gSender 1.4.7 - Rotary, grblHAL, Jobs Stats and more

Yes. Before 1.4.2 1.4.1, when a job finishes, it prompt for me to turn off the router, I turn off the spindle, hit resume, and it moves to the back position of the machine so that I can handle my stock piece.

With 1.4.2 1.4.1, when a job finishes, the Job End window pop ups (The M0 prompt for turning off the router does not pop up), and hitting the Resume button will start the job again from the beginning, unless I click Stop again, then it will pause for me to turn off the router and it moves back.
If I remove the M0 command from the Program End event, it will just move to the back while my spindle is still spinning.

Sorry. It starts to do this from v1.4.1, not 1.4.2

Yeah, that sounds dicey.
I donā€™t use the eventsā€¦I just build stuff into post processors.

What are you using for CAM?

I have a couple issues with 1_4_3. First, I find the shortcuts for PAUSE (!) and JOG STOP (added my own) do not work for me, nor in earlier versions. Also new is the gui is overlapping the jog control window and the probe/macro window such that I cannot click on the bottom most jog control fields. I canā€™t seem to find a way to readjust the windows. Hope the capture is uploaded below lol. Other than that, things seem great.
Capture

gSender 1.4.4 has been released with a number of fixes to both grbl and grblHAL.

One of the only visual changes is that the firmware selector has been hidden by default to prevent accidentally switching flavours without meaning to. On top of this, weā€™ve hard reset everyones selected firmware back to Grbl on update. We hope this will reduce instances of users having the wrong controller selected.

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General

  • Firmware selection hidden by default to avoid misclicks, and selected firmware reset to GRBL for all users.
  • Removed situations where no firmware option was selected on initial update of gSender
  • Fixed tabbed widget overlapping on some screen resolutions
  • Fixed issue with toolpath Z dimensions calculating incorrectly
  • Probe XYZ now goes to XY zero on completion of routine similar to prior behaviour
  • Errors from feeder are also now emitted to UI
  • Rotary axis toggle and other rotary tools now disabled in alarm state
  • Fixed situations where pausing and unpausing repeatedly could overflow firmware buffer
  • Fixed jog values reconverting and resetting on UI
  • Prevented warning appearing in movement calibration tool erroneously
  • Added A-axis limit pin indicator to diagnostics panel
  • Some tweaks to diagnostic report layout
  • Fixes for AutoZero probing routines with $13 enabled
  • Better error reporting on UI in general for macro and console errors
  • Renamed Mac build from Intel to Universal for clarification
  • Fixed some problematic shortcut behaviours on gamepad
  • Fixed issue with final Z on automatic tool change being off by the retract distance
  • Visualizer no longer displays miscalculated toolpath when loading the same file twice in a row
  • Prevented rounding in firmware tool where none should be applied

grblHAL

  • Fixed continuous jogging with soft limits enabled on some EEPROM configurations on HAL
  • HAL spindle selector now uses on-board EEPROM values for SLB_LASER option
  • HAL flashing should be usable on Electron as of latest version and board should be connectable without power cycling.
  • Repeated errors in HAL should be reported to the user less often
  • Spindle selector now uses reported current spindle
  • Fixed issue where spindle selector could get duplicate entries on ID change
  • Fixed toolchange program feedrate variable on HAL
  • Setting import in HAL firmware tool now correctly updates radio button options
1 Like

Iā€™ve learned that the best gSender version is the last version before the newest version.

It seems that the ā€œEdgeā€ system is an Alpha and the release channel is a Beta.

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Got a newest latest best version for you, Tex.

1.4.5

General

  • Fix for jog shortcuts not sending short movement when quick pressed.
  • GRBL firmware tool correctly updates values when list shortened with search term
  • More rounding in tool changing values.
  • Various updates to diagnostic PDF to include more at-a-glance information.

grblHAL

  • HAL firmware categories loaded more consistently on connection
  • HAL errors/alarms list populates more consistently on connection
  • Renamed some firmware categories for clearer organization
  • Better handling of cycle start, pause, and halt macro button functionalities
  • Fixed choppiness in visualization in 4-axis mode.
  • A-axis continuous jogging works as expected with soft limits enabled in 4-axis mode
  • Feeder no longer pauses when setting EEPROM macro code block with a M0/M1 included.
  • Rotary mode status correctly set on connection.
  • Random errors no longer appear on connection
  • Error log cleared on job start to prevent errors from not sending a job arenā€™t included in the job error report.
  • Adjust HAL jogging values
  • Added ability to flash SLB already in DFU mode
  • Flashing UX improvements for HAL
3 Likes

@KGN I can confirm that the jogging issue in 1.4.4 is resolved. Tks much, Kevin.

