Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: DICKEYBIRD on May 04, 2013, 12:05:56 PM
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Does the problem mentioned here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mach1mach2cnc/message/138590 apply to the latest Mach post (T_Mach3Rcss.ppr) I've downloaded from the Dolphin site? I had a weird problem last weekend and am hoping it could be related to the arc polarity or G2/G3 reversal issue mentioned in this message.
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I think the PP I use puts out IK's rather than R's,
What problem are you having? Is it internal Arcs that are screwed?
Hood
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I think the PP I use puts out IK's rather than R's,
What problem are you having? Is it internal Arcs that are screwed?
Hood
Haven't gotten as far as internal arcs yet. That pain is coming later.:)
The part I worked on last weekend had 2 external fillets. It looked good in the P/M animation and the Mach screen with no crop circles (thanks to your G90.1 tip). When I ran the code in Mach, cutting air, all was well until it got to one of the fillets and it arced off into oblivion, had to hit the E-stop. I had already had other self-induced problems and wasted a lot of time on stupid stuff so didn't get much time to look into it before calming libations were necessary. I'm at work today so will get back to it tomorrow and will have intelligent (I hope) questions to ask.
Like they say, eating an elephant is done one bite at a time. I'll keep nibbling away at it.
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Thats strange, if the toolpath view was ok in Mach then it should really have worked ok.
If you attach your .cnc file tomorrow I will have a look.
Does your PP put out IK's or R's?
Hood
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I have strange things happen to me all the time. It's kharma I guess.
I'll have to watch more carefully on the next attempt as I think the problem started after a tool change. I may have screwed up something with the tool tip radius or ??. I guess I posted my question a bit early as I can't respond properly yet to your knowledgeable questions. Not sure about IK's & R's. :-[
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Just look in the code and see if the G2/3's have I and K or an R.
Hood
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I have just recently got started with Partmaster and I have discovered that the Mach3 posts do not have any feed rate changes built in to the g-code files. For example there will be a line that has G00 at the start and some coordinates. This will send the tool at max rapid speed to that position ok, but the following lines sometimes have NO 'G' at the start, or sometimes they will have G01, or G02/03 but at the end of the block there is NEVER a change in feed rate, so the machine just keeps on at the max feed rate. Just because there is a G01 at the start of the line, Mach does not know what speed is supposed to be set, so it just stays where it is. This tiny little issue makes the Mach posts in Partmaster totally useless from what i can see. I have tried at least 5 different mach posts and they all have the same quirk. Is there a way around this, is it normal, what do other people do - go in and edit the g-code file every time? I have complained about this to Dolphin, but their 'post writer' is away.......
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I changed my PP quite a bit but I can not remember that being one of the issues, in fact I am quite confident that it wasnt.
If you attach your pp I can have a look at some point, also attach your part file you are having issues with.
Hood
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Hood:
I have the guys at Dolphin working on it now for me so that should get resolved in the next few days. In the mean time it isnt difficult to edit the code file, just a pain in the butt to have to do it. On the first file I created I ran the code in air to see how it responded. Everything worked just fine, however there was never any change in feed rate, and on a lathe operation there are several since the machine goes into rapid on the backpath, then slows down for the cutting operation.... that never happened, but it does now that I edited the code file.
I have sent a copy of the edited and unedited code to Dolphin for them to see what is needed and they will be able to fix it for me, but what really amazes me is that no one else seems to have this issue - maybe I am their only customer running Mach?
I had several other issues getting started as well, since they sold me a dual licence for the mill and the lathe, the licence file was never setup properly for lathe work, which is what I really needed. Initially when I tried to run the post to generate a file - there were NO posts that showed up in the post window, it was blank, although there were posts in the folder. It turned out that the developers had changed V12 to look for V12 posts and all the posts were V11, that is has now been fixed - 3 weeks later.
After that, when I eventually tried to generate a code file - I got an error and the post processor deleted all but about 9 blocks of code...... thanks very much. That also got fixed - about a week later, apparently the licence file was never setup to allow me to do lathe work....
So now - almost everything works except the post processor doesn't produce code that works properly......
All in all, I think that Partmaster is a great program for lathe work, very flexible and easy to run - once you understand it, if you don't have all these issues. That said, Rodney at Dolphin has been great to help me out with good customer service, but it is still annoying since none of these problems should have ever risen had their developers and programmers been on their game..... based on this experience I don't know if I will ever use the mill program, especially since I have Aspire. For the price, Aspire is the king of engraving programs IMHO.
I'll let you know if I need any help going forward, thanks for the reply.
Pete
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It could well be V12, didnt even know V12 was out. I had V10 and V11 and the feedrate was not an issue.
