Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: cncrailroad on January 06, 2009, 01:57:27 PM
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:)Hi, my name is Chuck and I'm the owner of Coeur d'Alene Cabinetry in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho. To enhance my business I purchased a 5'x 10' Vortech Router about 4 months ago. I'm currently going back through the Mach3 software documentation to make sure I have everything set up correctly. The original set-up information just doesn't seam right compared to what I'm reading and watching in the tutorials. I have several years of experience in CNC machines, I spent 18 years in the Navy Nuclear industry as a machinist, tool designer, and supervisor.
I have a few questions about settings:
1st, How can I assign Motor Outputs for the spindle control if they were not supplied by the original vendor?
2nd, I programed a layout for a series of counter sunk holes to hold down my spoil board to the hold down table. I did a test run and everytime the "Z" axis went up and down it actually kept going deeper and deeper in depth. Fortunately, I caught the problem and stopped it before it went through the entire table. I posted this question on the Vectic Software site and a gentleman from England suggested I decrease the acceleration speed, but the whole Motor tuning thing is confusing. It took me over 3 hours the other day to calibrate the correct "Step per" calculation to get the "X" and "Y" to move the proper distance.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Chuck
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1st question will depend how your spindle is controlled, give us some details of it and someone should be able to advise.
2nd question. Certainly sounds like you are losing steps and what is happening is your motor is stalling on a rise and so next down movement it is starting at a lower height than Mach thinks its at so it sends it too far. As was mentioned on the vectric site acceleration may be set too high, also velocity could also be set to high. Unfortunately there are so many variables that no one can really advise what settings you should have for them so its just a case of starting low with both and increasing and testing until you hear your motors missing then back off a bit, you dont need to come out ouf the motor tuning page to test, you can just move your motors via the up and down arrows for testing.
Hood
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Thanks Hood,
The current spindle control comes from a digital readout on a control panel located on the side of the router. There is a small dial that lets you adjust the RPM. However you must do some calculating before you set the reading. The actual RPM is 60 times what the reading on the DRO is. Plus there is no fine adjustment, all you have to do is barely touch the knob and the RPM's take off.
Currently, I can turn the spindle on & off with the Mach3, but I want to control everything with the Mach3.
As far as the "Z" axis problem, I'm going back and going through the set-up as described in the Mach3 documentation. The settings I have came from the machine vendor. So far I've had to change everything they sent to make my machine run properly.
I'll keep you posted on my progress. Again Thanks.
Chuck
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Sounds like you have a VFD controlling the spindle. If so then the chances are it can take a zero to ten volt input for speed control. If it can then there are a few boards out there that may be suitable, Peter Homann does the digispeed , www.homanndesigns.com , so if you can find out the make of VFD you could email him and see if his board would do.
Hood
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Hi Hood,
I went through the entire motor tuning section and the "Z" problem seams to be fix. I also re-calibrated all three drives, X, Y, & Z.
However now something else has popped up it's ugly head. I ran my original drilling pattern that I laid out in VCarve Pro. The first run I did on the single step to make sure everything was working and the program stopped running at line 30. So I re-homed the machine, re-winded the program, regenerated the program, and pushed the start button. Everything started off fine, in fact it was running great, then all of a sudden the program stopped at line 79. With that I decided to stop for the night and go back to running tomorrow.
Is there something I missed?
Chuck
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If you use the additional options on the reply page you can attach the code file and maybe someone will see a problem in it.
Also have a look at the ticker message at the bottom of the screen and see if there is a message there when it stops, could be something like softlimits are being activated.
Hood
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Good Morning Hood,
I'm going to try running the program again this morning above the actual work piece and see what happens. I should of looked at the ticker message after the machine stopped, but I was so excited to finally see the machine running properly I forgot. But I will definitely be looking for any message if it stops again. I've also been told to disable my screen saver and any anti-virus as they will both do funny things to your programs.
I tried to attach a copy of the program file, but the site doesn't support "CRV" from VCarve Pro and I don't know how to change it to "TXT".
Thanks for all of your help.
Chuck
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>:(Help Hood or anyone,
OK here we go. I disabled the screen saver and the anti-virus this morning before I ran the program. I set the "Z" axis above the work surface and ran the program. Everything ran great through the entire program.
Then I re-set the "Z" axis to the proper depth (actual material surface), re-winded the program, regenerated the tool path, and started the program for the second time. Everything started off great, then the program stopped at line 50 this time.
Before I moved anything the ticker message was reading "Limit Switch Activated". I really don't understand now because the program was cutting in the middle of the work space nowhere near any of the limit switches. The limit on the "Z" axis is set at -6.600 and the program total depth is 6.4622. That leaves .1378 away from the soft limits set for the depth.
