Convert CAM Tool Libraries into MASSO Tool file

[breezy]

Not so sure about that...Looks more like it's the current date than the version date (unless you just happened to update the version today).

OK I know what I did wrong.
I'll fix it later today.

 

[sliptonic]

Greetings!

I'm one of the developers of FreeCAD. I lead the charge on the CAM workbench and a I'm member of the FreeCAD Project Association.

I've also started a new fully open-source project that I'd like to make you guys aware of because I think it's relevant to this discussion.

Everything is under the Github organization "loobric" The concept is a fully open-source and self-hostable tool-data synchronization server. It's a standards-informed (ISO13399) neutral platform for exchanging tool data between CAM systems and CNC controls. The server itself is called 'smooth core' and the repository is at https://github.com/loobric/smooth-core. There's also a blog write-up that explains what I'm getting at.

I've already built a client for FreeCAD which is installable from the addon manager (search for 'smooth'). I've also got a simple script to pull data from the server to populate a linuxcnc tool table.

This is very early stage development and I need people to try it, comment, and maybe help build some syncing scripts. FreeCAD has some active Masso users so it would be nice to have a client to synch Smooth<->Masso.

Self-hosting is pretty easy but if you just want to play, you can create a free account and experiment with the public API. FYI, this is running on a tiny server in my basement so please be kind!

I'm anxious to get some feedback. If anyone wants to write a sync script for other CAMs, let me know and I'll help where I can.
Also, clicking the star, follow, fork buttons on github helps give the repo some visibility and is appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[rudeytwotone]

Thanks for this post, I was inspired to work this into a Fusion addon to simplify syncing your tool library(s) to Masso. Claude, gets most the credit I just fixed things along the way. The readme should walk you through the process, but essentially you just need to make a backup of your G3 to USB, select which library in Fusion you want to sync, decide if you want to use the slot assignment from the fusion library or assign it in the controller. Then you load the file on the controller and it should populate all your tools.

GitHub - percosys/MassoToolSync

Contribute to percosys/MassoToolSync development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[breezy]

it should populate all your tools.

The tool table may have 105 positions but MASSO can only use 100 of them. Tools 101-104 are multihead spindles and cannot be assigned slot numbers.

 

[rudeytwotone]

Interesting I am running an old build of the beta 5.100b and it did let me set all tools up to 104, Ill test it out tomorrow and see if they can be selected or if they are getting dropped. My tool rack only has 11 slots, so I won't be able to actually test it, but if slots 101-104 get dropped I will update the addon to cut off at 100 instead of 104.

 

[breezy]

Ill test it out tomorrow and see if they can be selected or if they are getting dropped

Things will be different between beta and main stream versions.
Read up on Multihead docs, you can write data into tool table 101-104, but slot numbers are irrelevant.

 

[rudeytwotone]

Updated to limit it to 100 tools. Should be working now.

 

[gsconsulting]

Hi Arie, this is obviously a long running discussion, so I'm not sure if I missed something in my reading of it, but where can one download the latest version of your tool from? I've got quite and extensive tool library built up in FreeCAD, so was very excited to see this utility. But I can't seem to get it to work, and I'm not sure if that's my usage, or if I've just downloaded an outdated version. I guess the more relevant sub-question is, if I export the tool library out of FreeCAD as a LinuxCNC tool library, what does your utility expect to see as far as file extension etc goes.

And for a totally unrelated question, but dear to my heart - is there any plans to make this cross platform, or offer the source so others can? I run Linux on all my PC's. And on my day job laptop, I have a multitude of VM's that I can fire up a preconfugured Windows instance for those rare occasions where I have to run a Windows only program.

Cheers,
Garrick

 

[breezy]

where can one download the latest version of your tool from?

As I was developing it, the latest version appeared in the current post, but that caused a problem in that I had to edit previous post, so I reverted to uploading it to the original post.

what does your utility expect to see as far as file extension etc goes

For Linuxcnc ext = tbl
List of file ext handled

• hsmlib
• htg
• json
• tools
• tbl
• csv
• db
• vtdb

is there any plans to make this cross platform, or offer the source so others can

Program is written in C and uses sqlite libraries to handle the db & vtdb files.
Being a windows user I didn't think about other OS, I need to check into possibility of compiling for Linux on a Win11 using VSCode.
If worst comes to worst I could do a Linux conversion on an old PC, purchased Oct 07 with Vista, I would have continued the upgrade path to Win11 if it wasn't for the security hardware restriction. I haven't used Linux for 24 years since I was made redundant from Telstra.

 

[gsconsulting]

Thanks Arie, seems I did get the right download then. I'll try again today with the appropriate file extension.

Program is written in C and uses sqlite libraries to handle the db & vtdb files.

I was a software engineer in a past life, developing in C++ and Java. I still dabble a little bit, so happy to help out if you need? I know that SQLite is available for Linux, and there is a port of VBS supplied by MS. There is even a .NET port, although I believe this is still pretty buggy.

I would have continued the upgrade path to Win11 if it wasn't for the security hardware restriction.

This is largely the reason I went back to Linux. I used Linux heavily when I had my software company in the early naughties. Then work needs forced me back to Windows, but I never liked Win11 from the get go, and with most apps now available in cloud form, I find MS doesn't have the stranglehold that used to.