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**Danica Sarain** · 11-09-2023, 06:38 PM

\\This part was solved (incorrect XYZ) by doing an initialize, putting a pointed tool in on a known 0x0y (in my case i already had the absolute marked--it maybe a few fractions off but the holes in the spoilboard were all aligned so it was good enough for me - Will be left for future reference.//

Well, figured out the second part of it--the incorrect position. The initialize / g28 should have taken care of it (at least according to the manual) it's supposed to zero the xyz off that.
inside the initialize.ini stripped to essentials we have

l29 [Clear Home Flags - L29 XYZ]
G28Z [set Machine Zero - homes only the Z axis]
function call to initializey [Pretty sure it's because there are 2 servo's working together and this is to keep them square--says so in the notes too. No one would like in these notes--would they?]
[zero's, offsets, sets y0]
G28x [set Machine Zero - homes only the Z axis]
G53 X0 Y0 [Goes to x0 y0]
G90 [Absolute Mode]

So just inspecting this, nothing has changed and it should have updated the MZ.

Inside of CNC(BU).POS file I can see where it thinks it is.

POS=X-1.999900Y6.819678Z-4.688520B0.000000
QUADS=A0B0C0D0E0F0
BACKLASH=X0Y0Z0B0
WRKVAL=X10.110200Y-1.477700Z-6.697126B0.000000 [Guessing this is the working value]
WRKSFT0=X0.000000Y0.000000Z-6.697126B0.000000
WRKSFT1=X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000B0.000000
WRKSFT2=X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000B0.000000
WRKSFT3=X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000B0.000000
WRKSFT4=X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000B0.000000
WRKSFT5=X0.000000Y0.000000Z0.000000B0.000000
WRKMODE=2
G92=X-12.110101Y6.127506Z6.697126B0.000000 [And this is the relative value since g90 is absolute]
LASTG92=X-12.110101Y6.127506Z6.697126B0.000000

So if MZ (Machine Zero) is your x0y0 after the initialization, I should be able to run the init. then go into both files and zero out both x and y values to get known good values right? for the Z I should be able to use the soft limt in wincnc.ini under z soft limit. Okay, it wasn't wincnc.ini that had the z soft limit. I think my machine it was 7.82 or close to 8 but not too worried right now about the z.

[******** Soft Limits ********]
lolim=x-2.0000 y-1.8000 a-10000000
hilim=x61.000 y48.8000 z0 a 10000000
lobound=z-0.125
softlim=1

Okay another troubleshooting break. Just writing everything down in case something goes wrong or if someone (or I) have this problem in the future.

**DVE2000** · 11-10-2023, 10:00 AM

I'm not sure what you're asking for here. Only thing I can say is that Mike Queen (formerly WinCNC support guru) told me years ago never to use the edit button feature in Wincnc - it just screws things up. I always modify cncscrn.ini by hand.

Wondering what the function looks like to initialize Y - the offset between Y1 and Y2 motors is in wincnc.ini. g28y uses this automatically. I don't know what else that function would have.

**Danica Sarain** · 11-10-2023, 03:02 PM

Sorry for not being more clear.

So when I'm in WinCNC, if I click on the "initialize" button, I expect the machine to "initialize". What happens when I click that button is it tries to do another command. like "Lathe Home"

When I click "T1" to get Tool 1, it runs the command "Engraver Mode" for the laser engraver.

The button layout in WinCNC are not the macro's that are executed for about half of the items.

Trying to change any of the "groups" say "T0" changes ALL of the "T0"'s. Changing the engrave mode or lathe home has the same results.

