[Emc-users] Progress, if I spell it right

[Gene Heskett]

Greetings all; I am being attacked by UPS and USPS today.
I got the metal I'd ordered today, a 1/4", 12x48 sheet of 6061t6, a 14"
piece of 1/2x1 brass for steady rest shoes, and a pair of 1/2" hex brass
bars to make cathead & spider bolts out of. Measuring the barrel, I'll
need to round up some 2" ID pipe about 11" long with 1/4" walls to make
that cat head.

I did get the end of the action squared up, and shaved a couple thou off
the face of the bolt to square that up. And with the 6061 plate I can
make the dro mount for the tailstock.

Would have made more progress but it was 107F in the shop when I pulled
the door open with the hex brass in my hand, but I believe it will be
easier and faster to make those screws in the bigger lathe with its 3
jaw chuck than fool with TLM putting the 3 jaw back on it, thats a pita
trying to get those 6mm nuts re-started on the studs sticking thru the
flange on TLM's spindle. Got about a dozen of those screws to make. 4
ea, 3 different lengths.

I got a universal arbor 2 or 3 days back, and a 5" diameter, 6000 grit
diamond disk that should serve as a tool sharpener came in today too.
Results TBD.

Still waiting on the new live center.

Anybody with some 75F weather to spare, I sure could use a train load of
it here in WV. My icemaker is being overworked.

I do have one problem with the r-pi 3b and LCNC. The arrow keys,
left-right, work every place else but in the MDI cmdline box. So editing
a line called back has to be done by clicking after the recalled line,
then backspacing to where the change needs to be, and retyping the rest
of the line erased by the backspace key.

This has been a problem for the last 7 or 8 updates. Works normally on
the rest of the x86 machines. Swapping keyboards has no effect. BTDT.

Thanks everybody.

Cheers, Gene Heskett

[Chris Albertson]

Gene,

Try h, j, k, l keys if the arrow keys don't work. VI was created LONG
ago back when arrow keys were a luxury item. The old "hjkl" still should
work for you.

It is un intuitive at first then you get into it and it is faster than
using arrow keys because you don't need to move your hand HL is left
right JK is u down.

[Gene Heskett]

Post by Chris Albertson
Gene,
Try h, j, k, l keys if the arrow keys don't work. VI was created
LONG ago back when arrow keys were a luxury item. The old "hjkl"
still should work for you.

I'll see if I can remember to give them a try.

Post by Chris Albertson
It is un intuitive at first then you get into it and it is faster than
using arrow keys because you don't need to move your hand HL is left
right JK is u down.

Its only half of them, Chris. The up-down arrows work fine. Focus is
fubared too, forcing a click in the mdi line box before a return is
recognized. One must develop two different habits to make productive use
of the armhf-jessie install. And its a mental distraction from ones
train of thought that disturbs concentration and creativity.

The hereafter problem. :)

Cheers, Gene Heskett

[Phillip Carter]

Seems like a problem in jessie
<https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/issues/28>

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by Chris Albertson
Gene,
Try h, j, k, l keys if the arrow keys don't work. VI was created
LONG ago back when arrow keys were a luxury item. The old "hjkl"
still should work for you.

I'll see if I can remember to give them a try.

Post by Chris Albertson
It is un intuitive at first then you get into it and it is faster than
using arrow keys because you don't need to move your hand HL is left
right JK is u down.

Its only half of them, Chris. The up-down arrows work fine. Focus is
fubared too, forcing a click in the mdi line box before a return is
recognized. One must develop two different habits to make productive use
of the armhf-jessie install. And its a mental distraction from ones
train of thought that disturbs concentration and creativity.
The hereafter problem. :)
Cheers, Gene Heskett

[Gene Heskett]

Post by Phillip Carter
Seems like a problem in jessie
<https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/issues/28>

Interesting. My take on it is that its something related to the initial
key assignments in the .ini file, where one can scramble the key vs axis
moved. This was because the config I started with was missing one of
these, so the keys were scrambled:

[TRAJ]
COORDINATES = X Z

and
[KINS]
KINEMATICS = trivkins coordinates=XZ

Once those were added to the .ini file, that behaved itself.

Perhaps the MDI commandline editor (someone mentioned vi but that comes
with a huge load of baggage for a one line editor) code missed out on
those key coupling assignments?

