Pendant manual cut in PlasmaC/Gmoccapy

Hi all,

We would like to add a feature to our plasma cutter, which doesn't seem to be covered in the PlasmaC user guide.

We have a joypad for a pendant, and we can jog all 3 axis with it. We also use a couple of buttons for work offsets. That's all good. What we like to do is move the torch to a certain point, start the torch and use the joypad to manually cut material, to clean up offcuts etc. I have a button assigned which turns on the torch with a halui,mdi-command, which executes M3 S1. That works, press the button and the torch probes and then fires. But then it doesn't move with the jog handles. What are we missing ?

Cheers,

It should work like Pendant Single Cut:
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/html/plasma/plasma...ide.html#_single_cut

Hi Phil,

That's what I thought too, but it doesn't seem too. The boys in the shop reckon it used to work fine, but after we updated our installation it seem to have buggered this feature. No idea why or what to do.

Cheers, Peter

Nothing has been done that would change anything there that I can recall.

What GUI do you use? I tested with Axis and it seems to work.

One thing you can do is run Halshow and put a watch on halui.mode.is-manual

Hi Phil,

We use Gmoccapy, I wonder if that's the culprit. Has been giving us some surprises along the way. I'll run Halshow tomorrow and see what's going on. Thank you.

Cheers, Peter

Hi Phil,

I had a look at Halshow and halui.mode.is-manual, that is not changing state at all and true. I also tried moving the machine with the keyboard keys (enabled in Hardware settings), with the buttons on the touchscreen and again with the joypad, but when the torch starts then I can't use either of them to move the machine. Would be nice to have it work, it's so handy to rip of waste material and things like that.

Cheers, Peter

It works in simulation mode here so i am not sure what the problem could be.

I'll try to set up Gmoccapy on my machine later today or tomorrow and see what happens.

Would it be possible for you to post a compressed copy of your config directory.

Hi Phil,

I have attached a zip file with the configuration files. I have read through the PlasmaC guide and browsed the forum, but buggered if I can work out what's happening.

Cheers, Peter

I don't think it is a PlasmaC issue as it works here on both Axis and Gmoccapy.

I also don't understand how the joystick stuff works. According to your gamepadcutter.hal file the only axis connected to halui is axis Y and the jog speed output doesn't seem connected. I don't understand how it can jog at all at the moment.

It kinda looks like an incomplete conversion from v2.7 to 2.8.

Is there any documentation around on this stuff besides the standard hal man pages.

Hi Phil,

The machine uses "plasma_gamepad.hal". I have used the joypad for years and always works with a hal like that. It's been put together from a joypad setup I found years ago in the LinuxCNC pages somewhere. Even so, for some reason I can't get the machine to move with the buttons on the screen or the keys when the torch has started,

As far as I know I started with v2.8 right from the start, so we could use the dual gantry homing (which works well).

Cheers, Peter