Topics

91

General Mach Discussion / How do you Connect the Metal Braiding of a Cable?

« on: November 29, 2013, 10:07:26 AM »

I'm wiring my four stepper motors 18AWG shielded cables and I want to know how I ground physically the cable shields at the panel end.

When I cut the exterior plastic shell of each cable, there is under it the metal braiding and after there is the aluminum foil; do I ground only the braiding, the foil, both?

And how do you do this physically? Do I solder a piece of wire to the braiding / foil ?

Thanks

92

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Gantry Width

« on: November 08, 2013, 01:13:34 AM »

On the attached picture you can see my two "S" shaped gantries; each one is 1/2" thick, 4" wide by 26" high and I cut them from two pcs of aluminum each 8.25"x 26.25"x1/2" thick.

They turned out pretty good except in one gantry the straight part at the bottom only is 3-7/8" wide and the rest is 4" wide; the other one is 4" wide from the bottom to the top

All my alignments are done from the front edge of each gantry and so I don’t see any misalignment problems right now.

To compensate for the difference I was thinking when I home the machine one limit switch will stick out further by 1/8" than the other one

I could also screw on the edge of the smaller gantry a piece of 1/8" aluminum and then they will both be the same width

What is your opinion? 

93

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Z Axis Weight

« on: November 06, 2013, 12:12:03 AM »

The attached pics show my Z axis and to reduce the weight I though to drill at random 1/2" or 3/4" holes even under the slide rails. The plate is 3/8" thick aluminum, 6"x 18.25"

Is it a good idea?

94

General Mach Discussion / How do you Resume Cutting?

« on: December 17, 2012, 06:29:06 PM »

When I run a gcode cutting whatever I have on my table and I press the E-Stop for whatever reason, if I don’t mode the tool can I press the "Cycle Start" button to resume my cutting from where I stopped?

When would you use the button "Run from Here"

95

General Mach Discussion / Questions 1st Aluminum Cut Sample

« on: November 11, 2012, 05:03:02 PM »

Finally I cut my 1st Aluminum sample and have some questions. The sample is on a piece 5.5”x4”x1/8” thick and the square I cut on it is 2”x2”. Before this cut I did another sample on MDF and all the cuts on MDF look good (see attached pic)

1. The tool I use for the square cut is 1/4" Drill Point 2 Flute Endmill and the start of the cut is at the top left corner. The speed of the tool is about 6000RPM and the feed rate is 20"/min. As you can see on the attached pic. the cut at the start is not the same as the rest, its deeper and wider. What may cause this?

2. I was expecting the cut to be more sharp and clean but have no experience with Aluminum cuts so is this normal? Perhaps I use the wrong bit?

2.  The thickness of the aluminum is 1/8" and I did the square cut with 2 passes of 1/16" each pass but the tool did not go thru. What is wrong here? I set the depth with a zero touch plate so I know that the Z is set properly at 0 on top of the material

3. This is not a question about the cut but I guess the pump I have for the cooling liquid is not big enough to pump the thin oil I use. I control the pump with a momentary switch and when I press the switch the oil just trickles out of the nozzle. Can you recommend a better pump? 

96

General Mach Discussion / Status Line Message and DRO Readings

« on: October 28, 2012, 12:22:37 PM »

Perhaps this message on the status line was there before and never notice it but I just loaded a new gcode and the status line says: “Min –Z -.0625”. I know that .0625” is my depth of cut but does this message indicates something else that I should be aware?

Also I set my piece to be cut in the center of the table, bring the tool to where I want to start my cut, zero the DRO but the DRO indicate:
X -0.0000, Y +0.0000, Z -0.0000, A +0.0000
Why some are minus and some plus? Something I'm doing wrong?

97

LazyCam (Beta) / No Entities Shown

« on: October 18, 2012, 10:42:29 AM »

I made my control panel layout in Acad V14 which includes various holes / squares / and letters. Since I want to do the cutting in two steps I made two drawings out of this drawing; one includes all the holes / squares and the other includes only the letters.

As per attached picture, when I open the DXF file which contains only the letters, Lazycam loads the DXF file but I see nothing on the drawing area and the info window tells me “No Entities Found” but the project window show all the Layers and chains. And when I post the code to Mach3, I see my drawing correctly and executing the code all seem to work fine. When I open the DXF which contains the holes / squares all are ok.

I Just wonder why I don’t see the letters drawing in LC

98

General Mach Discussion / Problem Lifting Z Axis

« on: October 17, 2012, 03:20:50 PM »

Very seldom when I lift the Z axis during testing the motor still screams and I wonder if it’s a matter of tuning the motor with different settings. The Z weights approx. 25Lbs (90VDC Sherline motor, Taig Spindle and the 1/2" thick aluminum parts). Going down I never had a problem, its always when she goes up and I’m afraid that it may happen during a program run so I would like to resolve this issue.

The settings I have for all motors, including the Z are: Velocity=100, Acceleration=20, G’s=0.05180, Step Pulse=2, Dir=2. Are these settings sound ok?

99

Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. / Level the Table Top

« on: October 15, 2012, 10:45:50 AM »

I have attached a dial indicator to my spindle and trying to level the table top which is a 5/8” MDF piece about 28”x40” (cutting area about 24”x36”)

It looks like that the dial indicator has its own mind because as I move it slowly over the table I always get different readings and I wonder if it is appropriate to use a dial indicator for this job or my dial is not good.

I bought the indicator with a magnetic base from eBay and I only paid $35.00 so perhaps its not one of the best?

100

General Mach Discussion / Unwanted Gcode Line

« on: October 01, 2012, 09:15:38 AM »

Trying to cut a simple 10”x10” square, the origin is at the top right then with the tool raised she goes with line N30 to –X10 and then she goes down and starts the cut.

Any ideas why the line N30 is generated? (see attached code)

Also why I get the message on the status line “PWM Bumped to minimum Setting”