Screenshot 2023-11-10 155817.jpg

The full y looks like this:

G92
m11c11c12 [turn on y1 and y2 relay
l91 g1 y-200 f75 m28 g31 [home to limit
l28y-.200 [set -.250
L91 y0.200 [retract from limit
m12c12 [turn off y2 relay
l91 g1 y-1.00 f10 m28 g31 [home to limit (y1)
l28y-.200 [set Y TO 0
L91 Y0.200 [retract from limit
m11c12 [turn on y2 relay
m12c11 [turn off y1 relay
l91 g1 y-1.00 f10 m28 g31 [home to limit (y2)
l28y-.200 [set -.250
L91 y0.1875 [retract from limit/set square
m11c11c12 [turn on y1 Y2 relay
L28 Y0.000 [ SET ZERO
G0 y1.846 [ move to y zero
l28 y0.0000 [set y zero

Not sure about other machines but during the g28y, when it hits the limit switch, it retracts from the limit switch, then independently the left side comes in to hit the limit, then the right side. Best guess it to make 100% sure they are both aligned with each other.

As for the Edit, yeah. I too do not modify within wincnc. The buttons is under options, and I'm about 20% sure it's a sub program within wincnc.exe. No idea where it's saving this data to unless it's in roaming (which honestly I should have checked and will later my search scope was limited to the wincnc dir)

So for now the temp solution I think is to run the macro's directly

Engraver Mode	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/macro_get_tool_4_nospindle.mac
Park	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Park.MAC
Zero XY	G92 X0 Y0
Zero Z	G92 Z0
Go To X0Y0	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/macro_go_home.mac
Lathe Home	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Lathe_Home.MAC
CALIBRATE SWITCH	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/G37CAL.MAC
MEASURE ALL	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/G37ALL.MAC
MEASURE TOOL	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/G37Z.MAC
No Tool	T0
Tool 1	T1
Tool 2	T2
Tool 3	T3
Tool 4	T4
Tool 5	T5
Tool 6	T6
Tool 7	T7
Tool 8	T8
Zero Engraver	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Set Laser G92.MAC
Measure Engraver	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Set_LASER M37.MAC
Zero Lathe	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/
Dust Boot Closed	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Dustboot_Closed.mac
Dust Boot Opened	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Dustboot_Open.mac
Laser On	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/laser_on.mac
Laser Off	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/laser_off.mac
Laser X0 Y0	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/laser_zero.mac
Mister On	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Mister_On.mac
Mister Off	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Mister_Off.mac
Warm Up	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/WARMUP.MAC
Warm Up No Init	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/warmup-no-init.MAC
Servo On	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Servo_On.mac
Servo Off	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Servo_Off.mac
Spindle Off	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Spindle_Off.mac
Route Mote	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/macro_get_tool_1_nospindle.MAC
Measure Knife	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Measure_Knife.MAC
Knife Mode	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Knife_Mode.mac
Zero Knife	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Set_Knife.MAC
Abort	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Abort.mac
Emergency Stop	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Estop.mac
Initialize	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Initialize.mac
Knife Down	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Knife_Down.MAC
Knife Up	C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Knife_Up.MAC

Thanks for trying to help and if you do have any other solutions please add to the discussion.

Attached Files

Screenshot 2023-11-10 155817.jpg (62.4 KB, 75 views)

**Danica Sarain** · 11-11-2023, 05:48 PM

Okay, went ahead and made a bunch of extra custom defines/links only to find out later that it didn't work. I mean, it did, but after v2 was implemented g100-g129. The previous one I was trying to say INIT for initialization. It didn't like that and it just spit out errors. The g100-129 works fine. So I decided to go into the Button's again and redefine every button to it's updated gcode. Didn't work. Well, it did..sorta. It did keep the update gcode so /macro/initi...mac was changed to g129 t1 was changed to g109. Closed out of buttons, and opened it back up. The modified gcode was the same, but the names were screwed up (original problem minus running wrong gcode).
Closed out of wincnc and opened it back up. The names were screwed up (duplicates) but kept the new gcode (duplicates). So basically the original problem but renamed with different gcode. And I should have known that since it is SUPPOSED to load up CNCSCRN.INI which defines these buttons and macro's that are attached.

//********** Solution *********\\

Last ditch effort was to rename CNCSCRN.INI to CNCSCRN.INI.bak and try running wincnc. It errored out but the program ran. checked the buttons tab and it was empty (as it should be). Closed out of wincnc,
renamed CNCSCRN.INI.bak back to CNCSCRN.INI and ran wincnc again. Buttons (labels) and macro's loaded correctly.

