug.Print controller output is as you said.
KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller.KM_Controller_MainStatus

I don't know if the instance is Null. This is the entire code in the project.

Dim controller As KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller_MainStatus ' .KM_Controller

Private Sub Form_Load()
Set controller = New KMotion_dotNet.KM_Controller_MainStatus ' .KM_Controller
Debug.Print controller
End Sub

Shannon