New Alternative Option Mach Screen Released ( Beta 1)

[ynneb]

Well here it is in beta format.
Download it from here http://machsupport.com/forum/index.p...sg2164#msg2164
Please be gentle with me.

To get this screen set to work you will have to do a few things carefully.
Make sure you have the latest version of Mach3. (Not the Rc version)
First run the exe file, this will set up a new folder in your Mach bitmaps folder. The folder will be called "Benny Screen"
Once that is done you will need to browse to that folder and drop the "1MACHLED.ttf" font that is in there into your fonts folder. You will find your fonts folder in Start/settings/fonts/ ( right click and open) Just drag and drop the font into this folder.
Once this is done, you will find another file called "controldeskscreen.set" place this in the main Mach3 folder( C:\Mach3 )

Open Mach3 up and select Config/fonts and fro the Dros select the new font that you recently installed. ( You will find it is the very first font in the list, and you may have to scroll backwards to find it.
This font will not become effective untill Mach is restarted. (Restart Mach)

When you re open Mach 3, select View/ Load screens/ and browse for "controldeskscreen.set"

Once this is selected you should see the screen appear.

This is best viewed on a 768 x 1024 monitor. It is not suitable for smaller res monitors. I suggest if you have mach to auto scale, you turn off this setting. ( Config/state/ untick auto enlarge ( Bottom left) and restart Mach)

If your monitor is set at 768x 1024 you will need to set the windows task bar to either not display on top, or uese the auto hide feature instead. This is done by right clicking on a blankof the bar and selecting properties. You will see the options to change the settings there.

Enjoy

EDIT The sample pictures below are a bit blury since I had to decrease thier size. etc

BTW For all those who dont have Mach 3, you can download a fully working trial version that you can use forever. The main limitation is that it will only cut code for up to 1000 lines. For many this is far in excess of thier requirements anyway. If you did need to get a licence Art has made the price only $160 to look after every one. This also includes a free G-code generator as well (LazyCam). If you download one of the free Cad programs from here http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm you will never have to spend more than $160 to be completely setup for CNC software.
You can download Mach 3 from here http://www.machsupport.com/artsoft/index/index.htm

[miljnor]

wow those are cool.

Please tell me you only have to do all of that once?

and what if your screen is a monster size and you go higher res?

[ger21]

Mach3 will scale the screen to higher resolutions.

[ynneb]

Yeh It looks like a lot to do, but really its not, and yes you only need to do it once.
Yes mach can scale for larger resolutions, however I suggest you turn this scale feature off. The Jpgs start to look really crappy and grainy when scaled.

[vacpress]

thats really nice looking benny

how bout a OSX 'themed' skin? Something minimal and functional..... that'd be cool.

[ynneb]

By OSX do you mean like Apple interface?

[JerryFlyGuy]

Looks great!! I'll be downloading it once I'm up and running! Do you think that the button's would be large enough [ for the most of them at least] for use w/ a touch screen? I'm thinking about using a 15", I could go to 17 if I had to but they start to get pretty spendy at that size.

Jerry

[vacpress]

yeah. the apple interface... think the subdued and easy to look at functionality of their OS. I suppose it would be 'easy' to find lots of source art for such a thing because there are tons of apple skins for other programs.. even for all of windows...

but then, not everyone agrees with me that apple has a far more attractive(if somewhat less functional) GUI..

Robert

[Bill Davis]

I downloaded the Mach2.611 and documentation.
First thing I noticed (documentation) that it runs on Windows xp or Windows
2000.
Am I to take it that it will not run on Win98? Does the same imply for the
Mach3 ver 1.90?
thanks
bill davis

[vacpress]

i think only master5 runs on win98...

if you cannot afford windowsxp\mach, but want a friendly GUI CNC controller, check out ubuntu with EMC. (www.linuxcnc.org). I just installed it to check it out. It went quite smoothly and the interface, while an alarming shade of blue, is much nicer than kellycam(IMO) or tuboCNC or the like...

But still nowhere near as nice as Mach's interface... Nor as powerfull considering how nice Benny's screens look and the potential it shows for Mach screen customization...

Robert

[joecnc2006]

when I first started in my cnc machines, I used the Linux Emc (see picture attached) and with just a little editing of the generic.ini file and their IRC channel, i was up and running fairly fast, However Mach3 is much better and my machines ran smoother to me (may have been just me) and i also can watch the machine with a webcam and also pcanywhere from my livingroom.

That gives me an idea, maybe we could start a Webcam series of peoples machines would be neat for some to watch who are building and not to mention the motivation for many of us.

Joe

BTW: Benny excellent job on the screens, it will definately be on my computer tonight.

[Bill Davis]

thanks Vacpress, joe2000che, I'll check into it.
bill