#linuxcnc Logs

Mar 30 2025

12:12 AM * roycroft is back home again, finally
01:55 AM Deejay: moin
05:11 AM Tom_L: morning
05:32 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
05:44 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
06:14 AM lcnc-relay: <Lcvette> morning
07:32 AM JT-Cave: morning
08:06 AM Poincare: Well past noon
12:24 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> co-worker was giving me crap about the clamps holding the tool rail on.. I showed him - I screwed the rail down..
12:24 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> https://photos.app.goo.gl/CvP6cM95L9mZu5QB7
12:45 PM roycroft: hi folks
12:45 PM roycroft: i survived my first night home ok
01:05 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Yay!
01:05 PM xxcoder: whew. yeah monsters under bed can smell weakness ;)
01:05 PM xxcoder: glad it went well tho
01:10 PM roycroft: lots of problem solving
01:10 PM roycroft: the walker does not fit in some places i need to go, so i had to find other means of stabilizing myself
01:10 PM roycroft: but i think i have things pretty well sorted now
01:12 PM roycroft: since i'm in the home stretch of my move, i am starting to unpack and organize my house/shop, but much of that will have to wait at least a month until i can lift more
01:13 PM roycroft: i have a fair amount of software that i need to learn, and i think that my convalescence time would be a good time to do that
01:13 PM roycroft: linuxcnc is one of those software packages
01:14 PM roycroft: i've been using it for years in demo mode, but haven't really simulated a complete working machine yet
01:14 PM roycroft: i hope i can do that - i don't know how far simulation mode can go
01:14 PM xxcoder: vismach
01:15 PM xxcoder: theres tutorial on how to build a virtual machine made by me million years ago, 3axis_tutorial
01:15 PM roycroft: cool
01:15 PM roycroft: that's what i need
01:16 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> i've done it Roy. not too difficult
01:16 PM xxcoder: tutorial dont cover importing 3d models, it builds up purely from basic models, but basically thats it, and docs is good and you can learn that
01:16 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> keep all the parts simple, in STEP format
01:17 PM xxcoder: or just dont import any models. depends on design
01:17 PM xxcoder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTdDBzkMwVQ
01:17 PM roycroft: i have some real projects waiting to be made with my shaper origin, and the first package i need to become more proficient with is affinity designer
01:17 PM roycroft: thanks - i'll bookmark that
01:18 PM xxcoder: its just showing vismach in operatipn
01:18 PM xxcoder: 6 years ago already wow so much things have happened since then
01:19 PM roycroft: but this is basic stuff, so it won't have changed much
01:19 PM xxcoder: sadly it was using wrong tool in that video LOL it'd have crashed
01:20 PM roycroft: brb - time for a couple hundred steps
01:20 PM roycroft: i'm supposed to get up every hour and take 200 steps
01:22 PM xxcoder: oh yes not wrong tool, but wrong tool height.
01:26 PM Tom_L: don't make any of those steps up a ladder mkay?
01:32 PM * roycroft is back
01:33 PM roycroft: i went out to the pickup this morning to get my phone charger, and i saw that one of the legs of the ladder was bent
01:33 PM roycroft: right at the end
01:33 PM roycroft: it makes me wonder if the ladder is defective, or whether i managed to load it at just the right angle to cause it to fail
01:33 PM xxcoder: ahh so it broke and broke you?
01:34 PM roycroft: it's a class 1aa ladder, and i was carrying nothing when i fell, so it should not have been even remotely close to its rated limit
01:35 PM roycroft: i'm not blaming the ladder - i'm just saying that a forensic analysis of the incident would likely not be simple and straightforward
01:36 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> roycroft: what'd you break this time...???
01:36 PM roycroft: anyway, hal is a major part of linuxcnc that i've not learned much ab out nor attempted to simulate
01:36 PM roycroft: my back, in three places
01:36 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> ouch.
01:36 PM roycroft: to say the least :)
01:36 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> what kinda fractures?
01:37 PM roycroft: should i be able to simulate hal pretty well?
01:37 PM roycroft: lumbar fractures
01:37 PM roycroft: the surgeon said i have a condition where the lumbar vertebrae are somewhat fused together
01:37 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> I did myself a T12 compression fracture 14 months ago. very luck, no nerve damage, just 1/4" shorter
01:38 PM roycroft: so essentially my upper and lower back were flexible, but mid-back was a stick
01:38 PM roycroft: that stick broke in three places
01:38 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> you probably oughta wear a brace, if for nothing else than a reminder....
