Topics

1

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Help/Advice

« on: July 08, 2013, 10:34:11 AM »

Hi
I know that this is maybe not the correct place to put this but as there are a lot of people here who are using routers I thought that I might just get a better response.
Anyway I have a problem to which I do not seem to be able to resolve with my router when machining either soft or hard wood and it is now getting very annoying if you look at the picture you will see what I mean I am getting lines which you can clearly see and no matter what I do to try and cure this problem nothing seems to work, I have tried all variations of feeds and speeds but nothing seems to work, I have a solid machine not a small machine that I have built it does not move or vibrate in any way, as you can see by the picture of the machine it is 5 axis and as I say it is all very solid so I am just hoping that someone just might know the answer to my problems  and please do not tell me to just sand these lines, these lines are around 0.5 to 0.75mm deep and I have tried machining at all different angles with the grain against the grain etc.
So please help me out here I have not got much hair left to pull out
Thanks
Alan

2

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Engraving

« on: June 29, 2013, 05:42:55 AM »

Has anybody tried to engrave the back of an Apple iPhone?  (Glass back cover)  if so what sort of tool do you use? also would it be possible to engrave a picture onto the back?
Blackk8898

3

General Mach Discussion / Five Axis

« on: January 16, 2013, 07:05:26 AM »

Hi to everyone
Just like a bit of clarification with homing, on vertical and gantry milling/routing machines the home position is normally bottom left hand corner now I have just converted my 3 axis gantry router to a full 5 axis and I have been told that all five axis machines home to the centre of the work table now I personally have not heard that before and was wondering if anyone out there could clarify where the home should be for a 5 axis router??
Thanks
Alan

4

General Mach Discussion / Fifth Axis

« on: November 07, 2012, 01:50:49 PM »

Hi
Not sure if anyone can help me out, I am in the process of converting my 3 axis router to 5 axis and wondered if anybody out there had a demo program that I could use to make sure that everything works as it should do and help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Alan 

5

General Mach Discussion / Unwanted Step Pulses

« on: April 28, 2012, 03:17:17 PM »

I have a problem with the "Z" axis on my router , with the help of Tweakie I have made sure that all my cables are shielded and re-routed them I have also fitted capacitors on all my inputs , when I run the driver test I get a perfect straight line without any spikes , I have changed stepper motors over stepper drives over without any success , what happens is that whilst doing a roughing cut the "Z" axis starts to move very slightly up from the level it should be at then goes back down now this is not a real problem when roughing out but it does become a problem when doing the finish cut as it leaves lines on the work piece which after spending 3 hours or so on a 3D carving is a pain that I could do without.
Before anyone one asks my computer runs Windows 7, Quad 3.4ghz processor , 12gb memory and a 64gb solid state hard drive , apart from the operating system the computer is loaded with Mac3 and the Mach Standardmill screenset nothing else at all and is not connected to the internet , all drawing work etc. is carried out on my main computer and the via a USB key loaded onto machine computer, the software that I use for my carvings etc. is Vectric Aspire and Cut3D.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated , and my thanks to Tweakie for all his help.
Attached is a pic of the sort of problem on a work piece. 

6

General Mach Discussion / Problem with Software/Settings ????

« on: June 04, 2011, 02:37:18 PM »

I have just made a router/plasma cutting machine and have today been cutting air with the router to ensure all axis are working correctly , next step after that was to put a pencil in the spindle of router so that the roadrunner file would be drawn on table surface it came out perfectly apart from the fact that it was drawn upside down and back to front , I have tried various things to correct this problem without any luck does anybody have any ideas as to why it would machine a part upside down and back to front ?
Alan

7

CVI MachStdMill (MSM) / Touch off

« on: September 07, 2010, 12:29:51 PM »

Hi Dave
I am experiencing two problems at the moment , the first one does relate to touching off every time I try to use the Set Z zero on the touch off screen I get the message ( Can't set Z0 in master mode w/o master tool ) now I do have a master tool set up so I have tried all ways that I can think of to overcome this problem without any luck , tried without master tool , turning master mode off /on does not seem to make any difference , if I use my probe it works every time , the other problem that I am getting may be down to Mach itself not sure so I am sure you will point me in the correct direction , everything seems to be running fine including the auto tool changer but every now and again when I am on the RUN screen you have the DRO's on the left of screen on the "X" axis DRO just below the Zero DRO button there is a small DRO which I think is the scale reading it should read +1.0000 but every now and again it changes to -1.0000 which causes the yellow LED to come on , I did think it may be caused by noise but have eliminated that , have tried changing over stepper drives , stepper motors and wiring etc but I still get the same problem and it only happens on the "X" axis , now I never had this problem with Mach version 40 so again not sure where to look , I am at the moment using version 19 of Mach and beta 9 of MSM , thanks
in advance for any help
Alan

8

CVI MachStdMill (MSM) / Calibrate spindle

« on: August 29, 2010, 10:49:12 AM »

Hi Dave
just come across what might be a bug or me not sure , I have just tried to use the Calibrate spindle in the Functions menu , I start the spindle off at 100RPM and the click on the AutoCal button and basically nothing happens in the bottom left of the box that is open in the control RPM box it just stays at zero and the spindle RPM stays at 100RPM and not matter what ever I try I cannot get it to start so that I can calibrate spindle ! I am using the latest version of Mach (19) and Beta 9 MSM and am using Windows 7 , if I try to calibrate spindle with the last generation of Mach (pre MSM) it works fine , if you could give me maybe some idea of anything else I might try I would be most grateful
Thanks
Alan

9

CVI MachStdMill (MSM) / Auto Tool Change

« on: August 23, 2010, 08:36:57 PM »

Hi Dave
I have just updated to the latest Mach version (19) and MSM beta 7 and have just come across a slight problem , as I said the other day i have my auto tool changer working perfectly but since I have updated there is a small problem , when I initiate a tool change the auto changer works and the tool changer changes to the tool I request but as the sequence finishes I get a message on the screen which reads ( Control reset ,tool change aborted )  and at the top of the screen it reads ( Scripter Compile Error in C:\Mach3\Macros\MyMachStdMill\M6EndBody.m1s ) , not sure if this is a bug or not as the tool changer worked without any problems with Mach3 version (16) and MSM beta 5
Thanks
Alan

10

CVI MachStdMill (MSM) / Tool Change

« on: August 15, 2010, 12:30:35 PM »

Hi Dave
let me first congratulate you on your very good work with MSM , the only small problem that I have encountered is with my auto tool changer it works with MSM but for some reason operates very slowly , to give you an idea with Mach3 version 3.42.40 it takes around 10 seconds to do a tool change with MSM it takes around 30/40 seconds , have you any ideas as to what might cause this ?? everything else seems to be working fine even the probing
Thanks
Alan