Hi Larry,
Thanks for considering MSM - I'll try to answer your questions -
I have been using mach for a long time now. I have been looking at your window screen for the last few days now and was wondering . In the manual the screen were dark grey with black letters is this what the screen actually looks like? I am older and this makes the screen hard to read.
The screen have a dark grey background to them, however all the DROs etc are displayed in white - so they have good contrast. There are a few "fixed labels" that are styled as recessed black into the grey panel background - they do not have as much contrast, but once you use the screen set, you essentially never look at them again as they are not part of the operational information displayed.
The colors in the manual pictures are a little off in color - for some reason I have not yet figured out, Adobe gives everything a bit of a red-ish tint when it creates the PDF manual from the original Word document.
When you get your PC repaired, I'd recommend that you download MSM from our web site and give it a try. The software is fully functional and you can use it for 30 days at no cost - using it is really the best way to see what you like or don't like - and it much easier to follow the manual when you can try the software as you go.
I need a couple of things from my cutter .
#1 is I need a way to change my bits then auto zero
Human tool change: I do this now but I have to zero manually. takes a long time.
MSM has extensive support or the use of a probe to find the edges and corners of stock - this makes setting up your work coordinate zero point very easy. MSM also supports the use of Touch Plates to automatically measure the length of a tool during a tool change.
These two features remove most of the work from tool changes. THey do however, require that you have the necessary probe signal inputs interfaced to your control.
I will add one caveat: MSM's ability to auto measure tools is currently linked to the use of "Master Tool Mode (MTM)". While I plan to relax that restriction in the near future, the current production release (and the current beta) require the use of MTM to auto measure tools during a tool change.
For more information please see the user manual - the topics of tool measurement and Master Tool mode are covered in detail there - much more so that I can put in this posting.
#2 I would like to use a knife on my cnc machine. Does your knife function have the knife or vinyl cut section over run function.
MSM does not do anything special for a Knife cutter other than the standard features stock Mach3 has. In fact, MSM itself really has no knowledge of if a knife cutter is being used. MSM simply supplies the same controls for a tangential knife that stock mach provides. I'm not sure if this helps you much wrt to your question - I've never used a knife cutter and I don't really know what the "over run function" is you referred to.
Also If I buy the program how long will I have before I will have to pay you more money??? I don’t want to buy a program that will cost me money the rest of my life.
The simple answer is "never".
When you buy an MSM license, you get to use the version you licensed forever. We even include a 6 month period after initial licensing where you get all updates for free. After that "bundled free update period" the version(s) you have continue to run as long as you want to use them.
If a year later, you want to update the software to get new features etc, then there is a nominal charge for the update (less than a new license).
This is covered on the CVI web site at
www.calypsoventures.com/purchase/licensing.html Could you please help me out with these questions. I have been looking at you screen hard and long the last few days.
I hope this has helped answer your questions. Please feel free to ask again if you have any more questions.
Dave