Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: lowell513mx on February 26, 2008, 03:46:30 PM
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Hello all, first post. I am a n00b to the cnc world. I have a sign company and have been doing it for 10 years. I have a regular vinyl plotter and also a full color digital printer/cutter. I have recently got into building audio electronics and decided that a cnc machine might help out with some of my projects/business. I purchased a cnc sidwinder (http://www.cncsidewinder.com/) 24" x 36" router and was told to download the mach3 demo. I have no idea what I'm doing other than what the guy gave me as far as instructions and set up (which was minimal at best). At first he did not send all the information so I was stuck unable to get the thing to even move for a few weeks. Now I am able to get it running and use my hot keys to move the carriage around.
Now for the problems I have...
1. I set up the soft limits that he gave me and it doesn't seem to adhere to them. Meaning it bashes into itself at the end of the travel. :-\ (Attached what I was given)
2. So when I set the zero position just before cutting and I move it and press return to zero it does nothing at all. Won't return to where we called zero. How do you set zero properly, I might just be doing it wrong?
3. I am able to make the X Y to move properly but with Z it will only go up and not down with the hot keys.
I had my friend who runs cnc machines for a company that builds airplane and helicopter simulators over to see if he could help and he was stumped as to why the thing would not return to home or have soft limits. Unfortunatly he is not familiar with the mach3 software so he has limited knowledge of the program. Help from the forum is most appreciated and welcome.
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Please attach your xml file, you will find it in the Mach 3 folder. To attach it you will need to rename it, so copy it to your desktop and rename it then use the forums full reply form and use the additional options to browse your drive for the renamed xml. If you are just using the standard profile for Mach it will be called Mach3Mill.xml.
I see from your screenshots you dont have any home switches set up, you are best to do that, you can use the limit switches as home switches so going by your screenshot above I would set your
X Home to Port 1 Pin 3
Y home to Port 1 Pin 4
Z home to Port 1 Pin6
I will go have a look at your link and see what type of machine we are talking about.
Hood
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OK just had a look, dont see any limit switches on them in the pics, are there limit switches on your machine?
Hood
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Hello n00b, welcome aboard. I'm still learning myself but soft limits can be turned off - can't remember what screen it's on but it mihgt be Settings. Possibly too easy but just as easy to overlook.
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OK just had a look, dont see any limit switches on them in the pics, are there limit switches on your machine?
Hood
Hmmmmm... ok well switches it does not have. I thought the limits were determined by the number of revolutions or something on the step motors (again I'm not as well informed about this as I should have been prior to purchase). Here is my xml. file for the machine.
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OK if you dont have limits then you are not going to be able to use soft limits unless you do a routine at start up. Mach needs to know where the table is in order to use softlimits.
What you will need to do is disable all your limits and home switches in Ports and pins. Jog the axis to the lower left of your work envelope and Z to fully up. You then press Ref all and you should see the green LEDs for each axis turn green. This has now set your machine coordinates to X0 Y0 and Z0. What you want to do now is enter 0 for X min, 0 for Y min and 0 for Z Max. next jog to the extent of each axis and make sure you are looking at the Machine coords (you can see them by pressing the Machine Coords button) you will see a red LED surrounding the button and that lets you know you are looking at the machine coords. Ok so note down the numbers you see in each axis DRO and enter them as values in X Max, Y Max and Z min.
Next make sure you have enabled the Soft limits by pressing the button, you will see a green LED surrounding it when they are active. You should now be able to Jog and Mach will stop before it reaches the ends of the axis, take care just in case its not set up right.
Every time you start Mach you will need to move to each axis extreme then press the Ref All button.
Now when in normal use you dont have the Machine CoOrds button active, this lets you jog to a position then zero the axis and it will now set that position as a work offset, if you press the Machine Cords button you will see it shows different numbers, that is because Mach is remembering the "real" Coordinates.
Hope you folow but if not ask away and you are sure to get help.
Hood
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BTW when I said above that you set your X min, Ymin etc etc I am meaning in your homing and limits page.
Hood
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Thank you very much for your speedy responses. I will give it a look tomorrow and see if I can get anywhere with your settings.
Cheers,
Lowell
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No problem, oh and just in case you dont know there are quite a few video tutorials which might help you get to grips with Mach, your will find them from links at the top of the forum. Also there are links to the manuals, they are excellent but can be a bit daunting when new to all things CNC, however they are still worth a look and once you get to grips with things can be a great help for reference.
Hood
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OK... I am lurking here... and I try really hard to read all the other posts to prevent duplicating. I think that this is going to solve my problem as well (TAIG MILL) as do NOT have limit switches on my mill. SO.. the question is... if you need to re-zero your machine each time... is this when I turn off the computer? Or the controller? If I leave my computer running with Mach 3 and I *just* turn off the controller when not using it... will that require a need to re-zero the machine?
If anyone out there has a TAIG mill and cares to send experiences, please feel free to do so.
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Greetings Larry,
I don't have a Taig but here is what I've learned with my limited experience.
