Messages

5001

General Mach Discussion / Re: 28800 to move one inch

« on: December 06, 2006, 08:32:08 PM »

You can go to 45KHz when you buy the licenses.

5002

General Mach Discussion / Re: About the Licence restrictions

« on: December 06, 2006, 08:04:31 PM »

The best I understand its like this. Art doesn't mind you having multiple machines running on the same licenses for testing, however they ask that if you are using the machines to make money, you buy a license for each. I think this is unbelievable fair. For what you get for the money, it would be an insult not too purchase the license if you are producing with Mach. Play with it all you want, but when you decided to go with it, and you will, buy a licenses for each machine. If everybody jumps in the pool and splashes some water out, somebody has to put some back in or the pool will cease to exist.

5003

General Mach Discussion / Re: 28800 to move one inch

« on: December 06, 2006, 07:46:58 PM »

The only thing you will loose going to 1/2 or 1/4 is resolution. At 10,000 pulses per you will have a resolution of 0.0001. With the screw you are using you could go straight for 1 pulse and still have a res. of 0.00028.
Yes, having a gradual accel ramp will help keep from skipping steps. I would however want it as high as I could go with no worries. I think this will make your CV mode a little easier to tune.

Brett

5004

General Mach Discussion / Re: motor tuning

« on: December 06, 2006, 06:43:09 PM »

Hi Salty,
   I would like to see the DXF. I may be leading you astray with the G64. That will smooth a point to point program however, Graham is one of the G code Gurus. I'm certainly not. If this program ran to your satisfaction before I would think it should now.

the only difference between then and now is that I have changes spindles from a Ryobi 2Hp router to a VFD 1.4Kw high speed spindle - I wonder if the spindle frequency is interferring with the steppers??)

Hmmmmm, this is interesting. How are you driving your spindle or sending the varying voltage to the VFD? I had another member call me yesterday with some interesting problems with his VFD.

Brett

5005

General Mach Discussion / Re: motor tuning

« on: December 06, 2006, 08:21:02 AM »

Hi Salty,
   First things first, the code you have here will give you the shutters I think. What cam package did you use to generate the code? It looks to me like a bunch of short point to point moves, no arcs. Do you have an arc fit vectors option in your cam package?

Brett

EDIT
I didn't see a G64 to put you in CV mode either.

5006

General Mach Discussion / Re: Settings or machine problem

« on: December 06, 2006, 12:13:47 AM »

Put your Negative lead on the gecko Power Ground pin and your positive on the 24-80 VDC pin. I watched the video, sounds like you are trying to run it too fast to me.

5007

Polls / Re: Does your computer remain slow when Mach has closed down?

« on: December 05, 2006, 11:59:14 PM »

Hey Benny,
     I noticed this in the past if I installed the drivers. This was on my office PC. I actually replaced the hard drive once. A friend of mine told me of the problem. He said once he loaded Mach his PC got slower and slower, thought he was fixing to have some serious problems. He removed the Mach drivers and it fixed him up. This may all be coincident but I don't install the drivers on the office PC anymore. Did you install the drivers?

5008

General Mach Discussion / Re: anyone know where to get an optical edge finder?

« on: December 05, 2006, 08:24:49 PM »

Zarzul,
    Very Nice. 

5009

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach ? to control Starturn 5

« on: December 05, 2006, 09:15:53 AM »

Hi Max
   I would think you could do this a number of ways. Encoders, prox switches, etc. As for not feeling safe about the one pulse, that wouldn't worry me so much. I know what you are talking about with power glitches and such. I would wire in an e-stop contactor that is normally open, if the power flickers, it will kill everything. The plant I work at has a lot of huge, high end machines. They all wok this way. Most of the time it saves the day, every once in a while, bang, boom, run  . No matter how you prepare, a power glitch is never good on a CNC machine weather you are running Mach or a multi thousand dollar Fanuc controller. As far as trusting the PLC, I would have no problem with that either. They are very reliable. In fact, the machines we count on the most are custom made manual machines that are all PLC controlled. They are tied into a cell which also has some large CNC lathes. They are loaded and unloaded by large 6 axis robots, feed by automated conveyors, also PLC controll. I'm in maint. Guess where I spend the most of my time? It's not on the PLCs. I like the thought of one pulse. I'm no programer but I know you can put in timers and such to help eliminate false signals. I look at it like this. We use 8 bit encoders to verify positioning of our turrets. Now the controller does look to see that all bits are right. But in the end in still only sends one signal. Yes, we are where we need to be, go to the next work coord. I have seen false readings on encoders as well. This makes a mess. Another note, on our newest lathes, Fanuc controllers, they actually use PLCs for a lot of the IO. Just food for thought.

5010

General Mach Discussion / Re: motor tuning

« on: December 04, 2006, 07:49:05 PM »

Oh, he got me, he got me. I've been bamboozled. It's a set up. The old look, over there trick.

Just so everyone will know, that is exactly what I was going to say,........ only better.