Ray,L can you post a photo of the gas springs you mounted on the knee? Id like to see exactly where you put them.

I have continued to work with my new AC servo on the knee. I have run it up and down very smoothly many times, but every once in a while it will hang and fault the motor going DOWN. I have also heard a bit of a growl, or chatter going down. I suspect I have a gib problem. I think it may be shifting slightly and acting as a wedge.

Eliminating the gears and driving the screw directly works very well. The crank shaft came out through the side in a bolt on casting, so I simply removed that and have a nice access hole into the knee. I was able to get the motor inside the knee casting. with a short belt to the screw. Mechanically it looks very neat, almost like it was designed that way.

Look under the screens topic, there is a whole topic on Flash. There is work being done on a doc for flash, but it is not ready yet.

DROs above 1000 are used by wizards so can vary depending on what screen set you have loaded.

The new Mach3 Install Doc, just posted a few days ago has the pulley info well detailed. See the Documentation tab at the top of this page

Another possibility- each wizard has a file where its own settings are saved. For the newfangled wizards its full name is C:\Mach3\Addons\Newfangled\newfangled.set.def

If this file, or any of the folders above it are Read Only you will not be able to write to it.

Did you recently restore your files from a CD? If so then any of the folders could now be set read only.

The name on the General tab is simply the name shown under the icon on the desktop. It means nothing to running mach, its just a name.

The Shortcut line called Target is the important one- it should be something like C:\Mach3\Mach3.exe /p Mach3Mill

The first part is the name of the program to run, its always C:\Mach3\Mach3.exe  Dont try to change this.

The last part /p Mach3Mill  is the name of the profile this icon will use to startup. It must be the same as your xml file, so if it says Mach3Mill then mach will try to open Mach3Mill.xml for the profile data. If it does not find a file by that name then it creates a new .xml file by whatever name you called the profile.

Find your profile file, probably Mach3Mill.xml. Right click and look at properties. Near the bottom of the general tab there are a couple boxes for READ ONLY. If this is checked your xml cannot be altered, hence Mach cannot save your settings.

It is highly recommended that you create your own profile and icon- in my case I have the icon named JetMill and my profile is JetMill.xml That way a new install of Mach will never alter any of my settings.

This is all very well covered, with illustrations in the new Install doc. see http://www.machsupport.com/docs/Mach3Mill_Install_Config.pdf
 

A new document for Installing and setup of MAch3 is now on-line See http://www.artsoftcontrols.com/docs/Mach3Mill_Install_Config.pdf

This is a doc that needs to be read and followed step by step. I covers everything a beginner needs to get a mill running.

We hope to have paper copies for sale at the Cabin Fever workshop and on-line.

It sounds like your xml file got turned to read-only. Mach saves lots of DRO and LED values into the xml. If you renamed the machine you created a new xml.

Saving the file and restoring it from a CD will make it read-only.

I converted a Jet knee mill and did the knee instead of the quill. I used a 1200 in-oz stepper and put it directly on the crank position. It has worked for a year, but I recently tried to cut a mold in aluminum that ran a couple hours and I had some loss of Z position. The funny part was it actually GAINED in Z, so I wound up deeper that it was supposed to be. I think it was because the Zup moves were G00, while the down moves were at a slow feed rate.

I had an AC servo on hand so I decided to try that. I removed the gears and was able to mount the motor inside the knee casting with a short belt to the top of the screw. But I can only get a 2:1 belt drive in there, so the servo cannot quite handle it. I am waiting for a gearbox that fits on the top of the servo.

I like having the quill free to do delicate drilling or tapping operations. I also like it for tool change- I use the Tormach tool holders, and I put a heavy spring under my drawbar. I built a simple bridge above the drawbar. To change tools I simply push the quill up to compress the spring and eject the collet.

There are some photos of my Jet conversion on my website plsntcov.8m.com

No good excuse for not having the T version up yet, I just have not done it. Ill try to get it done soon

Ive been talking with Brian about some very helpful changes in how VB works internally. Some of the changes are done now, some will still take a while. Im not to anxious to dig into the current Vb stuff now, but maybe when the new stuff is ready I can make some very interesting changes.