On Saturday 05 September 2020 15:22:44 John Dammeyer wrote: > > From: Eric Keller [mailto:keller...@gmail.com] > > > > On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 12:11 PM Mark <wendt.m...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Folks seem to clamor quite a > > > bit how all this is going to die out and we need to change this, > > > that and every other thing to enable all these other platforms. > > > Yet, none of them seem to want to grab the software and change it > > > to their wants or needs. It always seems the developers must > > > change their wants. Tormach proved that wasn't necessary. > > > > > > Mark > > > > > > It's not too many folks, but the same ones make a lot of noise. > > > It seems > > > > to me that there are some nice gcode senders out there that could do > > what the noisy people want with less work than adapting linuxcnc to > > be a gcode sender with an as-of-yet undefined distributed control > > interface on the other end of a non-real time network interface. > > > > Granted, that's a whole lot of work. > > Eric Keller > > I think first it would be appropriate to not use words like whine or > clamor or noise. A comment was made about the people who joined the > group thinking about LinuxCNC and then left. It's easy to misconstrue > some of these comments or words as demeaning or debasing and in > general the Linux community has a bit of a reputation of replying to > posts with statements like: > > "This information is on line or has already been answered so do your > homework and don't bother us with uniformed questions" > > Sadly, when someone is starting they don't know what they don't know > and don't know where to look to find out what they don't know. > > Add to that the time line of the internet and postings and the amount > of out of date material that often shows up far more often because > it's been referenced often it's really difficult for someone new to > get a sense of what to do or how things work. > > For example, I'm sure there are LinuxCNC users out there who have no > idea of what a joint is in LinuxCNC. And there's the crux of the > problem with a hobbyist who wants to add CNC to his equipment. They > might add a 4th axis. Certainly not interested in a 16 joint robot. > (Well they might be...) > > So that new guy does his research, looks at the web site after > googling "LinuxCNC Axis" and ends up here: > http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/gui/axis.html > > His friend has MACH3 on WIN-XP but he doesn't and really doesn't want > to try and get WIN-XP running on the surplus PC he has for the CNC > shop. > > His friend shows him all the wizards that make simple operations on > the mill trivial. So he reads the doc and can't find an equivalent. > It's not an AXIS menu item. He asks a question like "Is there a menu > entry or some Wizards like in MACH3?" and is told: "Learn G-Code. > You'll need it anyway no matter what". > > Notice that isn't an answer to his question. > > Another common type of response is "Yes you can add all sorts of > screens and things like wizards to LinuxCNC." Nothing more. > > Remember, this new user has never written a line of software in his > life. He's picked up metal working as a hobby because he likes model > trains and would like to build a steam engine now that he's close to > retirement. (or some other reason that a person buys a mill and a > lathe). > > So I don't think it's whining or complaining to suggest that a nice > feature to add to the AXIS interface would be another menu entry for > called say "Operations". And fill it in with one item to perform a > surfacing operation G-Code program that is then loaded. > > Then in the manual add a section that shows how to add to that list. > One possible approach is to make that list an XML file which can be > edited with free programs like XMLNotepad. There's probably something > like that in the Linux world too. > > The main menu entry is "Operations" > > Underneath that the name of an operation like "Surfacing" and the file > name of the program that is run to create the dialog and interact with > a user. > > The "Operations" dialog on save returns a pointer to the file name and > then just like opening a G-Code file it's loaded. > > Now AXIS has the ability to run Wizards written in any language. I've > used this example because I'd like to see something like the MACH3 > wizards in the Axis interface. > > But I haven't a clue where to start and since I don't do development > on Linux systems (other than Pi or Beagle) I couldn't even rebuild > Axis if I wanted to. Ie. I don't have a development PC that has > Linux on it. But I can write using Lazarus and test all these types > of dialogs on a WIN-7 or WIN-10 PC and on a Pi. > > And at least I write software for a living. That hobbyist I've > mentioned just leaves the list and buys something else. Doesn't say > goodbye. Just leaves. > > And perhaps we shouldn't care. > > John Dammeyer > But I think we shuld care, John. Care enough to put some effort into interesting this new questioner into learning enough to do whatever he has in mind. That means we should be willing to teach and know how to do that teaching with a non-condescending attitude.
I know just enough about hal to be dangerous, but that has convinced me there isn't very much we can't do with it, so I ask odd questions. And more than likely, Andy has taken the time and effort to give me that vital clue that lets me do what I want. In the parlance of linuxcnc, he knows, or can find, wherever that particular body is buried, or fairly recently a workaround that puts a hal derived variable back into play in my gcode. Many others have also helped, you know who you are and I thank you also. Now its up to me to design and make a combo tool holder with a builtin hole depth probe so I can find how deep the blind hole is, and auto-adjust the g33.1 stroke to end a thou or 2 short of hitting the bottom with a tap and breaking it. This includes a dynamically measured per hole amount of turnaround overshoot which I am already doing and displaying with pyvcp on the Sheldon. Something I can drop on the QCTP and just use by calling a sub with the tap argument and the tap in a tap hat with data about it in the tool table. But with my large and motley collection of taps, that will take a bigger tool table, which I'm waiting on. The same idea can be used on a mill, but in both cases in order to make the subroutine universal, I'll need 2 more data slots in the tool table to record where the probe is in regard to the tool/tap. I guess the Mach people would call it a wizard. I'm not that classy, so I'd just claim its good enough for the girls I go with. > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
