Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / gcode to mill half ball with cnc mill

« on: December 09, 2007, 03:52:30 PM »

Hello,  I'd like to make half a ball on my mill, and am trying to figure out the best way.  I don't have any good cam software.

I'd like to just create an arc on the XZ plane and then rotate the coordinates of the XY plane incrimentally by a degree for every cut.  that way I coud just copy the same few lines of code over and over and that would work.  Unfortunately Mach3 wont use  the rotated coordinates in any plane but the XY so that doesn't work.

Any ideas?  Are there any "wizards" out there that do this?  I know a lathe would be ideal for this, but I don't have one with CNC or a large enough ball turner.  Before I've mounted a rotary table on my lathe bed to hold my bit, but I'd like to avoid doing that again and there should be a way to make the cnc mill work anyway.

Thanks!
   Stewart

12

General Mach Discussion / G19 and G68 at same time

« on: April 10, 2007, 11:28:55 PM »

Hello, i've got a circle and need to carve out some notches, but I'd like to feather the edges with vertical arcs in the YZ azis (selecting G19).  To make the Gcode easy, i've created one set of commands and just copy them using a different coordinate rotation (G68) for each cut.

Unfortunately, it seems that Axis rotation can only occur when in the G17 (XY plane) mode.  Does anyone know of a workaround that might do the same thing?  Will concurrent G19 and G68 be available in a future release?

Thanks,
   Stewart

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: backlash compensation going haywire

« on: April 10, 2007, 01:31:54 PM »

That was it.  Thanks Art!  Glad it is all working.
 
Thanks,
   Stewart

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: backlash compensation going haywire

« on: April 09, 2007, 09:27:23 PM »

Well, I tried turning CV mode off, but it didn't make any difference.  I had restarted the program after making the change, but did not re-boot.  Any more thoughts?

Thanks,
   stewart

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: backlash compensation going haywire

« on: April 09, 2007, 05:58:18 PM »

I am in cv mode.  Thanks!  I'll try turning it off.

stewart

16

General Mach Discussion / backlash compensation going haywire

« on: April 09, 2007, 03:01:35 PM »

Hello, I just upgraded to the latest Mach3 version (2.0.061) which fixed some problems cutting circles in the ZX plane, but now my backlash compensation is all screwy. It acts like the backlash is set to an inch when it is actually set to .001".  I've turned on and off the backlash with different values, and restarted each time, none of it helps, except keeping it off.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks,
   Stewart

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: February 25, 2007, 11:39:45 PM »

Thanks so much for the explanation, and for the screenshot.  I had stared at that screen for about an hour but for some reason my brain didn't see the "reversed" check box.  I've been told I have asked my question in the wrong part of this forum, pardon, I'll post them in the correct place next time.

Thanks!
   Stewart

18

General Mach Discussion / 1st question... Re: New people welcome !!

« on: February 25, 2007, 12:43:08 PM »

Hi, my name is Stewart and I just finished converting a Rong-Fu mill to CNC with parts from Homeshopcnc.com pmdx.com and a computer running Mach3!  It seems to be running great, but this is my first venture into CNC milling so I have some pretty big knowledge gaps.  I'm a filmmaker in Dallas, TX, but have been a hobbyist machinist for many years and have a pretty good shop in the back yard.  I'm hopefully going to use the CNC to build camera parts and accessores that I've been designing.

I look forward to participating on this forum.  Thanks for the forum, and such great and affordable software....

So my first newbee question, what is the convention for the direction of the axis?  When the Z plunges down, should that be a positive or negative move?  Same with the table, when the Y comes towards you, positive or negative?  When the X moves to the right, is that move positive or negative?  I put in what I thought made sense, but found some of the wizards behaved oppositely of my intuition.  Then, in Mach3, is there a software way to reverse the motor direction (I've looked but cant find it), or just switch the wires on my stepper motors?

Thanks!

Stewart