01:38 PM roycroft: it is now a stick that is rigidly supported with metal rods and screws
01:39 PM roycroft: i asked about a brace, and he said it would do no good at all
01:39 PM roycroft: that the rods are stronger than the bone
01:39 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> double ouch
01:39 PM roycroft: facinating how they did the procedure though
01:39 PM roycroft: to dress the wound, they put a foam pad on my back
01:40 PM roycroft: covered it with a plastic sheet, and embedded a vacuum valve in the sheet
01:40 PM roycroft: i have an external vacuum pump that i must wear at all times, and the entire wound is held together by vacuum pressure
01:41 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> well, that's a good reminder..... be careful
01:41 PM roycroft: i did some reading on the procedure, and it should significantly reduce healing time, risk of infection, and pain
01:42 PM roycroft: believe me, i am currently constantly reminded to be careful, with several simultaneous reminders
01:42 PM roycroft: but the hal thing - can someone answer that?
01:42 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> hang in there.....
01:43 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> HAL rtfm
01:43 PM roycroft: should i be able to set up a hal configuration for the eventual working machine and simulate?
01:43 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> yes
01:43 PM roycroft: yeah, i have plent of time to rtfm now
01:43 PM roycroft: cool
01:43 PM Tom_L: using a mesa card?
01:43 PM roycroft: it's the one major component of linuxcnc that i've never done anything with
01:44 PM roycroft: yes, i'll be using a mesa ethernet card
01:44 PM Tom_L: try jt's mesact tool
01:44 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> I did a vismach for my big PB a long time ago.
01:44 PM roycroft: probabyl a 7i96
01:44 PM roycroft: i plan on doing that
01:44 PM roycroft: i think i've used it before
01:44 PM JT-Cave: roycroft, you back home now?
01:45 PM roycroft: yes
01:45 PM roycroft: my friends brought me home yesterday late in the afternoon
01:45 PM roycroft: one of them drove my pickup and the other drove me
01:46 PM roycroft: i can't lift much for a while, therefore can't do any moving in/unpacking/shop work for a while, so i'm going to focus on learing software over the next month or so
01:47 PM JT-Shop: what do you mean simulate hal?
01:47 PM roycroft: i just looked in my studio when i did my steps a few minutes ago, and i think that the next time a friend comes up to help me with stuff, i have him move a few things in the studio i should have good access to my electronics bench, cnc controller parts, etc.
01:48 PM roycroft: so i may be able to set up some real hardware
01:48 PM roycroft: i mean a hal config for the eventual real machine, but testing it in simulation mode
01:49 PM roycroft: keep in mind that: 1. i'm still on heavy pain meds, and 2. hal is the component of linuxcnc that i know the least about
01:49 PM roycroft: so what i'm saying may not make any sense at all
01:50 PM roycroft: i'm trying to make lemonade, because a whole lot of lemons got dumped on me the other day
01:50 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> hal is very similar to real wiring....
01:50 PM JT-Shop: understand that part
01:50 PM roycroft: ok
01:51 PM JT-Shop: it's so simple that most folks think is complicated
01:51 PM roycroft: so playing with hal in simulation mode is worthwhile
01:51 PM JT-Shop: there is one command to create a connection and it's net
01:51 PM roycroft: i don't think it's really complicated
01:51 PM roycroft: i think i just don't know much about it yet
01:52 PM roycroft: and maybe there's less to know than i think there is, which i'll find out soon enough
01:52 PM JT-Shop: there's at least three things on a line net, a signal name, and the sender or receiver or both
01:54 PM Tom_L: it's like labeling wiring
01:54 PM roycroft: i probably won't do any of the linuxcnc stuff until i'm off the oxycodone
01:54 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> I got lucky this last week. the guy I was doing cad work paid in full. I had figured I'd be out at least 60 days as he was expensing my time and his employing agency put him out 60 days......
01:55 PM roycroft: it seems to be that hal is kind of like a breadboard
01:55 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> kinda
01:55 PM JT-Shop: might be a good time to start a flex gui so you can experiment with hal
01:56 PM roycroft: you plug an input into it, plug an output into it, and insert a device that alters the input and hands off the altered signal to the output
01:56 PM roycroft: yeah, i've followed the discussions here about flexgui, but i've done nothing at all with it
01:57 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> might be fun on oxycodone...
01:57 PM JT-Shop: https://github.com/jethornton/Indicator
01:57 PM Tom_L: roycroft, look at the examples
01:57 PM xxcoder: if you decide to use flexgui, theres a irc channel for it
01:57 PM JT-Shop: Tom_L, I think I got it all sorted out
01:57 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> you can setup and play with hal - but you can't simulate the mesa hardware.