If I leave my PC on, and leave all of the CNC goodies powered up, I can close the Mach program with the DRO's persistant and all is OK.
It will restart just where it left off.
Anytime I power the PC down or cut the power to the CNC goodies, I ALLWAYS reference the axis's.
Theres always that little 'clunk' when powering up....that's when stuff moves.
It's good practice to ref. anytime something is turned of/on or a limit or e-stop is hit.
Good luck,
RC
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I ran my first mill for long enough without referencing until I eventually got limits hooked up. Just means you have to be carefull and you cant really use the softlimits. BTW you dont need to move to an axis extreme to reference, you could have marks on the table that line up and you call that your reference, then you use the Home Off for setting the extreme of each axis as your machine zero and then define you soft limits from that point.
Hood
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Well.. at this point.. if the dots are very far apart, I can't connect them. I am trying to read the manual and watch the videos.. and not just come here and ask for free guidance. Still.. I am not there yet.
OK...
"First you will need to disable all your limits and home switches in Ports and pins."
I found under Ports Pins Input Settings tab... there was a check mark by each X home Y home Z home, so I unchecked them, hit APPLY then OK
Then I found under the Config Homing Limits what appeared to be X-- X++ which I took to mean max and min settings for each axis
SO, I drove the table to the forward left, and spindle to the highest point, and clicked on Reference All saw the green leds. Went back and checked and is showed the X min 0 Y min 0 and Z max 0. I also got the flashing Abnormal indicator at the same time and it says :Axis not refed to normal condition"
I drove the table to the opposite limits and noted the DROs. which were X 11.5369 Y 5.6025 Z 4.9082
I went back to the Motor Home/ Soft limits screen and entered those values (Z as a negative)
I still have the flashing Abnormal indicator.
Did I get even close to doing what was needed? The top of the screen of the homing page says entries are in setup units and they were all 100 125 or 0. etc. not exactly in inches.. but then.. I don't know how the program could have known the values.
Thanks in advance.
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Hey Larry,
Just like Hood said:
Pic 1- Jog to the lower left of the machine travel limits..Z up. And hit Ref all Home.
Pic 2- Jog to the opposite extents, Z dn and record the dro values in the Homing/limits setup. Pic 3
Pic 4- jog to the PART zero and zero the axis's. UNclick Mach Coords and you are now in Part coords ready to take off.
Turn your soft limits on and Mach will not leave the area.
RC
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OK... jog to the part and unclick Mach Coordinates.. I am guessing that means Machine Coordinates... and then zero the x and Y I am guessing you do that by clicking on them. OK... I will go give that a try.
What about where I UNclicked the X home Y Home Z home under the Ports and Pins.. was that correct? Leave that alone? Go back and change it to how it was?
What about the Abnormal flashing?
Thanks
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OK... jog to the part and unclick Mach Coordinates.. I am guessing that means Machine Coordinates... and then zero the x and Y I am guessing you do that by clicking on them. OK... I will go give that a try. YES
YES
What about where I UNclicked the X home Y Home Z home under the Ports and Pins.. was that correct? Leave that alone? Go back and change it to how it was? NO YES
What about the Abnormal flashing? Should go away
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OK, I did all that... and it seems to work alright. I am still nervous about setting the Z and letting it go, I keep my fingers on the alt-s trigger just in case. The Abnormal light is still flashing... but it's working correctly.
Does anyone feel generous enough to walk me through a lazycam drawing to Mach 3 file? I need a simple rectangle out of 1/8th inch aluminum roughly 2"x7" with about 5 holes down the middle on and one bolt hole in each corner. Hopefully, if I can see how that works, I will be able to handle the other pieces on my own. I have drawn them in Corel Draw, and imported them to Lazycam, and looked at them there.. but I am still not sure I have it all correct.
Thanks
Larry
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For the abnormal flashing, clcik on it and it should tell you why its flashing, then if you clcik on the Ok it will set that as a normal condition and shouldnt flash again.
Sorry cant help with LAZYcam, dont use it, keep saying I am going to but just never get the time :(
Hood
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LazyCam ? ? ? ?
You're probably better off with one can of worms open at a time.
The little part you describe would be an EXCELLENT exercise in "Writing a Gcode Program by Hand".
And probably faster, LCam can be brutal. :P
RC
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Oh great.... well.. I know nothing about Gcode at all. As in, nothing. What software is required to construct it etc. Lazycam didn't look that hard, probably because I don't know what I am doing. I drew the part and several others in Corel Draw, and then imported them into Lazycam, and thought I had set the number of laps around the piece to cut it out, and the holes (first of course) and then tried to import it into Mach 3, but it didn't work. I have been going through the tutorials, but haven't crossed the finish line yet.
I have had this mill for almost 18 months, and it has done nothing so far, and I need the parts desperately. I have customers that need them, so I really need to solve this.
Thanks
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Hmm. If your customers are screaming for parts, satisfying them may be your #1 priority... sub the work out, take a bit of a loss, clear your mind of panic and set to getting your machine going? at least that way your customers won't think of you as someone who delivers late or not at all. It depends how loud they're screaming really. just a possibility.