Post by Phillip Carter

Post by Chris Albertson
Gene,
Try h, j, k, l keys if the arrow keys don't work. VI was created
LONG ago back when arrow keys were a luxury item. The old "hjkl"
still should work for you.

FWIW Chris, those didn't work either.

But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about 2
hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass screws
for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion keys to
the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis left control
panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the reference
position, and do a touch off which is automatically applied to the last
axis moved.

But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to see
which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing the touch
off.

So, after I had drilled and tapped the holes in the alu ring, I am making
the brass bolts to fit those tapped holes. We badly need a coupling
mechanism between the motion.axis-N-jog-enable, and those buttons
tallying that in the axis display.

Driving the machine with my dials doesn't tell axis I just moved Z, which
is required with the tool change since 3 tools are involved. So after
very carefully getting X set so the threads I made fit rather snuggly,
at about bolt 5 I didn't notice the teeny dot was in the wrong circle,
and did a z touch off to my very carefully set X offset.

At the very least, the touch-off box needs one more button to 'undo' the
last touch-off, so we can undo it, then select the right little axis
button, then touch-off the axis we intended to. That would at least be a
recovery path if the wrong axis was touched off. As it is, the recovery
to a usable state is putting it back a bit bigger, manually cutting off
the bad thread, resetting the stickout, and an hour re-running the code
while touching X off about .05mm smaller at a time until it fits again.

Thats frustrating to say it in mild terms. Very frustrating. Fix it,
please. Its a much larger problem IMO than the MDI editors key
missfires. That can be tolerated, a bigger font for the MDI commandline
would help as it can place the cursor with care and a stable mouse, but
the wrong axis touch-off is 1000x the time and material waster.

Thanks all.

Cheers, Gene Heskett

[dave]

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by Phillip Carter
Seems like a problem in jessie
<https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/issues/28>

Interesting. My take on it is that its something related to the initial
key assignments in the .ini file, where one can scramble the key vs axis
moved. This was because the config I started with was missing one of
[TRAJ]
COORDINATES = X Z
and
[KINS]
KINEMATICS = trivkins coordinates=XZ
Once those were added to the .ini file, that behaved itself.
Perhaps the MDI commandline editor (someone mentioned vi but that comes
with a huge load of baggage for a one line editor) code missed out on
those key coupling assignments?

Post by Phillip Carter

Post by Chris Albertson
Gene,
Try h, j, k, l keys if the arrow keys don't work. VI was created
LONG ago back when arrow keys were a luxury item. The old "hjkl"
still should work for you.

FWIW Chris, those didn't work either.
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about 2
hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass screws
for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion keys to
the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis left control
panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the reference
position, and do a touch off which is automatically applied to the last
axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to see
which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing the touch
off.
So, after I had drilled and tapped the holes in the alu ring, I am making
the brass bolts to fit those tapped holes. We badly need a coupling
mechanism between the motion.axis-N-jog-enable, and those buttons
tallying that in the axis display.
Driving the machine with my dials doesn't tell axis I just moved Z, which
is required with the tool change since 3 tools are involved. So after
very carefully getting X set so the threads I made fit rather snuggly,
at about bolt 5 I didn't notice the teeny dot was in the wrong circle,
and did a z touch off to my very carefully set X offset.
At the very least, the touch-off box needs one more button to 'undo' the
last touch-off, so we can undo it, then select the right little axis
button, then touch-off the axis we intended to. That would at least be a
recovery path if the wrong axis was touched off. As it is, the recovery
to a usable state is putting it back a bit bigger, manually cutting off
the bad thread, resetting the stickout, and an hour re-running the code
while touching X off about .05mm smaller at a time until it fits again.
Thats frustrating to say it in mild terms. Very frustrating. Fix it,
please. Its a much larger problem IMO than the MDI editors key
missfires. That can be tolerated, a bigger font for the MDI commandline
would help as it can place the cursor with care and a stable mouse, but
the wrong axis touch-off is 1000x the time and material waster.
Thanks all.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

Rather than touch off to adjust; change the offset, very quantitative
and fast.