Now I'm really confused. I also noticed that I can't do anything with the "Set Next Line" and "Run From Here" buttons in the run area. I've tried to set a line and run the program from there but I can't get anything to work except starting the program from the beginning.
Anyway, I'll keep plugging away here.
Chuck
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Hi Chuck,
Under General Logic Configuration, set the Debounce Interval to 500 and see if that helps.
Debounce is basically the length of time Mach will see a signal before it acts on it. If you have switches that physically bounce or have noise in the wiring of these switches Mach will see it as a switch being triggered, by setting the debounce higher you are telling Mach to wait for a longer period of signal before it acts on it, that way your short pulses are not acted upon by Mach and only a true activation of the switch will be seen.
Not sure about the Run from Here prob.
RC
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Chuck,
Just wondering about your program. I think your actual GCode file will be a .nc,.txt, or a .tap file that you can attach.
Also, here is a clip from the manual.
And you mentioned that you RE-WINDED the program...is there no M30 at the end ?
Post it if you can.
Thanks,
RC
Ooops...forgot the clip
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It is a limitation of the demo version so if you have a licence for Mach make sure it has installed by looking at the Help menu then About Mach, it will say if its demo or licenced to someone.
Hood
Oh I am meaning the Run from Here feature just in case you wondered what I was meaning :D
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;D Thanks RC,
The debouncer was the problem. I changed the settings and the program ran without any problems. Now I'm going to screw the spoil board down to the table and skim cut the surface with my 2-1/2" dia insert type spoil board cutter. I'll let you know how it all comes out.
Thanks for the insert from the manual. I guess I'd better do a little more reading.
Hey Hood, Thanks for the reply. Yes, the software is licensed to me, but after reading the section of the manual that RC posted for me, I realize I as trying to do something that the software doesn't do. That's OK, I'll get better as I continue to design and run on the machine.
Thanks for the help. Full speed ahead.
Chuck
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Chuck,
You should reduce the Debounce setting to the point where you begin to have problems again, then increase it slightly. The high number was just to verify the problem.
If you had good switches and sheilded cables, no noise from other wires, it should run with a setting of "0".
Put the pedal to the metal and let the chips/dust fly !
RC
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???Hey RC or Hood
I cut my spoil board today before I went home. The machine and program performed well with no problems. However, the surface did not come out flat, it is .010 to .015 deeper on one side of the cut to the other side. I designed and programed the surface cut in VCarve Pro. The process started at the front left hand corner of my machine (home) and cut back and forth in the X axis and continued up the Y axis until it got to the back of the table on the machine. Everytime the cutter changed cross direction (X axis) it leaves a ridge.
Do you any idea what this may be? I have already readjusted the postion of the "Z" axis as it was originally out of adjustment going up and down. When I finished it ran up and down within .0015. Could there be movement or backlash?
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Chuck
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Chuck,
If you need to change the extension ( ie to *.txt) you need to do two things.
Windows defaults to hide those extensions from you, making it VERY annoying to try to change the.
so step one is, get windows to show you the file extensions (the part after the dot)
here are instructions I found after a quick Google.
http://www.fileinfo.net/help/windows-show-extensions.html
Once you have done that all the files will get the dot and the rest showing up.
Then Copy your file so you have a backup, right click on the backup, from the menu that pops up, select rename.
The cursor will show up on the name and you can edit it to be what you want.
When you are done click away or hit enter.
If you change the extension it'll warn you it might make it unusable, hit ok,
and you should be done. Don't remove the dot, and if you keep the part after the
dot to 3 characters you'll be happier.
Hope that helps.
Eric-
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cdacab
in your Z axis assembly something mechanical is loose or out of tram.when you load that cutter your capability to hold it true is not there.when you start to cut it digs in and loads out all the loose
motion that it can find.if you think that everything is true and tight then try taking a light cut.
bill
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Hey Bill,
When I took my cut it was only .020, infact it didn't even cut some areas. I have already re-trammed the "Z" axis cradle to within .0015 going up and down the entire distance. The only thing I need to recheck is if something is loose with the bearing housings.
Thanks, Chuck
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Chuck,
I have been reading your issues on the "Z" axis. I had a similar problem on my vertical mill which has a lot of "Lost Motion" in the movement.
Try this.
Go to "Config" then click on "Backlash" and set your "Z" axis to 20% just to try ad see if it works. if not increase it or decrease it depending on the outcome.
The software works great. In my case it was the gunner and not the gun. I strongly suggest reading the Manual which you can download. That make life more tollarable.
John