[viroy]

When I use 'feed hold', 'stop' or 'reset', the machining stops right where it is and turns off the spindle... this is all good except I would like it to also retract the spindle height to a safe distance from the part... maybe 2in/50mm
I cannot find any setting to do this and if there is a problem such as needing to tighten stock clamps or even just cleaning away chips or lubing the bit, it really should immediately retract.... only exception would be E-stop, which is working fine.
Is there an option to cause a Z-Axis retraction on 'feed hold' or 'stop' in Mach3?

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
are you using Mach3 or Mach4?.

There is not anyway to change the behaviour in Mach3, at least to my knowledge, but then I haven't used mach3 for ten years. Mach4 can be modified.
You would add a z axis movement command attached to the FeedHold script.

Craig

[viroy]

Mach3
I havent tried mach4 yet

[deadlykitten]

hy an okuma can do that, thus to macro the feed hold, 'learn' from manual intervention, and other things

i hope there are such specs on mach

can't you code it on '/' ? kindly

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
its been so long since I've used Mach3 that I cant remember being able to do as OP wants, but you certainly can in Mach4. To my way of thinking Mach3 is obsolete.

Mach4 has an internally programmed action called FeedHold, which is self explanatory, and this action is logically attached to and triggered by the button.

To do as OP wishes you would replace the action with a short macro:

function FeedHoldwithRetract()
   local inst=mc.mcGetInstance()
   mc.mcCntlFeedHold(inst)
   mc.mcCntlGcodeExecuteWait(inst,'g0 z50')
end

Note the z axis move could be more sophisticated, for instance it could be a relative move of 50mm, or or it could move to a register value 'iregs0/SafeRetractHeight', and that
register value could be programmed by the user, or maybe supplied by the Gcode. The example is just to illustrate how simple it is.

This sort of programmed functionality is one of Mach4's strengths.

Craig

[viroy]

aha, under config->safeZ setup, my 'stop button safe height' was at 0.

I may give mach4 a try though, I really dont like the simulation or display layout of mach3