Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine

Nightowl

This is brilliant, thank you @infiniteloop

I'll check it out tomorrow morning (it's a bit too late here to wake the neighbours!) and let you know how I get on.

I really can't tell you how much I appreciate your help.

Thanks again, my friend

infiniteloop

@nightowl999

This is brilliant

No, it’s attentive reading. The technique for the dialog is tricky, so it helped that I remembered the thread "Echo commands…", where @mikeabuilder explained the technique in detail - BTW, it was your thread, and he addressed his "trick" to you. So you could have written the code as well. At least, you were told how to do it…

In fact, a good programmer spends at least 95% of his time on reading, 100% on meditation and the remaining 5% on coding, tests and debugging - at most…

[Edit] Oh, I forgot: When we finally fall asleep (which is rare), we dream of an algorithm to calculate a 'something' of which we only know the result: 42

Nightowl

@infiniteloop said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

No, it’s attentive reading.

I beg to differ. What you have done for me is brilliant, even if it's simple to you!

Anyway, on with the experiment...

Nightowl

@infiniteloop
There seems to be an error in the resurrect-prologue.g file, because when I use M916 in the MDI, I get the following:

Error: in file macro line 3 column 26: meta command: unknown variable 'abort_process'

I've indented the line below, as instructed, so perhaps there's a typo. I'll investigate.

I'm also getting:

Warning: Macro file 0:/sys/workzero.g not found

...but I'm not sure what caused that!

infiniteloop

@Nightowl999 Who the hell is "MDI"?

The complaint about a missing abort_process indicates that RestoreSpindleSpeed.g is either not run before - it should be called from line 3 of resurrect-prologue.g, please compare your prologue with the sample I posted yesterday…

… or, if RestoreSpindleSpeed.g has been called before, that macro does not reflect my recent modification of SaveSpindleSpeed.g: my latest version (refer to the yesterday post) generates a RestoreSpindleSpeed.g that initialises the global variable abort_process.

The warning "Macro file 0:/sys/workzero.g not found" is unrelated - I have no knowledge of a macro carrying that name, so I can't help you with that.

Nightowl

@infiniteloop

Yes, it's called from that file:

; resurrect-prologue.g
M98 P"RestoreSpindleSpeed.g"
if global.abort_process == true
	abort
; abort terminates this and all other macros in the cal chain, so 'rien ne va plus'
; Continuation has been approved, so here we go:"
M98 P"homeall.g"	; homes all axes before restarting the job
{1}

And all I did with the updated RestoreSpindleSpeed.g was copy and paste...

A thought: Should the variable be declared in config.g, or is it a system variable?

PS I tried without the curly brackets, but it made no difference, so I put them back

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

Yes, it's called from that file

Fine. Then please replace the contents of SaveSpindleSpeed.g with this here, as I've found an (unrelated) bug.

; SaveSpindleSpeed.g
; Macro to store the actual spindle speed (RPM) at the time this is called
; To restore the saved datum, call the macro "RestoreSpindleSpeed.g".
; Before it activates the spindle, RestoreSpindleSpeed.g asks whether to continue with the print or not.
; If not, the process can be stopped with these two lines in resurrect-prologue.g:
;
;	if {global.abort_process == true}
;		abort									;;; please not that this line must be indented
;
; Requires RRF 3.4 and a CNC configuration with valid spindles[0] entry in the object model


var fName = "RestoreSpindleSpeed.g"

echo >{var.fName} "; "^var.fName
echo >>{var.fName} "; Spindle speed saved from running """^{job.file.fileName}^""" CNC file"
echo >>{var.fName} ""
echo >>{var.fName} "; set up the global variable abort_process so we can abort further execution of resurrect.g:"
echo >>{var.fName} "if {!exists(global.abort_process)}"
echo >>{var.fName} "    global abort_process = true"
echo >>{var.fName} "else"
echo >>{var.fName} "    set global.abort_process = true"
echo >>{var.fName} ""
echo >>{var.fName} "; now comes the dialog:"
echo >>{var.fName} "M291 S3 R""Resurrect:"" P""Continue with <"^{job.file.fileName}^">?"""
echo >>{var.fName} ""
echo >>{var.fName} "; we will only arrive here if the dialog was closed with OK:"
echo >>{var.fName} "set global.abort_process = false"
echo >>{var.fName} "M3 S"^{spindles[0].active}
echo >>{var.fName} ""
echo >>{var.fName} ";EOF"

Then, please simulate a power outage - this step is needed to generate the proper RestoreSpindleSpeed.g macro.

