Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: B and C home switches triggering together

« on: September 05, 2016, 08:11:26 PM »

This was a problem with the 6 axis screen set.  I was able beg borrow and steal one from Doughty Drive.  Theirs worked fine.  I'm lucky I bought one of their drives, as the one on the Mach 3 site is broooooken.

Barry

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: B and C home switches triggering together

« on: September 05, 2016, 04:55:23 PM »

It appears it might be due to the 6 axis screen set on the mach3 site, a bug?  Is there a known good 6 axis screen set?

3

General Mach Discussion / B and C home switches triggering together

« on: September 05, 2016, 04:20:55 PM »

Hey folks, I'm having a bit of an issue.  I'm finally setting up my BC head.  I know, it's only been years, but well, I've been out of the country and my jobs on the mill only needed to be 3 axis until now.  Anyway, I'm setting it up, and am having trouble setting the home switches for the B/C head.  I have the B home switch set to port 2, pin 2, and C home switch set to port 2, pin 3.  If I manually connect the 5 volt to pin 2, it shows flags of both B and C home in the Diagnostics tab.  If I connect 5 volt to pin 3, I don't get a flag.  Note, this is without any home switches actually connected to the pins.  I'm in troubleshoot mode.  If I choose other pins for B home, it still does the same when closing the circuit.  It always throws B and C, but never individually.  Is there a setting in Mach for this maybe?  I'm at my wits end!

Barry

4

General Mach Discussion / trouble with 4th/5th access limit switches

« on: February 21, 2016, 07:43:12 PM »

Hey folks, I'm having trouble setting my limit switches for the 4th and 5th axis.  I had the mill set to use 2-9 on port 2 as inputs, and when I'd set one on 2 it would say it is also striking the other one that's set to 7.  If I reversed the settings, the same was true.  Then If I instead set to 13 and 15, I couldn't get either to say the limits were being hit.  Btw, when I say being hit, I'm just touching the ends of the wires together.  I'm not even going through a switch yet.  I wanted to make sure they work, before moving on.

Anyway, if you have an idea, let me know.  I'm excited to get my mill operational again after a year absence.  I knew I needed to rewire it, so I did, and it had shorts due to bad solder.  Now that's all fixed, it's almost operational, except for fixing the B/C axis!

Barry

5

General Mach Discussion / trouble setting 4th and 5th access ratios

« on: February 21, 2016, 07:38:35 PM »

Hey folks, I'm adding a B/C head to my mill, and I know the ratio on the drive itself is 33.3333 to 1, since this came in the documentation.  However, I don't know where to put this in Mach 3.  Any help would be appreciated, thanks!  These are angular, btw.

Barry

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 14, 2015, 11:00:08 AM »

It's funny, that when I built the control box I followed all these steps of using shielded cable, keeping high and low power away from each other and crossing only at 90 degrees.  I made a visual schematic before I wired it, and then I tied everything down as I went along too.  I didn't do that will the mill proper though.  I'm not sure what I was thinking back when I wired that portion, although, at least the spindle does have shielded cable.   The wire will be delivered this weekend, but I've scheduled a solder party with some buddies, so we can solder all the cables in a couple hours at the end of the month.

Barry

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Control Box

« on: January 13, 2015, 03:36:01 PM »

I'd watch your local Craigslist.  Things like this pop up all the time around here.  That's the way I got mine:)

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 13, 2015, 12:08:28 AM »

Hood, Mach 3 would freeze which in turn would stop the mill.  This would happen within milling for five min.  This was super annoying.  I'll replace all the motor wires, limit switch wires, use cable, and add chokes on all the cabling.  Then I'll test again.

Thanks mrprecise, I'll get 18 awg for the motors and 22 for the limit switches.

Btw, my mill build is on this site.  I've always had issues with it, so happy with the help.

Garyhlucas, I won't be putting in a ground rod, but will run a common ground.  I'm in a live/wirk loft and don't have the option to drop that outside.  I'm hoping it's the shielding that will do it.

Barry

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 12, 2015, 12:15:07 AM »

I'll go ahead and order more cable and rewire.  This is the wire I was thinking of ordering for the motors.

http://www.wireandcabletogo.com/18-AWG-4-Conductor-Communication-Cable-Foil-Shield-500ft-or-1000ft-Spool.html

Think it's up to the task?

I'm asking what are probably dumb questions, but I really don't want to have a mill crash session again.  I've gotten to not trust it.

Barry

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 11, 2015, 10:08:28 PM »

Thanks John.  As you can tell, I'm crazy fed up.  I'll go out and get those chokes and a higher quality USB cable.  There is a ground going from the frame of the machine to common ground for the house.  You mention 'grounds from the shields'.  I'm not sure what that means.  Hmm, do you mean the woven shielding in a cable?  Perhaps that's part of my issue, my motor wire isn't shielded.  The spindle wire is, but the motor wire isn't.  Perhaps I should rewire this thing on top of this.

Barry