Its already in the free Mach wizard set- its called Nesting, by Oliver Adler. It installs with every Mach system.

I wrote a simple one a while ago- I had to thread a 3" NPT into a throttle valve for a locomotive boiler I helped build. I actually cut 3 threads, on the throttle, a flange and a ball-socket coupling. They all worked, the boiler passed inspection and got stamped.

I did it as a quick and dirty, it would take some error checking and clean up to make it generally usefull.

Ill see what I can do.

To add VB code to a button you must first use screen4 to make it a VB button. Then open the screen, use the menu bar, operator, then Edit Button Script. All the buttons that are defined as Vb will blink, click the one you want to edit. An editor window will open.

see the VB topic in this forum for examples of button code.

The no shuttle error is a warning that you have the shuttle plug-in installed, but do not have a shuttle plugged in. Just delete the shuttle.dll file form the plugin folder and restart mach. Or just ignore the message, its harmless.

Ive hooked up many VFDs, and all of them Ive seen are designed for 3 phase in and out, but work fine with single phase in. They must be de-rated about 1/3 or so, but they will work just fine.

You definitely need the correct manual, because most of these have about a thousand parameters you can set and without the doc s you havent got a chance to get it right.

Put a button on the screen that has VB coded in it to activate the output. There are many examples of this in the VB section of this forum.

Assign a hot key to the button.

If you dont want to see the button on the screen make it real small, or hide it on the edge.

The wizards simply generate G code, the code runs as a normal Mach run. There is no way for a wizard to change the acceleration.

The wizard does set a feed rate, so it is possible that if you didnt enter correct tool sizes and material selection it might set a very high Feed. But no Feed on a G01 move can ever go faster than the motors are tuned.

It might be better to run a few real simple MDI commands, just moving each axis an inch or two at a time until you confirm the machine settings are correct. Running a whole program happens very fast and a lot can go wrong quickly. Or maybe set to single step before you run the wizard code.

Sounds like your tool may not be exactly to size- are you using a re-sharpened end mill?

Once a wizard has created a file and returns to Mach you are  simply running gcode, the wizards are no longer in control. I see no way a wizard could cause a machine to fail like this, unless you have requested a feed rate greater than your machine can handle.

Can you post the code generated by the wizard.

The Z-bot power drawbar works exactly like this See http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3034&category=209730719. Brian has one running at the CNC workshop last summer, and we had it running at Cabin Fever in January..

I talked to the guy that developed it and he told me about 600-800 pounds was enough for the Tormach tools.

I built a similar, but simpler one on my Jet knee mill. I have my table move for the z axis, so my quill is free to operate by hand. I put the bellville washers under the drawbar, then I added a simple metal bridge above the top of the drawbar. To change a tool I simply drive the quill up with the hand feed until the top of the drawbar hits the bridge, then push a bit further to compress the springs and pop out the collet.  It works fine, but I am a little light on the bellvilles, so I did have a collet slip once.