Messages

71

General Mach Discussion / 2nd parallel port madness

« on: March 13, 2010, 04:59:38 PM »

Hey folks, I'm trying to get a 2nd parallel port installed to work with Mach 3 and the C23 board I have installed.  I was having trouble with the smoothstepper so, I decided to go this route instead.

I'm using the Rosewill card (which is the one that works according to our board), which has a 9835 chipset.  This card has two parallel ports.  I've downloaded the driver, installed fine, and it is being shown in the device manager as LPT2 and LPT3.  The addresses are:

LPT2
C400
C000

LPT3
CC00
C800

Onboard LTP1
0378
0778

I can get the LPT 3 to appear just fine as port 1 within Mach using CC00.  I can't get anything to work for port 2, even the onboard LTP1.  I know that port does work though, as it was with the smooth stepper.  Now that I'm trying to use parallel ports on a desktop machine, instead of the smooth stepper on my laptop, I'm running into this problem.  Any ideas?  I'm at my wits end here.  I built this PC just for this purpose!

Barry

72

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Gertrude Gets Some!

« on: March 12, 2010, 10:00:55 AM »

What's the HP on a spindle like that?  I can tell you mine is la-oud!  I gotta wear hearing protection.  Is it only designed to work in soft materials like wax/resin?

Barry

73

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Custom Guitars

« on: February 26, 2010, 11:26:15 PM »

Very nice, I'm very intersted in your jig process.  I've got lots of pieces that I need to machine both sides of an object and I don't have the 6th axis set up yet.  Are you following any particular method in setting that up?  Are you open to questions?

Barry

74

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: 'No Moon' Series

« on: February 19, 2010, 01:09:22 AM »

Here is the final stained and hung 'No Moon' series.  The show is this Saturday.



Barry

75

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: rough cut prob

« on: February 18, 2010, 06:23:53 PM »

I met with the RhinoCAM folks, and believe they have my business.  It helps that I work just down the street from them too.  If I find an issue, I can just zip on over and bang some heads;)

Barry

76

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: rough cut prob

« on: February 17, 2010, 02:29:22 PM »

Thanks, I've decided to go the RhinoCAM route.  One because I use Rhino, but another is that the machine is 6 axis, and Rhino CAM will work with 6 axis indexed.

I should stress though, the rough cut problem I was having was NOT due to MeshCAM, it was mainly due to the part not being held down stiffly enough and clamping in a way that my bit wouldn't eat into its supports.  MeshCAM works fairly well.  There are a few issues, like pocketing.  I didn't like how it did that, and it had a lot of unnecessary plunges, but other than that, it's well worth the cash.

Barry

77

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: 'No Moon' Series

« on: February 16, 2010, 03:58:10 PM »

These are done just for me to test the machine and to experiment with stains.  I'm going to stain each a different shade, then mount them all the wall as art.  I'm showing them this weekend in my gallery.

Barry

78

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: What i didn't make with my cnc machine

« on: February 16, 2010, 02:56:19 PM »

I'm not afraid to admit my mistakes.  I've had tons of mistakes and I'm just starting;)  Mistake 1, not tightening the collet nut, which lets the bit slide down while working.  This happened a few times.  I finally bought the correct collet wrench and that problem went away.  Mistake 2, using the wrong parts to bolt down the stock.  This made things really loosey goosey and ruined several stock blanks doing this.  Also broke a bit.  Mistake 3, not defining the limits of the top and bottom.  That broke a couple bits.  Now once I defined all that, things have been good.  12 panels no issues for me.  I'm sure I'll have more mistakes in the future though;)

79

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: 'No Moon' Series

« on: February 16, 2010, 02:17:49 PM »

These are models made based on what was used in the actual film.  The greebles might have been random when they made it for Star Wars, but I had to be very specific to have the same look. 

This is pretty much the end product, except minus the staining.  I'll be doing that tonight.  To do the full Death Star would cost much more wealth than I can imagine, and the space needed at this scale would be insane.  Here's a couple more picts that thow the pieces more straight on.

Barry

80

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / 'No Moon' Series

« on: February 16, 2010, 12:23:25 PM »

Hey folks, I know you like to see projects prestained, so here goes the 'No Moon' series that I did.  I'll be staining it tonight and mounting for display.  These are the first real art pieces done on my mill.  Everything before it was just a test.  I did it using a 3/8 inch roughing bit, and a 1/8 inche finishing end mill.  The stepover for finishing was .25 mm.  I had the feed rate set to 600, but I could probably do more.  My plunge was set to 90, so the pieces with a lot of up and down took longer.  Each piece is 6 inches square.  I think I've proven that my mill works, at least in 3 axis;)

Barry