Tool change: bigger indicator that the touch plate is active

[ChrisAttebery]

Hi Dave,

Sometimes chips land in just the right spot that they short out my touch plate. I have a couple ideas on how to change my design but I haven't settled on one yet. I know that there is an indicator on the tool change page that shows when the touch plate is active, but sometimes I miss it and then the control resets.

I think that if the TLO touch plate is active the TLO routine should be suspended until the plate is inactive. At the least there should be a BIG flashing pop up in the middle of the screen to warn of this problem. I really should start using the "do not measure RH tools" option, but I only have a few and swap them on a fairly regular basis. I'd hate to have a crash because I forgot to measure a tool beforehand.

I've been using MSM for almost a year now and this is the only fault I can find with the program.

Thanks,


Chris

[DaveCVI]

Hi Chris,

Hi Dave,

Sometimes chips land in just the right spot that they short out my touch plate. I have a couple ideas on how to change my design but I haven't settled on one yet.

In case you are not aware of them, there are MSM hooks that can be useful for this situation.
In particular see section 15.9.1.1.4 of the user manual - that describes a hook that is called just before a TLO measurement is done. I use it to run a short script that toggles an output that causes a solenoid to blast compressed air on my touch plate. This removes any coolant or chips that may have settled on the touch plate.

...I know that there is an indicator on the tool change page that shows when the touch plate is active, but sometimes I miss it and then the control resets.

When mach starts to execute a G31 operation, it first checks to see if the probe input is triggered as of the start of the command. Mach considers this to be an error condition (I suspect that is what causes the reset you refer to).
This check is done by mach since the probe input must not be triggered at the start of the G31. Mach uses the condition of the probe input at the end of the G31 move to indicate if the target location was reached (probe not triggered at end of G31) or if the probe was triggered before the target location (Probe is triggered at end of G31). BTW - the probe input is used for both probes and touch plates - they both use G31 motion.

...I think that if the TLO touch plate is active the TLO routine should be suspended until the plate is inactive. At the least there should be a BIG flashing pop up in the middle of the screen to warn of this problem. I really should start using the "do not measure RH tools" option, but I only have a few and swap them on a fairly regular basis. I'd hate to have a crash because I forgot to measure a tool beforehand.

You could use the hook I mentioned above to run a little script that would do this for your machine. For example, you could read the input of the probe line and pause until whatever condition you want is satisfied (like waiting for you to close a dialog box you threw up) and then you could exit your script and the TLO routine would continue.

I've been using MSM for almost a year now and this is the only fault I can find with the program.
Thanks,
Chris

I figure that's a pretty good score - thanks!

Dave