Two New Software Features That Will Make Life as a Programmer Easier

The Advanced Training Classes held in Brooklyn Park during January and February included demonstrations of a number of important but often underused features of the S94P Laser Process Control.

Two new features also demonstrated during the training – Edit Current and Control LPC – are especially useful for editing and debugging new programs and for restarting existing programs. The latter, restarting existing programs, can be useful for parts whose processing times exceed a single shift.

Edit Current

The Program Viewer Panel (Figure 1) displays the active part program, automatically scrolling to show the active block as the program executes. If there is no part program running, the cursor can be moved in the panel to designate a new starting point. However, it is not possible to edit the program from this panel; this must be done using Edit94P.

Figure 1: Program Viewer Panel on the S94P LPC

The ‘Edit Current’ feature makes editing a program faster by allowing you to select the current line within the active program.

Once the Search () button is pressed, the Search Dialog box will appear (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Search Dialog

The Edit Current button will position the cursor in Edit94P to the currently active line in the Program Viewer. Note that Edit94P must already be running for this work.

Checkout the following video clip for an example of the ‘Edit Current’ feature.

In this video, the programmer initially uses the Search function to find the location of the string N4000 in the Program Viewer. Once he finds the line containing the string (code) PRV906, he clicks on the ‘Edit Current’ button. As seen in the video, the cursor appears on the same line of the program within the Editor.

Control LPC Cursor from Editor

The second feature, ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’, is used both for debugging a new program and for restarting an existing program somewhere in its middle. The latter may be required when a program has been stopped such as at the end of a shift.

When the ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’ box is checked in the Setup menu, the cursor in a loaded part program is automatically set to the Editor’s cursor location when the program is transferred. The cursor can also be set from the Editor by any of the following once the ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’ box has been selected in the Setup menu:

• Clicking the SLC button on the toolbar
• Right clicking in the edit area and selecting Set LPC cursor.

Figure 4: Edit94P Setup Dialog. Note the ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’ checkbox on the right column.

The video clip below illustrates that with the ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’ box checked, the program line on which the cursor is located in the Editor will be the same as the cursor location in the activated program. In other words, the program will start from the line selected in the Editor.

Important Note

It is important to note that once the ‘Control LPC cursor from editor’ box is checked, this mode remains active until the box is unchecked in the Setup menu.

For example, imagine the case in which another operator, who is unaware that the box has been checked, transfers a program without rewinding the program before pressing Cycle Start. Now, the program will start from the cursor location rather than at the beginning, which could result in a crash.

For additional information about these or other features in the newest release of LASERDYNE S94P software, contact us at lds.sales@primapower.com.