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If you keep massaging that code, youā€™re gonna squeeze all the bugs out! :smiley:

5 Likes

So far everything in 1.4.5 is working properly here.

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I ran the exact same 8 different jobs in 1.4.5 as I did in 1.4.4 without any hiccups. Worked great!

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1.4.6 is out with primarily changes to help users receiving their new SLBs with default EEPROM settings for all machine offerings.

General

  • Values properly convert in surfacing tool when swapping between metric and imperial preferred units
  • Fixed default UI value precision when swapping between metric and imperial preferred units
  • Handle error silently when checking for updates but no internet connection is available

grblHAL

  • Added default profiles for all machines when connected using grblHAL and using the ā€˜Restore Defaultsā€™ functionality
  • No longer emit error 79 when connecting with e-stop enabled on SLB
  • Fixed issue with soft limit Z jogging when trying to jog from machine limits
  • Fixed status query mask when sending 0x87 complete status report vs ? partial status report to prevent alarm states from being slow to clear on UI
4 Likes

Installed 1.4.6 on my permanent 4-axis (XYZA) hybrid-OKO machine, and find that the rotary controls tab now controls ā€˜Yā€™ if in ā€˜4 Axisā€™ mode, and swaps Y for A in ā€˜Rotaryā€™ mode. In a previous version (1.4.4 I think) the behaviour was to control A all the time, performing the A for Y trick only if placed in LongMill/Vortex Rotary mode. If I manually send ā€˜$HAā€™ through the console, to home only ā€˜Aā€™, it works correctly.

Am I correct in my observation, and if so, is this an intentional change (to suite LongMill/AltMill machines with Vortex), or is this an unintended change?

Yes, this is the expected behavior moving forward. 4th axis mode assumes that your machine can utilize all 4 axes (X, Y, Z, and A). While in rotary mode, we assume your machine cannot handle 4 axes or canā€™t interpret the A-axis at all, thatā€™s why we translate A to Y.

There was a bug recently where sometimes if you toggled into 4th axis mode when you were in rotary mode previously, it would not apply correctly and your A-axis movements would still be changed to Y-axis movements, that has been fixed on the latest version (v1.4.6).

OK, thank you. I need to look into this logic, as my observation is that with 1.4.6 the behaviour is in 4th Axis mode that jogging ā€˜Aā€™ resulted in Y physically moving - more like the ā€˜bugā€™ you described that has been fixed in 1.4.6.
I havenā€™t toggled between 4th and Rotary at all (I donā€™t need to, I have permanent 4 axis). I will experiment a little and feed back what I learn.

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Are notifications about updates going to come back? I donā€™t remember the last notification I received, but it has been a while. I read on the resource page some systems are not supported. What systems are?

Or am I not seeing the option to turn update notifications on in gSender?

Not sure this has been addressed or if its something Iā€™m doing wrongā€¦using 1.4.6 and when I change the custom settings for th Visualizer (in particular the Background color) and click the Save button the changes go into effect for that session. But when reopening gSender the custom settings seem to revert to the default. I looked at the Settings export file and I think the changes are being written to the settings export file but donā€™t seem to be reloaded when the program is restarted.

1.4.7 is out which mostly addresses some issues with SLB compatability that have emerged as the userbase has grown outside of beta testers.

General

  • Tweaks to finish time estimation
  • Alterations to behaviour of planning line in visualizer
  • Fixed issue where error would prevent the file from resuming in some situations
  • Go to button default values are now current position if absolute movement and 0 if relative movement
  • GRBL controller now will always send $$ command eventually even if no startup message received

SLB

  • Rapid position buttons work as expected with A-axis invert enabled
  • Updated defaults for SLB homing speeds
  • Added setting highlight and restore individual defaults to HAL firmware tool
  • Fixed issue where SLB flashing could fail silently if connected before flashing
  • Firmware flavour for SLB now included in diagnostic file
  • Prevented soft reset on exiting check mode on SLB from getting the firmware not leaving check mode

I just want to say that I like the improvements that have been made to the visualizer. Awhile back I complained about the colors and not finding the visualizer useful. Iā€™m not sure when exactly the changes happened, was away from my machine for awhile, but I like them. Thank you very much!

2 Likes