cutting out of line with the toolpath

[Luisto]

  I am cutting a design out of 3/16 aluminum in 3 passes.  It is a rather intricate design with lots of negative spaces within a circular format about 8 inches in diameter. The first test went beautifully...looking at the piece sideways you could not even tell where the first pass ended and the second started.  Now There is a slight step effect caused by the second and third passes not being exactly in line with the first pass.  The final outer circular path is way off..(about a quarter inch)...somebody please help! I have 80 to go and have only been able to do one!

[RICH]

Hmm,
I would suggest you recenter / adjust the piece to the quill before doing the outer circular path. At least it would be symetrical.
If you have scales on the machine you should be able to return to some point and thus you can compare to what Mach's  dro's are showing
.......and certainly it should not be 1/4" off........
Check you steps per unit, code , and machine mechanics that all is well.
RICH

[budman68]

Agreed, it sounds like either the part moved or you're losing steps (position).

Since you said the first one was perfect, I'm thinking the part moved.

Dave

[Luisto]

the part moving was my first theory also...but I was cutting the piece out of a square measuring 9"by 9"and it was screwed down on all 4 corners. Looking at the piece carefully it seems the first half of the cuts are off by about 1/32" per pass (I have the machine doing three passes per line so between each pass it drifts a slight amount to one side...then about half way through the piece all the cuts get offset about 1/4" to the right...

[Luisto]

how do I check my steps per unit and code?

[Luisto]

now the machine has gone totally haywire....there is no relationship between what it is cutting and what it is suppossed to be cutting.  The toolpath display on the screen Mach screen shows the toolpaths correctly and the progress of the machine along the toolpath...but the machine is utting something totally different.

[Hood]

Sounds like you have hardware problems. Check the power supply and all the wiring for anything loose.
Hood

[Luisto]

I disabled the anti virus and the machine settled down...could that be it?  One of the other symptoms was that when I move the machine manually, if I hit the -x button it would go in the positive direction.  When it would finally go in the negative x direction it would start trebling and go 6 inches in one direction and 6 inches in the other

[Hood]

Could be anti virus but your movement problem sounds more like loose Dir wire or bad drive.
Hood

[budman68]

Could be anti virus but your movement problem sounds more like loose Dir wire or bad drive.
Hood

This has happened to me as well as I had one single strand touching another contact on my connector. Resoldered it and all was good. It's a pain, but you should check your contacts/soldering for sure.

Dave