Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

MSM Mill mode support
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moto52000
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Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:38 pm

Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by moto52000 »

Hi, I loaded the MSM screen some time ago on my laptop and did not get around to really testing it much. My laptop is not connected to my mill so the MACH3 is just for messing with changes etc. Now I'm looking again at a new screen and cannot get MACH to open at all. I get an error telling me that my eval of MSM is over, then it closes before I can select another screen. Can you remind me how to change the screen set back to standard? Once there I will likely reload MSM and give it a go.

Thanks in advance.
Glen.
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DaveCVI
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Re: Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by DaveCVI »

Hi Glen,
When you set up MSM, assuming you followed the read me instructions, you set up a separate profile to start mach and load MSM.
So you can just start mach with the non-MSM profile that you had before.

If you set your only working profile to use MSM and the trial expired, that's a bit harder to fix up.
If this is the case let me know and we'll fix it up the hard (manual) way.

FYI - If the MSM trial has expired on that PC, starting without MSM and then restarting with MSM again will not restart the trial period - once the 30 days is up, MSM is going to refuse to run (that's sort of the point of a trial period ;) ). If you now want to evaluate MSM and need an extended trial contact me and that can be arranged.

Dave
Productivity Software for Personal CNC Machinists
http://www.CalypsoVentures.com
moto52000
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:38 pm

Re: Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by moto52000 »

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought I followed the read me but it looks like I failed that one, I did find an install called "~$ch3Mill" that did allow Mach3 to open, all the others are MSM of different sorts. Now that I have it open I can change screens and create a new profile so at least I have that going....

I'm aware the software will not function once eval expired but it's all worthless to me if it won't open. Simply thought I would look at it again because I was searching for probing and MSM came up.
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DaveCVI
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Re: Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by DaveCVI »

Glen,
moto52000 wrote:Thanks for the quick reply. I thought I followed the read me but it looks like I failed that one, I did find an install called "~$ch3Mill" that did allow Mach3 to open, all the others are MSM of different sorts. Now that I have it open I can change screens and create a new profile so at least I have that going....
OK, now that you have a non-MSM profile you can use the mach menu, view, load screen to load a screen set other than MachStdMIll.set.
You will also need to copy the stock mach3 mcode macros ffor stock mach to the profile's macro directory. MSM uses it's own Mcodes for things like M3, M4, M6 etc and they will not run on stock mach - so you need to get the stock mach macros back for the non-MSM profile. If you don't have any non-MSM profile, then you'll need to reinstall Mach to get mach to put the stock macros in the Mach3Mill directory under c:\mach3\macros - you can then copy them from there.
moto52000 wrote: I'm aware the software will not function once eval expired but it's all worthless to me if it won't open. Simply thought I would look at it again because I was searching for probing and MSM came up.
That is why I said that if you want an extended MSM evaluation, I can arrange that for you. I have no problem in a situation like this with someone wanting to do more evaluation time. 30 days usually does it, but not always - such is life.
If you want to evaluate MSM further on that PC, let me know and I get in touch with you directly to set it up.

Dave
Productivity Software for Personal CNC Machinists
http://www.CalypsoVentures.com
moto52000
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Re: Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by moto52000 »

Sounds like I need to ensure I READ the manual before I mess with these screens. I'm glad my mill PC is not on the net or I likely would have been all kinds of upset at myself. Is there a way to safely load the screens on a my mill PC and be able to toggle back and forth between screen sets if I run into issues? I thought I saw a free version of your screen, if so, maybe I should load that too get used to the layout, then move to the full version after I get a probe. Do you have a probe or probe plans you recommend?

Glen
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DaveCVI
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Re: Eval expired, having problems opening MACH3

Post by DaveCVI »

MSM is a lot more than just a simple set of screen pages, it extends the functionality of mach in several areas. Thus it has to replace stock Mcode macros with the MSM specific ones. The changes it makes are one reason the read me setup instructions have you set up a separate profile for running MSM. That way you can smiply start Mach with an MSM or a non-MSM profile and the MSM specifc changes are then confined to the MSM profile.

There are two editions of MSM - Personal and Professional. The personal edition is free of license fee (but licnesed for personal non-commercial use only) and it only provides the MSM user interface and does not have the functional extensions (like the probing support which it sounds like you are interested in). The pro edition has all the MSM features.

Either edition makes mods to the stock setup - so the separate profile should be done no matter which edition you plan to use.

Re probes, please see this sticky topin in this forum:
http://calypsoventures.com/forums/viewt ... p?f=6&t=14

Dave
Productivity Software for Personal CNC Machinists
http://www.CalypsoVentures.com
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