01:57 PM Tom_L: i thought you did the other day
01:57 PM roycroft: so i can go annoy a different group of folks, xxcoder? :)
01:57 PM JT-Shop: not completely
01:57 PM Tom_L: i was gonna ask if resizing the led is possible
01:58 PM xxcoder: mostly same people actually
01:58 PM Tom_L: dynamicallly
01:58 PM roycroft: probably many/most are members of this channel
01:58 PM Tom_L: i was somewhat looking for that in the test
01:58 PM JT-Shop: well you can specify the led size and offset now
01:58 PM JT-Shop: they are dynamic properties
01:58 PM Tom_L: ahh ok
01:59 PM JT-Shop: next I need to add on/off color
01:59 PM Tom_L: haha... delete-it .. delete_later
01:59 PM JT-Shop: but just got the renaming sorted out when replacing a button with a led button
02:00 PM Tom_L: see the offsets etc around ln 30ish
02:00 PM Tom_L: is the button fixed or sizeable?
02:04 PM Tom_L: since it's a subclass it should inherit all the button properties as well right?
02:04 PM JT-Shop: the button size is in the qss file
02:04 PM JT-Shop: it should yes
02:04 PM Tom_L: qss? not the ui file?
02:04 PM JT-Shop: roycroft, you can make hal objects in flex and test out hal code
02:05 PM roycroft: cool, jt-shop - that's exactly what i want to do
02:06 PM JT-Shop: you could set the size in the ui...
02:06 PM JT-Shop: but if you don't have a layout the screen can't change sizes and the content change with it
02:07 PM Tom_L: ok
02:07 PM JT-Shop: Tom_L, I also have a led button that is in a container without a layout
02:07 PM JT-Shop: the lower left one has no layout
02:08 PM JT-Shop: so it has to be handled different that buttons that are in a layout
02:09 PM Tom_L: just loaded the update..
02:09 PM Tom_L: alot of progress
02:10 PM JT-Shop: yup
02:10 PM JT-Shop: it's all coming together
02:22 PM roycroft: does flexgui have any particular hardware requirements, or will it run on a pretty basic machine?
02:22 PM roycroft: i'm thinking about installing linuxcnc in a vm on my laptop, which does not have a high end graphics card simulator
02:24 PM Tom_L: http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:443/~webpage/cnc/JT-SHOP/flexgui/indicator_test.png
02:24 PM JT-Shop: flex uses pyqt6 and no hardware requirments
02:25 PM JT-Shop: Tom_L, this means we can have LED HAL labels...
02:25 PM roycroft: 122GB available in my VM filesystem on the laptop, so heaps more storage than needed - i think i can run linuxcnc in a 16GB VM just fine
02:26 PM roycroft: thanks, jt-shop - even though i'm going to focus on the affinity designer stuff first, i'll build a linuxcnc vm today on the laptop so that it's ready when the time comes
02:26 PM JT-Shop: cool
02:27 PM roycroft: and it just started raining
02:27 PM roycroft: i'm glad i went out to get my charger a while ago, even though i don't need it yet
02:28 PM roycroft: i do not want to go on a walk-about in the rain
02:28 PM roycroft: that's a recipe for certain disaster
02:45 PM Tom_L: JT-Shop, led widget?
02:46 PM JT-Shop: led hal label I imagine
02:46 PM JT-Shop: so yeah led anything now :)
02:46 PM Tom_L: it's beginning to look like christmas...
02:46 PM JT-Shop: LOL
02:58 PM Tom_L: so the power & estop leds aren't defined like the rest? diam & position
02:59 PM JT-Cave: they all use the same dynamic properties
03:00 PM Tom_L: they don't resize when i edit the py file
03:00 PM Tom_L: ln 33-35
03:05 PM Tom_L: so if the dynamic property isn't present it defaults to the .py file setting?
03:05 PM Tom_L: i see
03:07 PM Tom_L: that's cool
03:08 PM JT-Shop: yup, the only required one is the bool indicator
03:08 PM Tom_L: could the default be parameters in [flex] for the diameter & position if none were specified in the dynamic property?
03:09 PM Tom_L: for a default
03:09 PM Tom_L: or available somewhere
03:10 PM Tom_L: then override with dynamic properties for special ones
03:10 PM JT-Shop: I don't see any reason to not have them in the ini file as defaults
03:11 PM Tom_L: and if not found in a dynamic property OR ini use the .py default
03:11 PM JT-Shop: yup
03:11 PM Tom_L: gawd it just keeps gettin better
03:20 PM Tom_L: is there a button 'disabled' property for the qss file?
