Messages

241

General Mach Discussion / Re: LPT woes

« on: October 13, 2006, 01:15:48 PM »

Possibly a 3.3 volt system? The older stuff is better as it's all 5 volt, possibly need a scope to check it.

242

General Mach Discussion / Re: New user has question about Mach3 setup

« on: September 19, 2006, 06:28:33 PM »

The heat that steppers emit is to do with the voltage you are running them on, I have a large router that has a 90 volt AC power supply and has a ton of power and speed, the steppers get to over 150F, too hot to touch, bad enough that I added water cooling jackets to them, cooled off the spindle cooler. I like the power it has, so don't want to compromise motor life for speed. Yet, my lathe has a 42 volt power supply and the motors on that get barely warm, almost cool to the touch, but it isn't very fast either....

243

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Coil winding machine ( Wizard needed)

« on: September 17, 2006, 03:23:50 PM »

Yes, that's right, you already have the correct hardware there as the spindle is a stepper or servo. Just an addition to the basic program would do it, with the additional input on the display. Now if I could just get a post for CAM to wind a prop blade....

244

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Coil winding machine ( Wizard needed)

« on: September 17, 2006, 11:28:50 AM »

I do composite work, now that I look at it, can the software run the wind mandrel a half turn, advance the guide post a certain amount, run the mandrel another half turn, then retract the guide post a certain amount? I didn't see on the screen above where you could set it to do this. This would be the use for composites, rather than just a typical spool wind such as an electrical use needs.

245

General Mach Discussion / Re: Calling all post processors. ( Help me to help you )

« on: September 08, 2006, 12:04:58 AM »

Here's my lathe post for Surfcam, seems to work well for me anyway.
Dave.

246

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tracing eye and mach

« on: August 20, 2006, 05:29:12 PM »

I have one of those digitisers, it's a Mimio digitiser, search for one on Ebay using "Digital whiteboard". Basically, you connect it to a PC, set the digitiser up on the corner of a max. 4' by 8' table, place your patterns down, and start. You use a sort of transmitter pen and trace around the template, it comes up on the screen as you draw. Saves as a JPG or a TIFF. I messed with the scaling and got it to be very good, I import it into AutoCad as a raster image, then basically draw over the lines with polylines, freehand or whatever your preference, and save as a DXF. I use it for pattern making for composite mould making and carbon parts, using my CNC router with a tangential knife setup to cut the carbon fiber out. Very nice setup, and very low cost!

247

General Mach Discussion / Re: Inital reference points and limit switches

« on: August 14, 2006, 12:40:38 PM »

Ahh, this makes sense, I'll try that. Thanks Brian!

248

General Mach Discussion / Re: Inital reference points and limit switches

« on: August 14, 2006, 01:38:12 AM »

I did some checking tonight with dial guages set and setting limits on start up, a couple of other things, and the control does use the limit switches for setting it's position each time. I can take a skim cut each time also, but feel that you shouldn't really need to do this. I would like to use the limit switches just for that purpose; limit switches, not absolute position switches, but it would take the control to store and reload the absolute position last used on shut down each time, and ignore the limit switch signal, only use it for the machine limit safety. Is this possible, or could it be done with a simple macro or something? Thanks, Dave.

249

General Mach Discussion / Re: Inital reference points and limit switches

« on: August 12, 2006, 12:04:32 PM »

Well, I've been doing that, but it seems that I have to do it everytime, I'll look into it more and report back, thanks Brian.

250

General Mach Discussion / Inital reference points and limit switches

« on: August 11, 2006, 12:54:17 AM »

With my Mach3 driven lathe, I am still a bit in the dark about limit references. On power up, I set the limits on both axis, but my limits switches aren't perfect, and I get the odd change, nothing bad though, maybe .005". I haven't figured out yet if there is a way to power up the machine, set the limits, and have it not change any of the reference settings. With a lathe, with indexable tooling, you can pretty much set your tools, and never change the tool offsets again, save for wear or the odd mishap. If I power down the machine, I have no reason to manually move the saddle or crosslide, and make it a practice not to, so when it is powered up the next time it would make sense for the control to just store the last position and go with that. I agree that you still should set limits in case the saddle, etc. has been moved while the control was off somehow, but the limits setting procedure should not alter the machine's absolute position. This then nulifys the inaccuracies of the limit switches.