MINI GUI

This button or pressing <F3> sets the LinuxCNC to Manual mode and displays an abbreviated set of buttons the operator can use to issue manual motion commands. The labels of the jog buttons change to match the active axis. Whenever Show_Mode_Full is active in in manual mode, you will see spindle and lube control buttons as well as the motion buttons. A keyboard <i> or <I> will switch from continuous jog to incremental jog. Pressing that key again will toggle the increment size through the available sizes.

When the Auto button is pressed, or <F4> on the keyboard, and LinuxCNC is set to that mode, a set of the traditional auto operation buttons is displayed, and a small text window opens to show a part program. During run the active line will be displayed as white lettering on a red background.

In the auto mode, many of the keyboard keys are bound to controls. For example, the numbers above the qwerty keys are bound to feed rate override. The 0 sets 100%, 9 sets 90% and such. Other keys work much the same as they do with the tkLinuxCNC graphical interface.

Auto mode does not normally display the active or modal codes. If the operator wishes to check these, use menu Info→Active_G-Codes. This will write all modal codes onto the message scratch pad.

If abort or estop is pressed during a run, a set of buttons will display to the right of the text that allow the operator to shift the restart line forward or backward. If the restart line is not the last active line, it will be highlighted as white letters on a blue background. Caution, a very slow feed rate, and a finger poised over the pause button is advised during any program restart.

The MDI button or <F5> sets the Manual Data Input mode. This mode displays a single line of text for block entry and shows the currently active modal codes for the interpreter.

Since many of the keyboard keys are needed for entry, most of the bindings that were available in auto mode are not available here.

Feedhold is a toggle. When the LinuxCNC is ready to handle or is handling a motion command this button shows the feedhold label on a red background. If feedhold has been pressed then it will show the continue label. Using it to pause motion has the advantage of being able to restart the program from where you stopped it. Feedhold will toggle between zero speed and whatever feed rate override was active before it was pressed. This button and the function that it activates is also bound to the pause button on most keyboards.

The abort button stops any motion when it is pressed. It also removes the motion command from the LinuxCNC. No further motions are cued up after this button is pressed. If you are in auto mode, this button removes the rest of the program from the motion cue. It also records the number of the line that was executing when it was pressed. You can use this line number to restart the program after you have cleared up the reasons for pressing it.

The estop button is also a toggle but it works in three possible settings.

Joe Martin says, "When all else fails press a software [ESTOP]." This does everything that abort does but adds in a reset so that the LinuxCNC returns to the standard settings that it wakes up on. If you have an external estop circuit that watches the relevant parallel port or DIO pin, a software estop can turn off power to the motors.

The axis position displays work exactly like they do with tkLinuxCNC. The color of the letters is important.

The position can be changed to display any one of several values by using the menu settings. The startup or default settings can be changed in the ini file so these displays wake up just the way that you want them.

Immediately below the axis position displays is the feed rate override slider. You can operate feed rate override and feedhold in any mode of operation. Override will change the speed of jogs or feed rate in manual or MDI modes. You can adjust feed rate override by grabbing the slider with your mouse and dragging it along the groove. You can also change feed rate a percent at a time by clicking in the slider’s groove. In auto mode you can also set feed override in 10% increments by pressing the top row of numbers. This slider is a handy visual reference to how much override is being applied to programmed feed rate.

The message display located under the axis positions is a sort of scratch pad for LinuxCNC. If there are problems it will report them there. If you try to home or move an axis when the [ESTOP] button is pressed, you’ll get a message that says something about commanding motion when LinuxCNC is not ready. If an axis faults out for something like falling behind, the message pad will show what happened. If you want to remind an operator to change a tool, for example, you can add a line of code to your program that will display in the message box. An example might be (msg, change to tool #3 and press resume). This line of code, included in a program, will display change to tool #3 and press resume in the message box. The word msg, (with comma included) is the command to make this happen; without msg, the message wouldn’t be displayed. It will still show in the auto modes' display of the program file.

To erase messages simply click the message button at the top of the pad or, on the keyboard, hold down the [Alt] key and press the [m] key.

The editor is rather limited compared to many modern text editors. It does not have undo nor paste between windows with the clipboard. These were eliminated because of interaction with a running program. Future releases will replace these functions so that it will work the way you’ve come to expect from a text editor. It is included because it has the rather nice feature of being able to number and renumber lines in the way that the interpreter expects of a file. It will also allow you to cut and paste from one part of a file to another. In addition, it will allow you to save your changes and submit them to the LinuxCNC interpreter with the same menu click. You can work on a file in here for a while and then save and load if the LinuxCNC is in Auto mode. If you have been running a file and find that you need to edit it, that file will be placed in the editor when you click on the editor button on the top menu.

Backplot [Backplot] will show the tool path that can be viewed from a chosen direction. 3-D is the default. Other choices and controls are displayed along the top and right side of the pop-in. If you are in the middle of a cut when you press one of these control buttons the machine will pause long enough to re-compute the view.

Along the right side of the pop-in there is a small pyramid shaped graphic that tries to show the angle you are viewing the tool path from. Below it are a series of sliders that allow you to change the angle of view and the size of the plot. You can rotate the little position angle display with these. They take effect when you press the [Refresh] button. The [Reset] button removes all of the paths from the display and readies it for a new run of the program but retains your settings for that session.

If backplot is started before a program is started, it will try to use some color lines to indicate the kind of motion that was used to make it. A green line is a rapid move. A black line is a feed rate move. Blue and red indicate arcs in counterclockwise and clockwise directions.

The backplotter with Mini allows you to zoom and rotate views after you have run your program but it is not intended to store a tool path for a long period of time.

The tool page is pretty much like the others. You can set length and diameter values here and they become effective when you press the [Enter] key. You will need to set up your tool information before you begin to run a program. You can’t change tool offsets while the program is running or when the program is paused.

The [Add Tools] and [Remove Tools] buttons work on the bottom of the tool list so you will want to fill in tool information in descending order. Once a new tool has been added, you can use it in a program with the usual G-code commands. There is a 32 tool limit in the current LinuxCNC configuration files but you will run out of display space in Mini long before you get there.

The offset page can be used to display and setup work offsets. The coordinate system is selected along the left hand side of the window. Once you have selected a coordinate system you can enter values or move an axis to a teach position.

You can also teach using an edgefinder by adding the radius and length to the offset_by widgets. When you do this you may need to add or subtract the radius depending upon which surface you choose to touch from. This is selected with the add or subtract radiobuttons below the offset windows.

The zero all for the active coordinate system button will remove any offsets that you have showing but they are not set to zero in the variable file until you press the write and load file button as well. This write and load file button is the one to use when you have set all of the axis values that you want for a coordinate system.

The following only work for machines using auxiliary I/O

The following only work with a machine using auxiliary I/O