[prototype3a]

I can totally understand them giving limited support for installs that don't use their hardware, however, I haven't been able to get ANY support lately. Not a single reply to any of my e-mails. I feel like I've been blacklisted.

Either way, I got PathPilot updated to 1.9.2.

So far, I really wish it would display an actual feedrate when you adjust the jog rate slider and I really miss the work offset tab from Mach3 because sometimes it is really convenient to see all your offsets in a table.

I think I read that PathPilot is limited to 256 characters per line of code. Is this unique to PathPilot? I don't recall ever seeing a limit like this on any other control.

[hybridmojo]

I would certainly recommend swapping hard drives or have two machines entirely. This is where I've ended up. I had to go back to Mach3 briefly for a customer part when I couldn't figure out something in PathPilot and I just moved the cables over to the Mach3 machine. These old Dell machines are less than a hundred bucks. I picked up a third one for parts for free a few weeks back.

[TurboStep]

I can totally understand them giving limited support for installs that don't use their hardware, however, I haven't been able to get ANY support lately. Not a single reply to any of my e-mails. I feel like I've been blacklisted.

Either way, I got PathPilot updated to 1.9.2.

So far, I really wish it would display an actual feedrate when you adjust the jog rate slider and I really miss the work offset tab from Mach3 because sometimes it is really convenient to see all your offsets in a table.

I think I read that PathPilot is limited to 256 characters per line of code. Is this unique to PathPilot? I don't recall ever seeing a limit like this on any other control.

Are you sure your e-mails are getting through? I've always received prompt responses.
"I got PathPilot updated to 1.9.2." did you mean 1.9.1 or do you have a private source? The PathPilot software center only lists up to 1.9.1.
I've never needed to know how fast I'm jogging and I've never been interested in the values of work offsets but the latter can be viewed in the Offsets Tab under "Work" (see top left).
I have no idea how many characters are permitted per line but g-code lines tend to be very short. I would expect comments to be the longest lines but I generally try to keep all code or comment lines short enough to print on the width of a page in portrait format. I've never needed anything close to 256 characters in any programming language.
Step

[SCzEngrgGroup]

"I've never needed anything close to 256 characters in any programming language." - OTOH, in this day and age, when every computer has mayn Gigabytes of RAM, it's just silly to impose such a meager limitation. It could be at least 1K, even 4K, and nobody would ever know the difference, and nobody would ever "run into the wall"....

Regards,
Ray L.

[kstrauss]

We have the low profile 5I25/6I25 brackets available...

Unfortunately to get it from Mesa to Canada the special bracket is us$5 + us$46.20 for shipping via USPS or us$123.92 via UPS Saver. That seems rather a lot to ship something that, according to the quote, weighs 0.00 pounds.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Unfortunately to get it from Mesa to Canada the special bracket is us$5 + us$46.20 for shipping via USPS or us$123.92 via UPS Saver. That seems rather a lot to ship something that, according to the quote, weighs 0.00 pounds.

Ship it via USPS Flat rate. It should fit into a small Flat Rate box, which is about $21, IIRC, from US to Canada.

Regards,
Ray L.

[daniellyall]

it might be a good idea for someone to set up a mail box services just over the boarder shipping from USA to Canada is about the same from USA to NZ what makes it quite bad

[kstrauss]

I have no choice; that is the shipping quote that the Mesa website provides to ship one low profile bracket.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I have no choice; that is the shipping quote that the Mesa website provides to ship one low profile bracket.

Well, that is completely insane. Seems like, more and more, companies only sell products as a vehicle for charging outrageous shipping and handling fees.

Regards,
Ray L.

[tmarks11]

Unfortunately to get it from Mesa to Canada the special bracket is us$5 + us$46.20 for shipping via USPS or us$123.92 via UPS Saver. That seems rather a lot to ship something that, according to the quote, weighs 0.00 pounds.

Did you call the company directly and ask or is that an on-line shipping quotation? I recently shipped a generator controller to Canada in a flat rate box, and I think it was only $25, IIRC.

Where do you live in Canada?