Nightowl

@infiniteloop No, sorry. I get exactly the same error

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

No, sorry. I get exactly the same error

OK, let's see … Could you please compare your RestoreSpindleSpeed.g with this here:

; RestoreSpindleSpeed.g
; Spindle speed saved from running "null" CNC file

; set up the global variable abort_process so we can abort further execution of resurrect.g:
if {!exists(global.abort_process)}
    global abort_process = true
else
    set global.abort_process = true

; now comes the dialog:
M291 S3 R"Resurrect:" P"Continue with <null>?"

; we will only arrive here if the dialog was closed with OK:
set global.abort_process = false
M3 S0

;EOF

I generated this without a job running, that's why the CNC file name is "null", and without a spindle, M3 will always be told a speed of 0 RPM.

Nightowl

@infiniteloop Erm, my file looks like this...

; RestoreSpindleSpeed.g
; Spindle speed saved from running "0:/gcodes/Calibration Toolpath.gcode" CNC file

; set up the global variable abort_process so we can abort further execution of resurrect.g:
if {!exists(global.abort_process)}

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

I just noted a difference between your resurrect-prologue.g and the template I sent you - here's my version:

if {global.abort_process == true}

and here's your corresponding line:

if global.abort_process == true

You see the difference?

Nightowl

@infiniteloop I do, yes. I tried it at that, but changed it back to using the squiggly brackets, as it made no difference.

They're currently in place, as per your version.

; resurrect-prologue.g
M98 P"RestoreSpindleSpeed.g"
if {global.abort_process == true}
	abort
; abort terminates this and all other macros in the call chain, so 'rien ne va plus'
; Continuation has been approved, so here we go:"
M98 P"homeall.g"	; homes all axes before restarting the job
{1}

I don't know why there are two {1} showing at the end of the file, though. There's only 1 in the actual file!

Where is the global.abort_process declared, or is it a ssytem variable?

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

Erm, my file looks like this...

That's a radically abbreviated version…

Either, your SaveSpindleSpeed.g has been truncated so that it just generates 4 lines of output, or we see the result of too little power left after pulling the plug.

[Edit] First, please check your copy of SaveSpindleSpeed.g carefully against the posted version. If both are equal, call SaveSpindleSpeed.g from the console:

throws it an error?
looks the resulting RestoreSpindleSpeed.g like the one I posted above?

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

I don't know why there are two {1} showing at the end of the file

I'm not quite sure, either, but I think they indicate empty lines.

Nightowl

@infiniteloop said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

but I think they indicate empty lines.

Maybe you're right about the powerloss, then, or (sorry for asking again) the global.abort_process variable hasn't been declared?

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 I've added some hints to my post above. Please try them …

Nightowl

@infiniteloop It says ~~the file's not found, but it's deffo there in my \sys folder!~~

Error: in file macro line 28 column 26: meta command: control character in string

OK, there was a " missing on the last line...

Nightowl

@infiniteloop Now the file looks like this:

; RestoreSpindleSpeed.g
; Spindle speed saved from running "null" CNC file

; set up the global variable abort_process so we can abort further execution of resurrect.g:
if {!exists(global.abort_process)}
    global abort_process = true
else
    set global.abort_process = true

; now comes the dialog:
M291 S3 R"Resurrect:" P"Continue with <null>?"

; we will only arrive here if the dialog was closed with OK:
set global.abort_process = false
M3 S0

;EOF

I'll have another go at the power fail test...

infiniteloop

@nightowl999 said in Power failure and resurrection on a CNC machine:

Now the file looks like this:

That's perfect. Before pulling the plug again, you should call resurrect-prologue.g from the console to see if you still get an error. Note, however, that your router might execute the homing moves if the construct works as expected.

Nightowl

@infiniteloop

Same problem. Only half a RestoreSpindleSpeed.g file...