M61 seems not to be working

OK I now have understood and executed your instructions. I have replaced /usr/bin/io with
the io file you provided and just for good measure I performed a restarted of the computer.

Despite this Axis still fails to respond to the M61 Qn and reports a No tool status.
Have forgot some other detail???

Despite this Axis still fails to respond to the M61 Qn and reports a No tool status.

This is not a fix for M61, it is a modified iocontrol which allows the tool number to be updated via the 2 pins I described.

If you do not have a toolchanger component or some other method of triggering them, they will not be of use to you, sorry.

OK since this is no going to fix the basic problem, I will attempt a modification
to my tool change G code routine or create a G code program to provide the
desired tool rack loading function.

Is it possible to read and set HAL pins or signals directly in a G code routine?
Or willI have to do it from within a Bash file via a M100 user defined command?

Is it possible to read and set HAL pins or signals directly in a G code routine?

To a limited extent through gladevcp
www.linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/remap/structure.html

As I see it, the basis of the problem, is that you want the display in Axis to change to reflect the new tool number.
That is a different issue to updating the current tool number

There is only one effective way to do this as Axis stands, that is to command a tool change to a number that your toolchanger knows is already the current tool,
so that it just returns a tool changed signal.

That updates everything that Axis reads and changes the displayed number.

M61 actually prevents this happening by setting iocontrol.0.tool-number and preventing the tool-change signal being emitted.

Whatever toolchanger method you choose, it has to be aware of its own state somehow.

As you are currently manually inserting tools and then updating M61, you could change the tool and select a numbered button connected to a halui.mdi-command-NN which contains M6Tn
If your toolchanger knew what tool was changed, it would just return the tool-changed signal and all would be updated.

One possible gcode solution:

So say the halui.mdi-command calls a sub instead of a one line command.
That sub sets a gcode variable read by the toolchanger called say #<_current_tool> to the number of the button
The next line of the sub is M6Tn
When the tool-change command passes to the toolchanger, it compares the number to the one in #<_current_tool>
Because they are the same, it does nothing and returns the tool-changed signal
Voila, Axis is updated

Hopefully gives some ideas

regards

Thanks Andy

I must reset my menu to the devel docs.
Because I have not used re-mapping, I have fallen behind what can be read in gcode

This item says it all
www.linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/remap/structure.html#_status

M61 (remapped or not) is broken in iocontrol and requires iocontrol-v2 to actually work.

Andy Pugh wrote:

You could use M6 T#<_hal[iocontrol.0.tool-number]> to update Axis.

I think the problem will be the same, if iocontrol.0.tool-number is the same as the number passed after T, iocontrol does nothing,
so it never even gets to do a dummy change through the tool changer component

This is starting to add another reason to your combining of iocontrol functions within a tool changer component.

I have thought about writing such a component, stripping out the toolchange code from iocontrol and adding a simple hal_manual_ toolchange like sequence.
What prevents me is that it will be using the old, to become redundant tool table structure, so would be rather time limited before requiring complete re-write.

How is the tool table going?

regards

Andy Pugh wrote:

haven't done any code-related stuff for two weeks, I am trying to get outstanding hardware projects "put to bed" so I can concentrate on it.
plus.google.com/photos/10816450465640438.../5901688686374813281

Looking good, serious bit of cast iron and some non-trivial conversions.

Always the bit I enjoy the most, strange how it is impossible to convert a mill without already having another mill and lathe available though.