Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: dumbdumb on February 24, 2015, 04:31:48 AM

Title: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 24, 2015, 04:31:48 AM

Hello!

The company I work for bought a CNC engraver and tasked me with 'getting it to work'.

I managed to assemble the CNC, install and setup Mach 3. After a bit of fighting with setup and configuration the system seemed to work.

Doing a full test of engraving text using F-Engrave yielded some promising and then weird results;

The first line of text comes out well most of the time, but the second line has incorrect and missing 'segments', almost as if the text was corrupted.

Has any one experienced this? I verified the g-code in a free g-code viewer and it seems correct.

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: Hood on February 24, 2015, 04:39:51 AM

Post a pic of the results and that may help to diagnose the problem, also attach the xml and the gcode file if you can.
Hood

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 24, 2015, 06:24:34 AM

Hood

I have attached the image and the g-code.

The image is a bit fuzzy... and perhaps I exagerated the problem  :-[

The problem seems to occur on the second line only. The third seems ok. It also only seems to affect the numbers 1, 2 and 5.

Note: The two engravings are different character height and line spacing as it was a work in progress to determine the required parameters.

PS: Please rename WAFER.jpg to WAFER.ngc.

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: Hood on February 24, 2015, 06:30:10 AM

It looks like the problem may be the plate is uneven and thus the Z depth is not consistent.
That could be a problem with very small depths of cuts as it will show up as very lightly engraved or even missing text, as seems to be the case for you.

It could be the table is not level or possibly you do not have the material clamped well and it is buckling slightly.

Not sure what type of tool you are using but possibly a spring loaded engraving tool may work better.

Hood

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 24, 2015, 06:35:20 AM

Hood

Thanks! Ill action that and let you know if the problem persists.

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 24, 2015, 08:57:04 AM

Hood

I overdid the engravng and ensured an as flat situation as possible, but the letter 5 on the second line still has a problem. FMX21551

The pic is ugly, and the engraving bit dug too deep, but hopefully you can see it.

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: Hood on February 24, 2015, 09:32:46 AM

Ok if you look at your code by running through it with the keyboard (click in window and press down arrow on keyboard) you will see the upper section of the 5 is cut after the 1 (Yellow in screenshot) It is not until a lot later on in the code that it goes back and finishes the 5 (Orange in screenshot)

So your problem is you need to let the code run on a good bit before the 5 will be completed.

Hood

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: grouchy on February 25, 2015, 12:19:45 AM

the demo version of mach3 is limited to 500 lines of code, then it stops, even though your gode was longer

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 25, 2015, 01:12:32 AM

Bahahaha!

Thanks Hood, I understand the organisation of the g-code better now.

Thanks grouchy! It probably is the demo code - How do I confirm this?

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: Hood on February 25, 2015, 03:22:46 AM

If you go to the Help menu then About Mach....... In the window that pops up it will either have demo or the name it is licensed to.

Hood

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 25, 2015, 03:47:18 AM

Hood, thanks I got that.

Yup, its Demo... We will be buying the full version soon.

Thanks
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: JohnHaine on February 25, 2015, 12:09:15 PM

Just for reassurance, I use F-Engrave with Mach 3 (licensed) and it works fine.

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 26, 2015, 01:12:26 AM

John

Thanks.
dumbdumb

Title: Re: CNC Engraving : F-Engrave
Post by: dumbdumb on February 26, 2015, 03:16:41 AM

All

As an update, now that the software is full version its running well with no problems. I could see it return to finish the 5s.

Thanks
dumbdumb