V11 needed a line at the start of the post to indicate it was V11 post but as long as that line was there a V10 post would work.
The reason it needed that line was they had fixed a long standing bug with V10 that had reversed arcs for internal work and you had to pick the opposite direction of approach so it would post right. I used my modified V10 post in V11 (with the line added) and it posted perfect code with the tool direction as it should be.
I now use BobCAD and it is a more advanced than Dolphin and I much prefer it but Dolphin does work well.
Hood
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I have never used Bobcad but cost was also a major factor for me and I got a really good deal from Dolphin and picked up the Mill Pro and the Lathe for the price of the Mill Pro only. I have read several posts about BobCad that convinced me to stay away from it. The lathe stuff I need to do is pretty basic. I was even using pocketing code from Aspire that I manually edited to remove all the Z moves, but then I had to compensate for cutter plunge and retract, running the code in Mach to see what was happening. It was taking me from 3 - 8 hours of playing and testing to get a file that would work for what i needed, as opposed to a 20 minute task in Dolphin lathe (well at least once i get better at it).. ;) It all comes down to what works best for the particular person and the jobs at hand.
Pete
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DICKEYBIRD,
Haven't used Doplhin lathe in a number of months here so starting to forget specifics.
Anyway.....
DOPLHIN TURNING POST PROCESSORS
Mach 3 - Radius mode: T_mach3Rcss
Mach 3 - Diameter mode: T_mach3DcssT
For version 10 and 11 I use the above post processors, but I mostly work in diameter mode and thus use
T_mach3DcssT and the code output for arc's are I k. I also have reversed arcs checked in my cofiguration.
Note the following changes for version 11:
As of Version 11 – a new section is required within all Lathe posts. This section must appear after the
Title section and must look like this :
VERSION:
FILEVERSION 11.0 TURNING
END
Dolphin worked for me for what I wanted to do. I plan on getting back into it in the near future.
Version 12? Well don't know if I will spend money to upgrade. After a while you get tired of the upgrade crap.
I wish i had the money i spent on AutoCad over the years as i would be able to pay someone to do the drafting! :D
Till then,
RICH
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If you look at your old posts you could tell if there used to be an issue or not. What I found with V12 was that there would be a block starting with G00 (which tells Mach to use max rapid speed) then coordinates, the next line would also have X&Z coordinates but no prefix, so the machine would stay in the rapid feed mode. The second line after the G00 is usually G01 plus coordinates. At the end of this line there should be a 'F 5.0' or something similar to specify the required machining feed rate. It is this Feed Rate command that does not show up in these instances, therefore Mach stays in max rapid speed for the duration of the entire process.
This sure makes for short machining times but really *********ty results, broken cutters etc, since you cant machine at max rapid speed......
So anyone that is using Dolphin Lathe V12 be cautious about this - and make sure you COMPLAIN to them about the screwed up post processor. I tried all the post processors that were available - and they all do the same thing, they DO NOT change the feed rate. So maybe this is an issue with V12, I have no idea, but it seems to me that it should be controlled by the post processor.
Perhaps Hood can shed some light on this? Like I mentioned previously, Dolphin is now aware of this and it should be resolved soon - their post writer guy is on vacation or something...... I guess they don't have a backup programmer.... :-\
The V12 will now work with the V11 posts - at least on my machine, but they have been into my computer twice now and they have downloaded and installed several licence files, several new post processors and the like, so it is hard to tell what my machine is doing, at least it is workable for now. the only way to test it would be to install the V12 demo software and try it out to see where it would be different from the V11, and also verify that the V11 and maybe even the V10 posts might work. Rodney told me it would be ok to use an older post for the time being, so it should work for everyone, if the post produces proper code.
Pete
Pete
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Thanks guys, it's good to see some Dolphin talk as there's not a lot of it around. Unfortunately, life & other projects have kept me from using it much since the original post last year and I've forgotten most of what I learned. I was able to successfully make a precisely turned knob for a friend's vintage cooking pot.;D It had various blended radii & a couple tool changes and no crop circles or feed rate problems showed up so the T_mach3DcssT post works OK for my v10 anyway.
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With the help of a programmer friend, we have figured a quick fix to the feed rate issue I have discussed above. Once the g-code has been created in Dolphin Lathe, you can edit the code from the Edit menu using Notepad while still in the cam program. All you need to do is to run a Find and Replace routine - Find G01 and replace ALL INSTANCES with G01 F3.0 - or whatever feed rate you want. This of course is a global change but at least it shouldnt crash any tools on the plunge for you. You can still edit any individual blocks you might need to change.
At least until the Dolphin post guy gets things fixed properly, this is a quick fix. I'll let you know if/when the Lathe post is corrected, and also attach a copy for any that want it.
Pete