Dave

[Gene Heskett]

Post by dave

Post by Gene Heskett
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about
2 hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass
screws for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion
keys to the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis
left control panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the
reference position, and do a touch off which is automatically
applied to the last axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to
see which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing
the touch off.
So, after I had drilled and tapped the holes in the alu ring, I am
making the brass bolts to fit those tapped holes. We badly need a
coupling mechanism between the motion.axis-N-jog-enable, and those
buttons tallying that in the axis display.
Driving the machine with my dials doesn't tell axis I just moved Z,
which is required with the tool change since 3 tools are involved.
So after very carefully getting X set so the threads I made fit
rather snuggly, at about bolt 5 I didn't notice the teeny dot was in
the wrong circle, and did a z touch off to my very carefully set X
offset.
At the very least, the touch-off box needs one more button to 'undo'
the last touch-off, so we can undo it, then select the right little
axis button, then touch-off the axis we intended to. That would at
least be a recovery path if the wrong axis was touched off. As it
is, the recovery to a usable state is putting it back a bit bigger,
manually cutting off the bad thread, resetting the stickout, and an
hour re-running the code while touching X off about .05mm smaller at
a time until it fits again.
Thats frustrating to say it in mild terms. Very frustrating. Fix
it, please. Its a much larger problem IMO than the MDI editors key
missfires. That can be tolerated, a bigger font for the MDI
commandline would help as it can place the cursor with care and a
stable mouse, but the wrong axis touch-off is 1000x the time and
material waster.
Thanks all.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

Rather than touch off to adjust; change the offset, very quantitative
and fast.
Dave

Where Dave?

Thank you.

Cheers, Gene Heskett

[dave]

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by dave

Post by Gene Heskett
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about
2 hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass
screws for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion
keys to the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis
left control panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the
reference position, and do a touch off which is automatically
applied to the last axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to
see which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing
the touch off.
So, after I had drilled and tapped the holes in the alu ring, I am
making the brass bolts to fit those tapped holes. We badly need a
coupling mechanism between the motion.axis-N-jog-enable, and those
buttons tallying that in the axis display.
Driving the machine with my dials doesn't tell axis I just moved Z,
which is required with the tool change since 3 tools are involved.
So after very carefully getting X set so the threads I made fit
rather snuggly, at about bolt 5 I didn't notice the teeny dot was in
the wrong circle, and did a z touch off to my very carefully set X
offset.
At the very least, the touch-off box needs one more button to 'undo'
the last touch-off, so we can undo it, then select the right little
axis button, then touch-off the axis we intended to. That would at
least be a recovery path if the wrong axis was touched off. As it
is, the recovery to a usable state is putting it back a bit bigger,
manually cutting off the bad thread, resetting the stickout, and an
hour re-running the code while touching X off about .05mm smaller at
a time until it fits again.
Thats frustrating to say it in mild terms. Very frustrating. Fix
it, please. Its a much larger problem IMO than the MDI editors key
missfires. That can be tolerated, a bigger font for the MDI
commandline would help as it can place the cursor with care and a
stable mouse, but the wrong axis touch-off is 1000x the time and
material waster.
Thanks all.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

Rather than touch off to adjust; change the offset, very quantitative
and fast.
Dave

Where Dave?
Thank you.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

In TK it is Scripts -> set coordinates ... I just assumed (???) that
axis would have a similar feature.

Dave

[Gene Heskett]

Post by dave

Post by Gene Heskett

Post by dave

Post by Gene Heskett
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch,
about 2 hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8
brass screws for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the
4 motion keys to the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of
the axis left control panel. So you can set the speed to creep,
run it to the reference position, and do a touch off which is
automatically applied to the last axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to
see which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing
the touch off.
So, after I had drilled and tapped the holes in the alu ring, I am
making the brass bolts to fit those tapped holes. We badly need a
coupling mechanism between the motion.axis-N-jog-enable, and those
buttons tallying that in the axis display.
Driving the machine with my dials doesn't tell axis I just moved
Z, which is required with the tool change since 3 tools are
involved. So after very carefully getting X set so the threads I
made fit rather snuggly, at about bolt 5 I didn't notice the teeny
dot was in the wrong circle, and did a z touch off to my very
carefully set X offset.
At the very least, the touch-off box needs one more button to
'undo' the last touch-off, so we can undo it, then select the
right little axis button, then touch-off the axis we intended to.
That would at least be a recovery path if the wrong axis was
touched off. As it is, the recovery to a usable state is putting
it back a bit bigger, manually cutting off the bad thread,
resetting the stickout, and an hour re-running the code while
touching X off about .05mm smaller at a time until it fits again.
Thats frustrating to say it in mild terms. Very frustrating. Fix
it, please. Its a much larger problem IMO than the MDI editors key
missfires. That can be tolerated, a bigger font for the MDI
commandline would help as it can place the cursor with care and a
stable mouse, but the wrong axis touch-off is 1000x the time and
material waster.
Thanks all.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

Rather than touch off to adjust; change the offset, very
quantitative and fast.
Dave

Where Dave?
Thank you.
Cheers, Gene Heskett

In TK it is Scripts -> set coordinates ... I just assumed (???) that
axis would have a similar feature.

