Recent Posts

21

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: gouging on rotary axis

« Last post by vetsgarage on December 01, 2025, 10:29:30 PM »

I think I found a work-around. In Vcarve I put a vector boundary around the "unwrapped" part with a negative offset equal or greater than the bit diameter. I think this kept the toolpath from going off the map. When I was having gouging problems the vcarve simulation showed the bit carving a tiny bit on the left of the part and then it picked up carving on the right. When I added the boundary offset it completed the entire area without lifting. The toolpath created with the boundary offset cut fine.

I still think there is a setting in Vcarve or Mach 4 that would prevent this entirely.

22

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: gouging on rotary axis

« Last post by rhtuttle on December 01, 2025, 01:18:13 PM »

I have experienced the same non-retract problem as well.  Using a diamond drag and everything worked but had one place as it traversed it  did not retract.  Will be following the response on this.  Sorry I couldn't help.
Didn't see any post on Vectric forum from you.

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help with control system

« Last post by TPS on December 01, 2025, 01:20:48 AM »

CncDrive UC100 would be the easyest way to go.

24

General Mach Discussion / Help with control system

« Last post by Gareth52 on November 30, 2025, 06:47:56 AM »

Hi,
I’ve been running my home-made CNC for about 20 years on a computer running Windows XP and Mach 3 to a breakout board. Last week my worst nightmare came to fruition when the computer finally gave up the ghost.
What would be my best way forward?
Cheers,
Gareth

25

Mach4 General Discussion / gouging on rotary axis

« Last post by vetsgarage on November 29, 2025, 10:38:37 PM »

I'm getting a rotary axis dialed in. I'm using VCarve to generate a rotary wrap toolpath. It seems like its not raising the cutter to clear the part when transiting to a new section of the cut. It appears fine in the Vcarve preview with the rotary moves happening at safe Z.
The toolpath preview in Mach appears to have these moves occuring with the cutter close to the center.

Also, the rotary speed is very slow. I understand this is due to inverse time but I can't find clear directions on how to adjust for it.

Thanks in advance!

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Upgrade

« Last post by arturod on November 27, 2025, 05:42:57 AM »

The UC400ETH is just a little more, and it is Ethernet. So much more reliable:
- Not sharing the grounds between the PC and CNC.
- Client-Server connection instead of running as a device on Windows.
- No significant cost difference.

Or even better, go with the Ethernet Smooth Stepper, which is fully compatible with Mach4 so that you can upgrade when you need to.

Arturo Duncan
https://cnc4pc.com

27

Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 26, 2025, 08:59:00 PM »

That's where I left the project 4 years ago. Didn't have time to work on it. My router still needed work, so I didn't need the screenset. Then other things came up and I kind of forgot about it.

Now my router is ready to be used. Also have time again to work on the screenset.

Started the screenset using mach3screen. Found that very limiting. Almost gave up on the project very early.

Then I switched to machscreen. That was much easier to use.

In the last several days I watched a few videos on using machscreen. Found a bunch of information that would have been nice to know when I first started. That would have saved a lot of time aligning and configuring.

28

Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 26, 2025, 08:31:59 PM »

Haven't started the probe page. Did find majority of the scripting needed to make it work. Those will need some changes to work the way I want it to.

Didn't do anything with the atc screen. Saw some screensets had it, so I was planning on adding it. Don't have a machine that as it and probably never will. Thinking about eliminating the page. Maybe if I get everything else done, I'll look into it.

29

Mach4 Plugins / Surfacemap

« Last post by thalassa on November 26, 2025, 10:50:29 AM »

Hi, I'm having a problem with Surfacemap. We are using it on a large old CNC machine to probe large pieces of wood to rebuild a 1903 vintage racing yacht (Thalassa). Basically building point clouds which we can then use to cut new wood. Issue is that program stalls randomly, always towards the end of a long (maybe 5000 points, 7 hours) run. We've tried shorter runs, say 800 points, sometimes it works, sometimes not. No warnings or errors recorded, it just stops. When it works the results are good.

I know that it uses Wxwidgets to write to file, but haven't been able to delve further into this. so questions;
1  Is there a limit on the buffer size?
2  Where is the data stored before it gets written to the .dat file at the end? - I've dome dumps of RAM etc. at the end of the long runs when it has failed and could maybe recover data?
3  Any other ideas why it might be failing?
Thanks, Nick

30

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Upgrade

« Last post by Tweakie.CNC on November 26, 2025, 03:33:50 AM »

Perhaps the easiest (and cheapest) solution would be to use a CncDrive UC100.

Tweakie.