My adventures with Auggie.

[tweakie]

Thanks Art.

That would be a shame because it would rule out 1 bit images that have not been dithered being re-produced with an electromagnet.

In the meantime another 8 bit image laser produced.

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

That works really well. )


  Ive asked Mat and he doesnt see any reason why it may be limited, so
Ill debug it next run of Auggie to make sure my protocol is proper and if so
ask it be verified.

Ill let you know the result.

Thx
Art

[tweakie]

I will keep my fingers crossed  :D

Tweakie.

[tweakie]

I was not sure if this could be reproduced using Auggie but it is one of the finest optical illusions of all time. Perhaps hard to see the letters but the two squares marked A & B are exactly the same shade of grey.

This video provides a demonstration; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Sen1H ... e=youtu.be

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

Good question, Ill have to think about that one .. Id think
linearity would be very important..

Art

[tweakie]

Once you get into this 8 bit image reproduction it is really hard to know when to stop. I suppose running out of wood would do it but that?s not going to happen any time soon  ;D

Tweakie.

[tweakie]

Something that may be of interest?

Glass is a 1 bit material so 8 bit images are usually reduced to 1 bit and dithered (to create the illusion of shade) but there are alternatives. Paint is not a 1 bit material so painting the glass then lasering an 8 bit image on the paint produces some interesting results.
In this example the paint and image have been done on the rear of the glass.

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

Amazing how the horse looks almost to be in color..

  I did a similar one to the cat on the back of a mirror as a test.
Worked out pretty good at the time.

Nice work,
Art

[ArtF]

Tweakie:

  The Auggie install was just updated to correct the 1Khz limitation, it will now go down to 10hz.

Art

[tweakie]

Excellent news, thanks Art.

Tweakie.

[tweakie]

I have just been sent this picture by a good friend of mine in Hungary. He has copied a section of the A square and pasted it by the B square and done a similar thing with the B and A squares to prove that the shades of the two squares are indeed the same.

Looks like we are both impressed with Auggie?s ability to allow shades to be laser reproduced with such accuracy.

Tweakie.

[tweakie]

I am in need of a little help please.

I would like to be able to do a couple of things?

1) Add a command to the M3 script to also turn ON the Pokey?s Direction 4 (DB-25 Output pin 9) and in addition add a command to the M5 script to also turn OFF the Direction 4.

2) Add a command to the on-screen ?Laser Power? button to turn ON the Pokey?s Step 4 (DB-25 Output pin eight) at the same time as the relay is energised and turn it OFF when the relay is de-energised.

I have looked at the documentation and I am really confused so some guidance as to where to start and the direction to take would be most appreciated.

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

Hi Tweaky:

>>1) Add a command to the M3 script to also turn ON the Pokey?s Direction 4 (DB-25 Output pin 9) and in addition add a command to the M5 script to also turn OFF the Direction 4.

  Ok, to do this there are many ways. The best way to make sure an M3 turns on an output
or does an additional task to is modify the M3 script for the library your using. Since you want
this ( I assume) to happen only when using a laser, we'll modify the LaserSpindle library
which calls for the spindle to be turned on, but only when using that library as your spindle controller. (One can have many different named spindle libraries. The one you have currently selected is under Gcode libraries named "SpindleLib-Laser"

  So use the LIB button and select that library name, and press "Local Edit"

In the script MDI window the scripts for the spindle appear.

//the following function does only 1 thing for spindle on, it sets the
real-time PWM output to ON. The rest is automatic as Auggie now knows to
power the PWM as a result of grey scale, or speed or in binary depending on other options you may have selected.

global SpindleOn = function()
{
    //turn on pwm realtime mode
    //called by engine , so no need to tell system
    SpindleControl.SetRealTimePWM( true,
                                  LaserPWMPeriod,
                                  LaserAxis,
                                  LaserPWMChannel );
    print("Laser Spindle RT engaged");                               
}; 

  You wish to also turn on DIR#4.  Now when dealing with output you have to understand
a bit about a Pokeys 57CNC . It has a normal pokeys in there, and you have access to all its pins,
however, they added an external motion engine, which has 8 axis output, but uses some
of the pokeys pins to control that engine. You cannt really access those pins used for engine
control. You can use anything exposed to you.

  Looking to the test IO connected your referring to as the db25, I see the pin you describe,
is the DIR4 pin or the A axis direction pin. You have no real access to that pin, its simple the
external motion cards output for the A direction axis. Thats not to say you cant make it
do what its intended to do though, you could move the A axis forward by .01 mm's, thus making the DIR pin go high, or move -.001 to make it go low.