Actually gcode does: again the docs are quite lacking, too concise. Shows
G92 axises, so I presume I could combine this into one program and put
a: G92 z0.000 at the top of the file after setting the offset to put the
first tool at the face of the stickout, then before turning the thread,
G92 z-2.0374 (mm's) in just after a tool change. Ditto for the cutoff
tool.

I'm finding either the head isn't aligned, or I need to rotate the coords
around the non-existent y axis by half a degree to compensate for the
taper the flexability of the brass stickout when its been reduced to a
hair less than 8mm's. I am finding the end of the screw is a couple thou
bigger than at the thread end near the hex cap. I can do that with a
g33.1, but g76 can't other than with the L2 and an E length=length of
thread - one thread pitch. But thats way more comp than needed for
this. For a 21mm long thread, my calipers show about a 3 thou diff.

The next 4 screws should have around 25 to 30 mm's of thread, depending
on the size of the pipe I can src. But the weather is so black
headlights on is an excellent idea. Noisy too, and some wet.

Different question now. I've been studying up on the tool table, and what
I am seeing seems to indicate that at least for common turning tools, a
jig for setting the cutters stickout applicable to a box of loose tool
holders, would be handy. What method do most of you use so that a dull
tool can be removed from the QC holder, sharpened or rechipped, and
returned to the tool holder with exactly the same stickout it had when
it was last mounted and put to use. URL's to pix of what works best in
your shop would be nice.

Thanks a bunch everybody.

Post by dave
Dave
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Cheers, Gene Heskett

[John Kasunich]

Post by Gene Heskett
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about 2
hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass screws
for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion keys to
the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis left control
panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the reference
position, and do a touch off which is automatically applied to the last
axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to see
which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing the touch
off.

I have accidentally touched off the wrong axis before, and I agree that
it is very frustrating. But I don't blame the software. Sure, it might be
_convenient_ for the touch-off dialog to default to whatever axis was
moved last. But that is only a convenience. For example, suppose I'm
trying to get a lathe tool touched off. I might use jogging or MDI to
take a light cut, then jog (or MDI) the Z axis to get the tool clear
_without_ moving X. Then I can get out the micrometer, measure the
diameter I just cut, and touch off X accordingly.

Note that I moved Z last but want to touch off X....

After accidentally touching off the wrong axis once or twice I learned
that it is MY JOB to make sure I'm touching off the right axis. The
software can't read my mind. Sure, I _often_ want to touch off the
last axis I moved, but not _always_

[Ken Strauss]

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2017 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Progress, if I spell it right

Post by Gene Heskett
But another problem I have mentioned previously ate my lunch, about 2
hours and some material yesterday while making the first 8 brass
screws for the rear of the spindle spider. Axis couples the 4 motion
keys to the two teeny little tally eyeballs at the top of the axis
left control panel. So you can set the speed to creep, run it to the
reference position, and do a touch off which is automatically applied
to the last axis moved.
But HAL doesn't!!!!!!! One must get close enough to the monitor to see
which axis has the focus, and fix it if its wrong before doing the
touch off.

I have accidentally touched off the wrong axis before, and I agree that it

is very

frustrating. But I don't blame the software. Sure, it might be

_convenient_ for

the touch-off dialog to default to whatever axis was moved last. But that

is

only a convenience. For example, suppose I'm trying to get a lathe tool
touched off. I might use jogging or MDI to take a light cut, then jog (or

MDI)

the Z axis to get the tool clear _without_ moving X. Then I can get out

the

micrometer, measure the diameter I just cut, and touch off X accordingly.
Note that I moved Z last but want to touch off X....
After accidentally touching off the wrong axis once or twice I learned

that it is

MY JOB to make sure I'm touching off the right axis. The software can't

read

my mind. Sure, I _often_ want to touch off the last axis I moved, but not
_always_
--
John Kasunich

Of course it is the operator's responsibility to do the right thing and I
hate software that makes it difficult/impossible to make my own decisions.
That said, an undo button would be really nice!