\\****************************//

So I braced myself and clicked initialize. It worked.

Jogged machine near 0x0y and xy home. RAPID MOVE to the right and a panic abort by me. I think somewhere in the middle of those steps I may have done a partial init. and shut the machine down. It was about 8 or so inches from where it should have been.

So did a full run of the init. to get a good xy zero, turned closed wincnc, edited CNC.POS zeroed out xy on line 6 & 17, saved, and ran wincnc.
Double checked the red dot was on screen on 0,0 and at the ready to abort. click init (servo error, servo's not on). read the history, and it seems like the correct macro was run /macro/ and not g129.

So it seems like it's working now*. There is however, some of the buttons still have the "new" gcode. So it's supposed to take all the info from cncscrn, but that's not the case. Clicking default does nothing as well.

*Working well enough. Some of the buttons are now mapped to "Lathe Z0" (g92 A0) or Z0 which I can live with since neither of those is a rapid move that's going to break tools. The z0 is the one i'll have to look out for.

Hope you enjoyed the ride

**Charlie_L** · 11-12-2023, 01:08 AM

I’d also suggest that you use the space bar to pause the machine unless a try personal safety risk requires the abort button.

**Danica Sarain** · 11-12-2023, 12:52 PM

///*** Didn't work***\\\

Yeah, I usually do when running normally before aborting so it can glide to a stop rather than stop immediately.

Just an update ...the problem came back so \o/ who knows. The backup wincnc dir has the same problem so I have to think it's somewhere other than the wincnc dir. currently scanning outside of wincnc and seeing if there's any references.
There were no references in regedit. nor in //appdata/* so both local and roaming were free of any references.

Okay, I think I found something... under CNC.POS there's a button override command. If I'm able to set these, hopefully it keep and stay.

BTNOVERRIDE=N4L"CALIBRATE SWITCH"C"g119"
BTNOVERRIDE=N2L""C""
BTNOVERRIDE=N10L"Go Home"C"g104"
BTNOVERRIDE=N5L"14 MEASURE ALL"C"g107"
BTNOVERRIDE=N6L"15 MEASURE TOOL"C"g108"
BTNOVERRIDE=N11L""C""
BTNOVERRIDE=N0L""C""
BTNOVERRIDE=N1L"Zero XY"C"G92 X0 Y0"
BTNOVERRIDE=N3L"LASER X0 Y0"C"C:/WINCNC/MACROS/Laser_Zero.MAC"

It seems it's name N##L"Label"C"Macro"

So I'll cross my fingers and hope it works out
\\\***///

What did work however was Modifying CNCSCRN.INI and changing /macro/... to the "new" gcode.
closed out wincnc, opened it back up and all the buttons were working as they should. (it happened before where it worked fine). closed the program and started it again. Still working.

Restarted the computer, started wincnc again.

Yep, it's broken. Most of it is correct but some is duplicated. Checking to see if having 2 files to swap. One with the original names, and the other one with alt names. So "Route Mode" would be "01 Route Mode" in the swap.

Interesting.. So if you set install.bat to read only, wincnc errors out when trying to run. So I'll probably just try and set up a bat file to run on startup basically the 2 files are called CNCSCRN.INI CNCSCRNswap.INI and the contents of the bat file will be these 4 lines to swap between the 2. *crosses fingers* lets hope this is a perm. temp solution.

rename C:\WinCNC\CNCSCRNswap.INI CNCSCRNtemp.INI
rename C:\WinCNC\CNCSCRN.INI CNCSCRNswap.INI
rename C:\WinCNC\CNCSCRNtemp.INI CNCSCRN.INI
exit

Nope. Original (no changes/default shipped with the machine)

Screenshot 2023-11-12 143609.png

Swap (includes name and macro changes)