[MichaelHenry]

I can totally understand them giving limited support for installs that don't use their hardware, however, I haven't been able to get ANY support lately. Not a single reply to any of my e-mails. I feel like I've been blacklisted.

I could be wrong but thought that Tormach had stipulated that they would provide tech support only for owners of Tormach machines. That would make sense to me since they are essentially selling the software at the cost of producing the DVD.

[PCW_MESA]

Email us and ask for the low profile bracket, we can mall it in a padded envelope for much less

[daniellyall]

dont you have a cnc mill, just make one

[jdclark]

That's interesting. My Tormach supplied computer died many years ago and they sold me the PathPilot upgrade without ever mentioning that it required that old computer. We've been using a Dell we had laying around to run the ancient Tormach customized version of Mach3.

I've been thinking about trying to install PathPilot on a laptop but I realized today that would be silly since I couldn't install the pci-e FPGA card. I may have to swap the hard drive in the Dell and try installing PathPilot. On the other hand, I just found an Inspiron 530s on Ebay for ~$100.

I've actually been a bit annoyed that I haven't been able to get any support from them at all since buying the upgrade.

Tormach might be drifting a bit since the loss of Greg Jackson. A small company like this usually has a founder with a vision and a plan who then surrounds himself with good support. However talented the support staff might be, they need the visionary to keep the ship on course. Toss in a new software that requires a lot of de-bugging due to its limited volume, and you may see some loss of direction until someone new consolidates his position as the company leader.

[kstrauss]

dont you have a cnc mill, just make one

I did.

[prototype3a]

Are you sure your e-mails are getting through? I've always received prompt responses.
"I got PathPilot updated to 1.9.2." did you mean 1.9.1 or do you have a private source? The PathPilot software center only lists up to 1.9.1.
I've never needed to know how fast I'm jogging and I've never been interested in the values of work offsets but the latter can be viewed in the Offsets Tab under "Work" (see top left).
I have no idea how many characters are permitted per line but g-code lines tend to be very short. I would expect comments to be the longest lines but I generally try to keep all code or comment lines short enough to print on the width of a page in portrait format. I've never needed anything close to 256 characters in any programming language.
Step

Maybe it was 1.9.1? I forget honestly.

Having a feedrate displayed is handy for quick/dirty manual machining from the arrow keys.

I found the work offset tab the next day and then I felt kind of silly for not noticing it before. However, after noticing it, I saw that there were only ~10 work offsets. I was shocked by the lack of a G54.1 Pxx set of offsets as they're REALLY handy for doing large batches of parts.

I've written some seriously complex g-code in the past and I wouldn't be surprised if some lines exceeded 256 characters. However, these were generic solution subroutines and contained a great deal of variables, functions and math.

[prototype3a]

Well, it seems 1.9.2 is available now with a release date of 8/28/2015 so I suppose I'll have to update it again on Monday.


Does anyone know if there is a way to start a program somewhere other than the beginning?

[Uman]

Does anyone know if there is a way to start a program somewhere other than the beginning?

Place the mouse curser at desired start point and right click and the option will appear.

-uman

[mountaindew]

Well, it seems 1.9.2 is available now with a release date of 8/28/2015 so I suppose I'll have to update it again on Monday.


Does anyone know if there is a way to start a program somewhere other than the beginning?

Place the mouse curser at desired start point and right click and the option will appear.

-uman

Be careful doing this!
I would advise air testing code and your procedure until your comfortable starting and stopping code and where its safe to do so.
Also I would advise not starting a program that was just loaded and the user wants to skip a bunch of operations without first running the beginning to set modes and offsets. "even this might not be safe if your code changes offsets between operations and that line of code was skipped"
I use cam software that can be forced to repeat these codes before operation sets and allow a user to start at these points safely this might not be the case with code generated by your cam.
It is a handy skill to develop and use if care and thought is applied.


Edit: after reading prototype3a previous posts I would guess he knows this. And this comment is for other readers

[prototype3a]

You're spot on about being careful about modal commands. Haas controls are pretty 'dumb' about starting somewhere in the middle of a program. Flashcut CNC was the best control software I've ever used in this respect. It would look at the code that lead up to your chosen start point and set modal commands accordingly.