Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: August 30, 2017, 02:03:13 PM »

All great points. It may not be worth the cost and certainly the Sherline platform is limited as to how hard you can push it. the advantages of AC servos with my thinking is speed, not cut speed, but speed regarding approach, plunge, and transfer all with improved resolution. This can dramatically improve run times. If I push steppers to fast they loose steps and sometimes not move at all... the dreaded ZZZZZ sound. Another advantage is to use the external hardware drivers which I know steppers have as well but steppers are just noisy and don't like to be pushed very fast, at least open loop anyway. Using driver boards seems to be the way to go for more modern computer options.

I also want to say more torque is not what I am after. All you need is enough torque to handle the maximum cut you would ever make anything more is overkill. More torque means more broken tools. There has been a few times my steppers stalled when taking to aggressive of a cut saving my endmill from breaking. Not so much the smaller endmills though.

I appreciate all the information and shared opinions. I will need to think about all this and see what is the best option for me personally.

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: August 29, 2017, 09:05:58 PM »

Thanks for the information. I misunderstood what closed loop was then. I thought by adding an encoder you are creating stepper/servo with resolution dependent on the encoder used. My interest is to upgrade to servos perhaps ac servos. I woukd like to use servos and have mach3 communicate to a servo driver board that sends signals to the servo controller cards. I really dont know what Im doing. I just would like to use more modern computers because the old stuff is just not reliable. I bought an old dell desktop tp replace and old compaq deaktop and the new/old dell is starting to act up. Im kind of tired of the old junk and I dont want to buy yet another OLD desktop to run my mill.

Id like to run AC Servos using windows 7 or higher but dont know what I need to learn.

23

General Mach Discussion / Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: August 29, 2017, 02:33:05 PM »

Hello Guys,

I have been doing a lot of research on closed loop steppers / hybrid servos and I am confused as to how all this interfaces with Mach3. It looks to me that each stepper servo has an encoder and a separate motion controller card example: 3 motors, 3 cards. Now does there need to be a separate driver board to interface the 3 cards to to a pc where as the driver board is the middle man? Does a parallel port still need to be used? USB? If you are using external controllers/drivers, are you now free to use any 64 bit operating system?

I am currently using a Sherline mill, Sherline steppers, Sherline 3-Axis stepper controller using the LPT printer port. I have been considering upgrading to the closed loop system.

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: My drill wont drill!

« on: June 02, 2011, 09:28:31 PM »

Here is a photo of a bracket I designed using ViaCad2d/3d , posted using Visual Mill 6.0, and then cut on a sherline 5400 milling machine with the CNC upgrade. The holes were my problem at first until I removed L command.

I thought I would share what I was working on:

25

General Mach Discussion / Re: My drill wont drill!

« on: June 02, 2011, 06:10:53 PM »

will visual mill send out a "peck" operation? 

Yes visual mill will create peck operations but the format is a  little different. I will need to modify the post processor to output the correct G-code.

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: My drill wont drill!

« on: June 02, 2011, 04:51:03 PM »

Ok I have a new question regarding drill operations. If I need to drill a deep hole, having the drill cycle to break the chip would be useful. What format does Mach3 Recognize so that it will retract a little to break chips? I want to be able to edit the visual mill post processor (Mach3-Sherline) so that the "break chip" option will post the proper G-code that Mach3 will recognize.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

27

General Mach Discussion / Re: My drill wont drill!

« on: May 29, 2011, 06:10:10 PM »

BINGO! that did the trick. My drill now drills

Thanks for your help! this made my day! Been fighting this issue all morning.

28

General Mach Discussion / My drill wont drill!

« on: May 29, 2011, 05:19:44 PM »

Hey guys, I'm having a problem with drilling operations. The drill will go to the proper x,y locations but it wont plunge, it just stays in the clearance plane and goes from location to location. I have included the g-code its a simple small bracket that has four holes set to drill .1" deep the material is .09" thick.

The code is generated from visual mill 6.0 and my machine is a Sherline 5400 inch. It will mill without any problems, for some reason the drill operations don’t want to plunge.


N1 G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90
N2 G20
N3 (Standard Drill )
N4 M6 T2
N5 M03 S1500
N6 G00 G43 H1 Z1
N7 G01 X0.3954 Y0.5986 Z0.1000 F3000.0
N8 G00
N9 G81 X0.3954 Y0.5986 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N10G80
N11 G00 Z0.1000
N12 G81 X0.7234 Y0.9266 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N13G80
N14 G00 Z0.1000
N15 G81 X0.7234 Y0.2706 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N16G80
N17 G00 Z0.1000
N18 G81 X1.0514 Y0.5986 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N19G80
N20 G00 Z0.1000
N21 M5 M9
N22 M30

Thanks for any help at all.

29

General Mach Discussion / Re: DXF Symbol for drill? Anyone... Anyone???

« on: March 29, 2011, 07:40:45 PM »

Sorry for such a long delay, I am up to my eyeballs with work... at my work.

Hello Rich, sorry I didn't provide more details on what I was doing. I was importing dxf drawings using an older version of mach3 that has the import feature. The dxf files I import treat circles as circles which is fine but I was wondering if there was a symbol with crossing lines like + or X that would be interpreted as a centroid. I was able to edit the G-code and change G2 to G83, but I ended up changing some circles to drill by accident. If I can use a symbol then importing a dxf would be a little easier.

I am only playing around for the time being.  I am saving up for Visual Mill which will make a lot of things possible, but I was experimenting with cutting simple parts and the old mach3 dxf was a great starting point and I have cut several shapes so far using this utility.

Thanks,
Mike

30

General Mach Discussion / DXF Symbol for drill? Anyone... Anyone???

« on: March 28, 2011, 09:16:52 PM »

Hello Guys,

Been breaking my self in to this new hobby, literally! I broke another endmill. I need to think twice and cut once. Anyway, does anyone know if you can use a drawing symbol that mach3 would interpret as a drill point?

Thanks,

Mike