TurnTable Plugin for UCCNC Lathe Use

[eabrust]

Howdy UCCNC Gang, especially to the lathe guys !


I've been a M3 Turn user for a long time. I've given M4 an honest attempt at setup but am not a fan, and got really frustrated trying a few other controllers. So with my lathe's computer running M3 w/ PPort nearing end of usefullness, I decided that I needed a new turn solution before it dies on me.

My lathe needs aren't to complicated, except for turning threads now and then. So I've taken a crack at a plugin that implements:

Radius / Diameter mode (user select-able on the fly)
tool table w/ X & Z offsets
automatic application of tool offsets during GCode execution (uses G92 as the tool offset)
input boxes/buttons for simplifying tool touch off.
Automatically sets X/Z view in UCCNC when load a gcode file

ToolTable UC Lathe_Prelim Demo_2-26-20.zip

(674.8 KiB) Downloaded 990 times

I've done enough preliminary testing to know it works for me. It has been tested on a small lathe using a UC100 control, and tool changes done manually w/ UCCNC set to 'stop and wait for cyclestart on M6'. The plugin sits in the background, and watches for the 'active tool' number in UCCNC to change, and then it loads the new offsets. I did have it parsing the 'active line' GCode, but found in some instances that the GCode line w/ a toolchange call could go by too fast for the plugin to catch. But, it seems to work well for me at the moment.



I would love to hear feedback if anyone is brave enough to want to play with it and test it out, especially someone with a toolchanger and M6 macro enabled. Consider this 'alpha' software , however I have turned a part from start to finish with this changing my offsets for me with no glitch.

This video is an attempt to give a brief overview and 'how to', without me writing a brief manual. The zip contains the plugin DLL, the sample GCode I ran, and two XML files (the settings and the tool table as I last hit save). If you try the plugin, you will certainly have to set it up and enter your own tool offsets!! My examples are provided only as that, an example.

If there is enough interest and discussion on things to work on / add, I'll certainly be open to trying to add more than what it is currently. I've certainly read through all the 'wishlist' for turn in the forum here. Just not sure yet how much else can be accomplished (such as G96/G97, feed/rev, etc...). At this point, its mostly for my own needs and for fun that I'm writing it.

regards,
Eric

[cncdrive]

Nice plugin Eric. Thank you for sharing.

[eabrust]

Thanks Balazs, appreciate the feedback.


I was in the garage monkeying around and figured I do a quick video on the tool touch off process I do with probing enabled. I realize there are lots of ways to accomplish tool touchoff, but this is what I'm doing and figured I'd show it as a point of reference. Making a 'touch off' tool to use with probing (JSP) speeds touch off setup considerably.


One question for other lathe users about what they would expect during a tool touchoff for behavior. If you watch the video below, you'll note that the last tool I do, the X axis DRO doesn't go to the value I have set for the ID of my 'touch off tool' that I have set in the input box after I do the 'touch' button. The reason for this is I had a 'wear' value set for that tool. I'm not smart enough to say what I'm doing is right or wrong, so lets turn it into a debate .... just kidding, just looking for input and comments

SO my question is, if you were doing tool touchoffs, and you may have 'wear' values set in the table as well on some tools, would you like the plugin to:
[*]Do nothing to the wear value, set the offset so that internally it would have achieved the right diameter (ignoring the wear value), then add in the existing wear value to offset the axis additional over the touched diameter offset? (this is what it is doing now)
[*]Set the wear value back to zero automatically
[*]Use the value that is in the wear column to calculate the 'offset' value, so that the axis will equal the touchoff diameter in the end
[*]Give some checkbox options to select some of the above as a user preference?




Thanks for any input

regards
Eric

[NikolayUA24]

I installed your plugin and wanted to try how it works. Loaded a G code that specifies G95 feed per revolution. Mach3Turn runs this code for 3 minutes. And UCCNC crawls like a turtle, set the axis settings as in Mach3Turn.

[cncdrive]

UCCNC supports G93 and G94 only, G95 is not supported at the moment.

[Robertspark]

UCCNC supports G93 and G94 only, G95 is not supported at the moment.

Any updates to uccnc planned?

G95 + G96?

been a long time since the last beta, so I was just wondering

[Robertspark]

Any plans for G95 (feed / rev) and G96 (constant surface cutting speed)?

if so, how far off?

(yes I know its been a bad year {for everyone} and there is little end in sight for the time being)

Interested to see what development progress is being made with uccnc

[cncdrive]

Hi Rob,

I'm not sure how is it planned, we are on holiday already, but will check it in the beginning of January.

[Robertspark]

no problem have a good Christmas, hopefully next year will bring life back to normal. I keep thinking it's all a dream.... and I'll wake up back in march 2020...

[cncdrive]

Hi Rob,

Thank you and you too have a Merry Christmas.

And G95 will be sure added soon, it was planned to be added a long time ago, we wanted to add it together with the G93, but finally only added the G93 at tht time. The G96 was not planned, but when we will start implementing a lathe screenset then we will have to add that too for sure.