Idiots Guide to Posts?

Mark Cook · Post by **Mark Cook** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 3:09 am

Hi all,
I am just about to start trying to write a post for our Maho 500. I have never done anything like this before and was hoping for any advice going spare! Our control is a Philips 432, pretty old but i managed to get it to talk to a pc with hyper terminal. I'm quite nervous of trashing our machine so i was wondering if there is a guide for where to start? The manual for VisualMill isn't very helpful in this area. I'm not even sure i know what all the boxes are for....
any help gratefully received.
cheers
mark

Mark Cook
School of Engineering and Electronics
The University of Edinburgh

leo · Post by **leo** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:52 am

Hi,

Check the document www.marinesoft.se/diverse/maho/Maho.doc and pp www.marinesoft.se/diverse/maho/Maho432.spm this is a pp a customer to me is using.

Check carefully before you use in real life.

Hope it helps,
Leo

Mark Cook · Post by **Mark Cook** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:20 am

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
The document is fantastic, just what i need! Still wrestling with the licensing over a network, but as soon as that is done i will make a start on the post-processor. I would love to hear from anyone with one of these machines, ours has never been used with a computer before. It's good to know there are at least some poeple out there using them still.
thanks again
mark

GreggT · Post by **GreggT** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:20 pm

We really need a better explanation of the variables. The Undo All column helps a little but would be really nice if these values were keyed to boxes in somehow so you could cross reference them. Trying to interprit where values are coming from is a real ball buster soemtimes.

It looks like this may have been attempted? I see stuff in parenthesis (S), (Pf), etc. But then never see these variables anywhere else?

GreggT

GreggT · Post by **GreggT** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 6:05 am

Gregg, I agree! I'm certain that tech support could save a lot of questions (and repeat work)if there was a section in the manual (or even just a read me file on the CD) that described each Post variable, with actual examples. I've had to customise two posts under VM and while I got 95% of the way on my own, each time it took several emails and quite a bit of trial and error to understand how to set the last few things up. These were not difficult questions either it was just that in my case, I couldn't figure out the differences between some of the clearance variables when I was setting up drill cycles.

One of the things that makes my (IRON)CAD software so great is the 2" thick reference manual that explains all commands - with lots of examples. The VM manual is still lacking in this area, including still not having an index section at the back. I would gladly pay an extra $50-$100 for the next upgrade if the documentation was significantly improved!

The other thing that I'm sure would help everyone is if there was an FAQ section added to the manual (or CD) that was searchable, based on all the wisdom that is on this forum but also, a lot of tips were lost in the several previous support forums that Mecsoft ran... That stuff is gold when you're trying to figure something out.

Cheers, Peter

GreggT · Post by **GreggT** » Wed Apr 07, 2004 8:23 am

100% agreed, bring on the documentation and I promise to stop calling and emailing Kal 10 times a week ;>)000.

GreggT

Happy VM5 User · Post by **Happy VM5 User** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:34 am

Some Information to Posts would be good.
If a manual would be to expensive or to much work now,
a extra-download of a ACROBAT.PDF file would be enough....

Robert

[Edited by Happy VM5 User on 15-Apr-04 04:35]

GreggT · Post by **GreggT** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 5:11 pm

I'd much rather have it in .pdf than paper to. Even if it came on the CD with the program.

GreggT

erokc · Post by **erokc** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:41 pm

If you are looking for the VM5 manual in .pdf ask Mecsoft. It's available for the asking. I don't know why they don't offer it as a download. My printed copy had bad pages and I prefer a color print anyway. I now have a printed one and .pdf for searching.

Ditto on the lack of information. While it is a lot better than the early VM4 it still needs more context.

Dave