Screenshot 2023-11-12 143015.png

**Danica Sarain** · 11-13-2023, 01:36 AM

Threw in the towel and gave up. Got some help and made an ahk script that will create an overlay on top of wincnc. It "SHOULD" work but it's kind of late so I'm unable to actually test it.
So grabbed some info from cncscrn and ported it over to a csv. examples are:

Unused,Left,Top,Width,Height,Unused,Unused,Label,Macro,Unused,Unused,Unused,Comments,Comments
UserBtn,0,0,470,850,,,main,,,,main_window,Manual_e ntry,
UserBtn,475,0,292,333,,,Secondary,,,,,secondary_wi ndow,Manual_entry,
JogModeEx,623,586,70,38,7,0,Fast,,,-1,-1,fast_2.bmp,1
JogModeEx,595,633,100,61,6,0,Med,,,-1,-1,medium_2.bmp,1
UserBtnEx,1025,181,38,38,0,0,TOOL1,G110,,-1,-1,T1_2.bmp,T1_1.bmp,2
UserBtnEx,1052,231,38,38,0,0,TOOL2,G111,,-1,-1,T2_2.bmp,T2_1.bmp,2

I didn't want to change the structure in case I had to go back and fix something. "Non-important" data isn't parsed anyways.
There's more line items but you should get the idea. The reason why the top 4 lines are in there is there is an exception which states if there's no macro, make it click-through.
I didn't bother adding macro's/overrides for some of these because they have F keys attached to them.
If it does have a macro attached (5,6) send the macro along with the "enter" key. So when I click on T2, it will send (to wincnc) G111 then hit enter. Hope this works.
I mean, at worse, the machine does still work, you just have to manually type the codes in. Just don't type the wrong ones in. If this fixes the problem I'll write up a guide on
how to modify and compile this or if someone else has a different solution, that would be great too!

ahk code:

; Overlay
OverlayWidth := 1500
OverlayHeight := 900

; Init overlay
Gui, +LastFound +AlwaysOnTop -Caption
Gui, Color, FF000000 ; Set background color to transparent black
; Font Size
Gui, Font, s12 cWhite

; Read CSV
FileRead, CSVData, wincncahk.csv
Loop, Parse, CSVData, `n
{
; Split CSV into array
StrSplit(CSVArray, A_LoopField, ",")

; Array Elements Like Ice Wind Water Fire
if CSVArray.Length >= 9
{
ButtonLabel := CSVArray9
ButtonMacro := CSVArray8
ButtonLeft := CSVArray2
ButtonTop := CSVArray3
ButtonWidth := CSVArray4
ButtonHeight := CSVArray5

; Add button label
Gui, Add, Text, x%ButtonLeft% y%ButtonTop% w%ButtonWidth% h%ButtonHeight% gButtonAction, %ButtonLabel%
}
}

; Show overlay
Gui, Show, NA
return

; Update Overlay position pew pew every second
SetTimer, UpdateOverlayPosition, 1000
return

UpdateOverlayPosition:
; Get pos. of WinCNC
WinGetPos, WinCNC_X, WinCNC_Y, WinCNC_Width, WinCNC_Height, WinCNC
; Update overlay pos to WinCNC
Gui, Show, x%WinCNC_X% y%WinCNC_Y%
return

ButtonAction:
if (ButtonMacro = "") ; If no macro, click-through
{
Click
}
else ; If there is a macro, execute it like redactated
{
Send, %ButtonMacro%
Send, {Enter}
}
return

; Exit if no WinCNC
SetTimer, CheckWinCNC, 1000
return

CheckWinCNC:
IfWinNotExist, WinCNC
{
ExitApp
}
return

**Ken Rychlik** · 11-13-2023, 09:23 AM

An overlay should not be needed. This is probably over the head of most users, so I'm not sure if it will be more helpful or harmful to many. Each button can directly do something, or send it to a macro and do it there. If it's not a modified machine, tech support should be able to log on and work it out. Under the buttons menu, I would not have anything called out in there. Do it all in the screen setup page you are in. Usually there is a G55, G56 offsets called out in the main ini that can be referenced. Without seeing it, I bet the engraver and knife each have their own G number. On your screen it should tell you where you are, but if you type in G54 and hit enter, it should be back to the main spindle. If home is not hitting where you want it, there are G28 home moves in the ini that tell it how far to move for homing, but if you tinker with that, your atc positions can be affected as well.

