lcvette wrote:Dave,
<snip>
This is my question more briefly stated:
I would like to use the gauge line method for all tools, but still be able to use the probe as the master tool. This way if the probe/master tool crashes I don't have to remeasure 50 tools again because they are no longer valid. I would only have to enter the new physical tool length of the Master tool/probe tool and it would be used in the calculation to determine the TLO's while in MTM.
This makes much more sense to me as you can then simply add a new tool based on its physical tool length and the calculation is performed against the MT for its TLO in MTM.
<snip>
Ah, sorry, I think I understand what you want now.
I've scratched my head a bit, but I am not coming up with a way to do that.
I'll elaborate a bit...
The calcs you gave are what MSM does to figure the TLO value when in MTM.
A tool measurement does two things:
a) measures the tool's PTL and stores that value (in a custom field in the tool table)
b) calculates a TLO value and stores that value in the tool table TLO field.
MSM only calcs a TLO value when one of two events happens:
1) A tool change (in this case, the measurement and TLO logic is invoked as part of the MSM M6 extensions)
2) An explicit tool measurement is invoked by the user ( in this case the button code invokes the MSM measurement and TLO logic).
I can see that what you want would be helpful, but I think (so far) that this would require the ability to calc a TLO value from the stored MT PTL and current tool's PTL value dynamically - i.e. whenever a TLO value is about to be applied by mach. It's the "dynamic" part of that which is the problem.
Mach3 doesn't have any script hooks that get invoked when a G43 is executed. When mach does a G43 Hx it simply pulls the TLO value from the internal tool table and uses it as the new current TLO value. The internal mach assumption is that TLO values are static and can can just be grabbed when needed. To do what you want, the TLO value would have to be calculated just before the G43 gets the TLO value form the table (in case the MT PTL had changed). I don't know of any way to do that.
There are also other times that mach "auto magically" applies a TLO value (without an explicit G43 from the Code - which is another long standing rant I have about mach3) and I have no way to get the TLO calc code invoked when those events happen.
One thing I thought of: Would be a script that would run thru the tool table and re-calc the MTM TLO values be useful?
Then if you crashed a MT (it doesn't really matter for this if the MT = PT or not), you would remeasure the MT (probe) which would get an updated PTL for the master tool into the tool table, and then recalc the other TLOs using the new MT PTL by running a script.
If you know that the PTL values of the non-master tools were good values, this would give you new TLOs without having to physically mount and measure each tool.
There could be some gotchas here though:
The script would need to figure out what tool #s to recalc the TLOs for. There are several choices for that:
a) Do all tools. This would put TLO values in tool table entries that may not be set up for MT mode (some people segment the tool table numbers for different TLO schemes).
b) Just do the calc for all tool entries marked as RH.
c) Just do the calc for tools that are RH and NOT empty. Off the top of my head I think this choice makes the most sense.
In any case the script would only run if MT is active (to lower the mess that running this would cause for non-MT situations).
If this would help, I could whip up the script. MSM already has a way to invoke an arbitrary maintenance script (Settings page run maint script button). I would use that mechanism as I don't think this would be a common enough situation to warrant adding a "recalc MT TLOs" button the screen sets.
FYI, I'm about to get on a long plane flight in a couple of hours, so I may not respond again until I get reconnected at the other end of this trip.
Dave
