Plasma support?

[rogerfries]

Dave,

First I've gotta say how much I love MSM! I appreciate it even more now that I'm setting up my plasma table and I'm going back to the ugly Mach screens. The screens on my Mill are much better! I'm using a Texas Microcircuits THC 301 for my Torch Height controller which uses a slightly modified Mach screen with a couple of THC specific buttons & DRO's. I would love to be able to use MSM on this machine. Any hope? Can I add custom controls to another page and use MSM with my plasma table?

Thanks!

[DaveCVI]

Hi Roger,

OK, I'm going to ask some leading questions... but no promises are implied!

1) Does the Texas microcircuits THC control use any mach plug-in?
2) if not, do you know if the screen set from TMC uses anything other than the stock mach THC features?

If the THC uses just stock mach, and the only thing technically needed is a MSM variant with the THC controls instead of spindle speed stuff.... hum...

Dave

[rogerfries]

I don't know the answer to this, but I'll contact Texas Microcircuits and find out. I'll let you know in a day or two. Thanks!

[DaveCVI]

Roger,
Are you running MSM at 10x7 or 12x9 resolution?
Dave

[rogerfries]

Dave,

I run the 12x9 resolution on a 20" widescreen monitor.

Roger

[rogerfries]

Dave,

Randy from Texas Microcircuits confirms that there are no Plug in's and it's all stock Mach. Just a couple of DRO's and buttons added to the screen-set. What's involved in altering MSM screens? Do the stock Mach type screen editors work on MSM screens?

Thanks
Roger

[DaveCVI]

Jan 31, 2013 7:31:44 GMT -8 rogerfries said:

Dave,

Randy from Texas Microcircuits confirms that there are no Plug in's and it's all stock Mach. Just a couple of DRO's and buttons added to the screen-set.

OK, that's good - it makes the scope of things that could be needed much smaller.

Jan 31, 2013 7:31:44 GMT -8 rogerfries said:

What's involved in altering MSM screens? Do the stock Mach type screen editors work on MSM screens?

Thanks
Roger

I use Machscreen to make the set files for MSM - highly recommended.
Other info re customizing MSM screens is in the user manual (section 15).

BUT.... see my next post....

Dave

[DaveCVI]

Roger,

I knew I had done work on plasma support a while back.... I found it and have packaged it into a first pass at built in plasma support for MSM.

So, I've whipped up a 10x7 and 12x9 plasma set for MSM. I don't have a plasma setup to test this with... that makes it hard for me to debug etc. But in this case, I'm only doing screen buttons to calls stock Mach plasma functions.

SO..... "such a deal I have for you!"
If you'll play with this and give me feedback as to how it works etc, we'll see if this ends up being useful and if so, it may make it out as an MSM enhancement eventually.

I'll send you a direct email with where to find the plasma beta installer.

If anyone else in MSM land has a plasma set up and would like to try this too, let me know.

Dave

[rogerfries]

Sorry for the delay getting data back to you, but to try and solve interference problems I was having I'm changing over to an Ethernet Smooth Stepper and relocating the PC away from the plasma machine. Not quite ready for a test.

Thanks