  Or, you could pick a pin you have access directly to such as pin16 labeled as PIN45, the pin
number tells you its a native pin to the pokeys, and you control it.

Lets assume you really need  DIR4 on pin 9 to toggle. You can add a Gcode motion for
the A axis to make it happen. Change the spindle on function to


global SpindleOn = function()
{
    //turn on pwm realtime mode
    //called by engine , so no need to tell system
    SpindleControl.SetRealTimePWM( true,
                                  LaserPWMPeriod,
                                  LaserAxis,
                                  LaserPWMChannel );
    print("Laser Spindle RT engaged");
    Engine.FeedTo( NULL,NULL,NULL, 1 ); 
    print("A Axis set positive");                           
}; 

and the spindle off to
global SpindleOff = function()
{
    //turn on pwm realtime mode
    SpindleControl.SetRealTimePWM( false,
                                  LaserPWMPeriod,
                                  LaserAxis,
                                  LaserPWMChannel );
    print("Laser Spindle RT dis-engaged");
    Engine.FeedTo( NULL,NULL, NULL, -1 );  //move A in neg direction.
    print("A Axis set negative");   
   
}; 

  Now the A Axis direction pin will reflect what M mode your in.. though
you may want to add something to make it always 1 on startup or something..


If , instead, you wish to use a digital pin.. you have pin45 on the DB pin16 or Pokeys pin20
on pin14. You could use

mypokeys = Motion(); //get a varibale to the pokeys device
mypokeys.SetPinDig( 20, 1 );// to turn on pin 20 or ,0 to turn it off.


Let me know if this confuses..

On more note, on checking this for you I noticed I must have broken the
motion script capability recently, I fixed it as I went and a new Auggie install
in uploaded as a result. Download a new version before changing your
scripts and you should be OK.

>>2) Add a command to the on-screen ?Laser Power? button to turn ON the Pokey?s Step 4 (DB-25 Output pin eight) at the same time as the relay is energised and turn it OFF when the relay is de-energised.

  Step4 you cannot control. It is from the motion engine and will only provide a step output
when the A axis moves. There is no configuration for that. Youll need to find a signal, ( like
pin 20 or 45 above) to use as digital control signals or feed one from another plug on the board.

  The laserOn button,  is a system variable button. It was placed on that panel with a variable name of ExtRelay1, so when its called, it automatically toggles that pokeys device. To modify that you'd have to remove that button from the panel, and place a new one with a script attached to it. This will take a fair bit of explanation as its the most complex use of Auggie screen designer and a bit odd to handle. Theres a few videos on scripting the panels and screens but it may be more of an education than youd like. 

  In looking into your questions, I found a few bugs, make sure you redownload the new .005 version. I notice in screen editing that the panels and screens take a very long time to swap here, I suspect it was upgrading it to a new compiler last month that made this happen. Ill be looking into auggie updates shortly to fix those annoyances..


Art
 

[tweakie]

Thanks Art, an excellent tutorial and solution ? I am most grateful.

My difficulties arise because I don?t want to change anything regarding my existing machine set-up so Auggie / 57CNC has to work with a DB25 connector and my existing pin number allocations.
My previous mod. to the ribbon cable connector works well so I could swap 16 in to 8 out and as you say use Pin 45 Out from the 57CNC re-directed to Pin 8 of my machine. Unfortunately I can?t use Pin 20 Out because is already carries the PWM signal and from what you have said I am guessing that I can?t use either Axis Enable X or Axis Enable Y.
Plan B suggests to me that my ribbon cable connector is now going to have 2 input connectors thereby giving me access to more, available, configurable, Pins. The more I think about this the more it seems to be turning into a homemade BoB  :)

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

Hi Tweaky:

  Yes, I agree. Its best to have a DB25 cable coming out thats attached to the Pokeys at more than 1 plug. That TestIO plug is fine for a simple 3 axis system, but to unleash the power
of what a Pokeys can do, its best to use all the signals you can get access to.

  I mounted several DIN terminal strips to a rail so I could then pick and choose what outputs
to use in the final DB25 to run the machine. (My machine is dedicated to Pokeys, so I then
got rid of the DB25 altogether, but in units like yours where you wish to keep compatibility
to the db 25 format, its worth doing custom wiring at the pokeys end to make up the pins of the db25 and swap as you  wish.

  I highly recommend the din rail approach if you see any on Ebay or anything. You can get din rail terminals of every plug type so that all the exposed pins can be easily used.