[Sebastian Kuzminsky]

Post by Ken Strauss
Of course it is the operator's responsibility to do the right thing and I
hate software that makes it difficult/impossible to make my own decisions.
That said, an undo button would be really nice!

An undo stack for touch-off would be a good addition to our GUIs.

[andy pugh]

Post by Gene Heskett
Measuring the barrel, I'll
need to round up some 2" ID pipe about 11" long with 1/4" walls to make
that cat head.

That seems rather long.
Is the spindle bore big enough to pass the barrel down it and use a
second 4-bolt steady on the left-hand end?

[Gene Heskett]

Post by andy pugh

Post by Gene Heskett
Measuring the barrel, I'll
need to round up some 2" ID pipe about 11" long with 1/4" walls to
make that cat head.

That seems rather long.
Is the spindle bore big enough to pass the barrel down it and use a
second 4-bolt steady on the left-hand end?

Yes, but I have to make its 8 bolts, 4 for clamping it on the end of the
spindle, and 4 more to clamp the small or larger end of the barrel while
doing the muzzle finishing. If the barrel is just at those bolts, and an
11" long cathead (which will need 4 more bolts, totalling 12) is clamped
in the chuck, I'll have around 2" of barrel sticking out of the cathead.
If, at some time in the future I ever work on a shorter barrel,
doubtfull because its now the only centerfire in my cabinet and I've no
plans to purchase another, then I'll have to shorten the cathead to
suit. But at my years its a 99.999% chance its a one time use.

I should make a box/crate and label it for the auction should I fall over
before the missus. It will contain all the tools I've made and used once
so far, specifically for a Enfield P-17.

Cheers, Gene Heskett

[Trent Hejazi]

try to use the finest thread pitch you can tap for on the cat head bolts.
it will make centering the barrel easier.

Post by Gene Heskett
Greetings all; I am being attacked by UPS and USPS today.
I got the metal I'd ordered today, a 1/4", 12x48 sheet of 6061t6, a 14"
piece of 1/2x1 brass for steady rest shoes, and a pair of 1/2" hex brass
bars to make cathead & spider bolts out of. Measuring the barrel, I'll
need to round up some 2" ID pipe about 11" long with 1/4" walls to make
that cat head.
I did get the end of the action squared up, and shaved a couple thou off
the face of the bolt to square that up. And with the 6061 plate I can
make the dro mount for the tailstock.
Would have made more progress but it was 107F in the shop when I pulled
the door open with the hex brass in my hand, but I believe it will be
easier and faster to make those screws in the bigger lathe with its 3
jaw chuck than fool with TLM putting the 3 jaw back on it, thats a pita
trying to get those 6mm nuts re-started on the studs sticking thru the
flange on TLM's spindle. Got about a dozen of those screws to make. 4
ea, 3 different lengths.
I got a universal arbor 2 or 3 days back, and a 5" diameter, 6000 grit
diamond disk that should serve as a tool sharpener came in today too.
Results TBD.
Still waiting on the new live center.
Anybody with some 75F weather to spare, I sure could use a train load of
it here in WV. My icemaker is being overworked.
I do have one problem with the r-pi 3b and LCNC. The arrow keys,
left-right, work every place else but in the MDI cmdline box. So editing
a line called back has to be done by clicking after the recalled line,
then backspacing to where the change needs to be, and retyping the rest
of the line erased by the backspace key.
This has been a problem for the last 7 or 8 updates. Works normally on
the rest of the x86 machines. Swapping keyboards has no effect. BTDT.
Thanks everybody.
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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[Gene Heskett]

Post by Trent Hejazi
try to use the finest thread pitch you can tap for on the cat head
bolts. it will make centering the barrel easier.

For thread strength in 1/8" thick alu, I have 8 or 10mm in mind. At 10mm,
I may have room for the internal threading tool, and that removes the
tp/mm problem as I can make them at 50 tpi. But it would be a heck of a
lot faster just to use the 10mm tap(s) I have. If I have a 10x1 that
should be usable. My 10's are more than likely 1.25mm pitch. Picky but
usable. The cat head can use the same thread, but it will be steel.

And I guess I'd better get to it.

Thanks for the reminder Trent.

[...]

Cheers, Gene Heskett