03:20 PM JT-Shop: yup
03:22 PM Tom_L: trying to grey out the power using a background color
03:23 PM Tom_L: when disabled
03:23 PM JT-Shop: use the flex qss builder
03:27 PM Tom_L: why didn't i think of that? :)
03:30 PM Tom_L: http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:443/~webpage/cnc/JT-SHOP/flexgui/indicator_color.mkv
03:30 PM Tom_L: just picked some random colors
03:30 PM JT-Shop: cool
03:36 PM Tom_L: http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:443/~webpage/cnc/JT-SHOP/flexgui/indicator_color2.mkv
03:36 PM Tom_L: a little better
03:38 PM JT-Shop: I like the disabled text color pretty cool
03:39 PM Tom_L: that or dark grey
03:42 PM Tom_L: pretty cool stuff as usual..
04:05 PM roycroft: grr - multiple attempts to download the livecd and install it fail due to checksum errors
04:06 PM roycroft: is this a thing with the linuxcnc repository, or am i just having network issues today?
04:07 PM JT-Shop: I just install debian 12 then do sudo apt install linuxcnc-uspace
04:08 PM roycroft: i thought the debian distro was a bit behind the linuxcnc distro
04:08 PM roycroft: i'd prefer to do it your way
04:08 PM JT-Shop: it is but it's not important
04:08 PM roycroft: ok
04:08 PM roycroft: i'll just do that then - thans
04:08 PM roycroft: thanks, rather
04:09 PM JT-Shop: I get a kick out of people that "think" they need the latest master for emc
04:09 PM JT-Shop: my CHNC runs Ubuntu 10.04 and emc 2.7
04:10 PM roycroft: i think you know by now that i'm not addicted to bleeding edge software
04:10 PM roycroft: i like to start with the most recent stable version, though, as that can prolong the need to upgrade down the road
04:11 PM roycroft: time for my steps, meds, and lunch
04:11 PM roycroft: bbiab
04:25 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
04:37 PM Tom_L: roycroft, you might have to select a preempt-rt kernel from synaptic package manager if you go live with it
04:38 PM JT-Shop: if you sudo apt install linuxcnc-uspace you get the preempt-rt kernel clink
04:38 PM roycroft: i won't be going live with this install - it's just a vm on my laptop for testing/experimenting
04:38 PM Tom_L: wasn't sure on that
04:38 PM roycroft: but yeah, i know i'll need preempt-rt to control a real machine
04:39 PM JT-Shop: shit is fixing to hit the fan here
04:40 PM roycroft: in what respect? weather?
04:41 PM Tom_L: ooo lots o pretty colors
04:41 PM Tom_L: all the lightening was south of us last night
04:42 PM Tom_L: we are in a tornado watch though
04:45 PM JT-Shop: https://radar.weather.gov/station/kpah/standard
04:45 PM JT-Shop: roycroft, a dual boot would be much better than a vm which will be painfully slow
04:45 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> roycroft: hey, if you want to see some pretty good anatomy, check this out..... click on the buttons on the left side.... https://www.zygotebody.com/#
04:50 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> JT-Shop: looks like you got some nasty weather...
04:50 PM JT-Shop: hopefully not as bad as the last one
04:51 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> we were supposed to have a lot of rain, and it's barely piddled
04:52 PM xxcoder: bad weather couple days ago turned out to be just pretty heavy wind and rain. nothing worse thankfully
04:53 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> forecasts seem to be getting more unreliable. probably will get worse with shit head in Washington
04:54 PM lcnc-relay: <roguish> didn't mean to get political...
05:10 PM roycroft: dual boot won't work for me
05:10 PM roycroft: i need the primary os too often
05:11 PM NetPipe: does collecting cnc's make people poor ?
05:12 PM NetPipe: orders are hard to find sometimes for anything
05:13 PM NetPipe: global markets even seem far away because everyone has other language
05:18 PM roycroft: time for some steps
05:26 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
06:37 PM Unterhaus__ is now known as Unterhausen
06:48 PM roycroft: i have a working linuxcnc vm, but it's not high enough resolution - the main axis window does not fit vertically
06:48 PM roycroft: i'll have to figure out how to increase resolution, which i've done many times before, but not in a long itme
06:52 PM roycroft: aah, that was easy
06:52 PM roycroft: ok, i'm good to go there