If you modify the machine beyond stock, Tech support is out, so I suggest letting them help, and any future issues will not be blamed on you.

**Danica Sarain** · 11-13-2023, 11:10 AM

I agree. An overlay should not be needed. However:

"WinCNC buttons do not reflect executed commands",

"So when I'm in WinCNC, if I click on the "initialize" button, I expect the machine to "initialize". What happens when I click that button is it tries to do another command. like "Lathe Home"",

"So basically the original problem but renamed with different gcode. And I should have known that since it is SUPPOSED to load up CNCSCRN.INI which defines these buttons and macro's that are attached.",

"So I'll probably just try and set up a bat file to run on startup basically the 2 files are called CNCSCRN.INI CNCSCRNswap.INI and the contents of the bat file will be these 4 lines to swap between the 2."

After each change, I went back to default (shipped with the machine) settings. Neither the current version, the backup or the backup of the backup are working properly even though no files have been changed except for the ones wincnc writes changes to on start/exit (and fails to start if set to read only--at least with the startup.bat it deletes, recreates and then runs it)

And again. I agree with you. It shouldn't need an overlay however writing button overrides don't work, modifying the files which contain the names and gcode partially work fails, and directly modifying it from options/buttons doesn't work either since on reboot it pulls and loads the data from cncscrn on start.

So I'm working on a workaround to fix the problem.

**DVE2000** · 11-13-2023, 03:53 PM

I'm wondering if there could be harddrive issues or something like that. Intermittent issues like this are the worst. I assume you've tried diff'ing the cncscrn.ini when it's broken with a backup?

As far as the g28y code is concerned, it's really interesting. It seems they've written manual code to do what g28y with two motors normally does. I have an alternate limit switch for y2 (altaxislo under the p1 axissspec) and there's a line for offset between the two motors (g28altmove=y-0.0312 [For squaring]). So my g28y does exactly what all that code does, with the same movements it gives you. I wonder why they did it like that.

**Danica Sarain** · 11-15-2023, 01:58 PM

The AHK script didn't work. Went through about 5 different revisions. It somewhat worked, but not enough for me to feel confident and yet again ended up reverting everything back to default. Same symptoms.

Yes. I've used both modified and the original one that was shipped with the machine. Everything was the original files until this happened a few days ago. I can however say that i've learned quite a bit under the hood of both wincnc and the files behind it.

The bad thing about it, is that it doesn't follow it's own rules (from looking at startup.log). --Like the button layout. Each time wincnc starts, it grabs that info from the cncscrn.ini file (not 100% sure, but from the log that's what it looks like happens).

However that can't be true because when you (I) change this file, one of 3 things happen. A partial button macro change, a full macro change, nothing. Unless there is no cncscrn.ini in which case it will always fail and none of the buttons will have a macro assigned to it.

So with everything back to default my t0-t8 is back to working normally (even after a restart), 2 buttons are mapped to warmup, and 3 are to lathe home. My workaround for this now is to have ahk's window spy open so when i hover over the button if it says "lathe home" instead of clicking on it, I just type in the gcode of what I really wanted the machine to do. Like zero the engraver.

I'm going to have to shoot the guys at wincnc an email and see if they've had this problem in the past.

**Ken Rychlik** · 11-16-2023, 08:51 AM

What you have going on is very fixable. If you didn't buy it new and camaster won't help without a large payment, talk to wincnc. The screen buttons can point to many different macro's or direct commands. Sometimes, after seeing what it points to, you have to go to that area to troubleshoot. One thing affects another and it can be a multi layered issue with the answer in a place you didn't expect.

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WinCNC visual buttons do not match executed code

WinCNC visual buttons do not match executed code

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