Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Is there an easy method?

« on: November 05, 2012, 12:13:59 PM »

I am trying to put a .5" radius on a piece of wood to make a jig for clamping an upcoming job to.  Basically, I will be receiving pre-pressed plies that have a concave that runs through out the whole piece, which is constant the whole length, and is a .5" radius.  My plan for the jig is to take this sub-flooring that has been pressed and glued, and round the edges off, making a .5" radial convex (leave the center high and take the edges down).  I own Aspire, but can't figure out an easy method to achieve this like in SolidWorks.  I wasn't sure if there was a wizard somewhere, that was capable of this from within Mach3 

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Drawing software

« on: November 05, 2012, 12:02:22 PM »

Have you tried cutting on or outside the line/circle?  You may need to adjust the offset of the tool path to achieve the correct diameter of the finished circle

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Questions

« on: October 31, 2012, 01:50:58 PM »

Everything is running correctly after manually zero'ing the zed axis(manual=jog down till touching and hit zero), so what is the tool touch-off plate used for if you physically place the bit onto the surface of the material?  Like I stated earlier, I had been using the plate without a noticeable issue, prior to this job, not sure what I did different this time for it to act all screwy. Thanks for the response though, fastest1

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Questions

« on: October 30, 2012, 11:30:07 PM »

Nevermind on my last post, I just went ahead and zero'd on my wood, and its working right now!

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Questions

« on: October 30, 2012, 10:49:14 PM »

I saw newbie questions and since this is active still (sorry to thread-jack), I'm new to the CNC world but learning a whole lot really fast.  I have had my machine for a little over a month (4X8 ez-Router) and have, until recently, ran a few "for fun" jobs, as well as my first paid job with no problems.  This weekend I was making some final tweaks to my latest job and went to run it on some scrap wood that I have machined down to the actual thickness of the expensive material I have for the job.  I set my offsets up for my jig, ran my code, but it ran the job about .25"-.5" above the material, never making contact.  I went back and watched the videos on homing and zeroing and here's my question : if I touch my tool to the material to 0 the Zed axis, do I still need to "auto Z" with the button on the screen?

6

General Mach Discussion / Z Axis height limit.

« on: October 10, 2012, 02:03:57 PM »

I was having Z axis issues too, I didn't know how to do the tool touch-off at the time. I would run my code and the upper Z limit switch would get tripped - was driving me crazy. After I did Auto Z, problems solved. It was driving me crazy tho

7

General Mach Discussion / Another newb, another issue...

« on: October 10, 2012, 11:03:37 AM »

While we are on the on the subject...can we talk about spindle speeds and setup in the tool database?  Okay, I created a new category - pen plotters and set it up like a drag tool, but tried to set the spindle speed to 0, but it wouldn't allow it. So I instead, set it to 1rpm and noticed that it seems to do the trick, allowing for the marker to rotate on turns as a knife would. I just want to make sure that I'm going about this the right way. I wouldn't be opposed to some rotation, like 15-20rpm, thinking that this could save on tip wear and distortion, or it could cause it to fray and fail, I have no clue lol. I haven't tried yet, because of noise fears hehe

8

General Mach Discussion / Another newb, another issue...

« on: October 10, 2012, 10:32:15 AM »

Lol thx. Yeah, after going over it a few times at different set depths, it looks way better and more intentional. I thought about chopping the pen down, but didn't feel like dealing with the mess if the ink did decide to make one. I'm wanting to figure out a spring mechanism for the sharpies, might end up with something like the bigger one where Sam posted his. I think it was Rich that made it (has the adjustment knob). Mine won't be that fancy at this point, but simple and effective(hopefully). As for Z setup, I used a piece of 12 gauge copper wire and straightened it out as much as I could in 5 seconds or so, measured it to at least the length of the marker, and taped it to the collet nut so that it was 3-4mm higher than the tip of the sharpie at the touch-of plate to compensate for the constant rate of pressure across an uneven surface. It worked well enough for my purposes of goofing off. Believe it or not, I posted a pic to a couple of buddies and one of them wants to buy it!  So I told him I'd cut it out this weekend for him. And here I was planning on just planing it and starting over lol

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General Mach Discussion / Another newb, another issue...

« on: October 10, 2012, 09:27:52 AM »

Oh yeah, Sam, great tutorial on the pen plotter, made one in 5seconds. Only issue with mine is the pen body was kind of flimsy and would flex at times and skew the output. Maybe a piece of copper pipe over the pen body for cheap DIY reinforcement, or SS brake line or similar tubing

10

General Mach Discussion / Another newb, another issue...

« on: October 10, 2012, 09:23:41 AM »

Here's what I got for my first "successful" go at running code on my unit(and first time period for me). It's one of 3 variations of my company logo, this one being more of a girlie one, but still looks cool enough to keep around. It took about 6-8 sharpies, due to the non-planed surface. I started in the lower right corner at 100ips and got distracted by my wife and didn't catch the sharpie dying. But in any case, it's a great learning experience on how to find where it faded out, by scrolling through the code and picking up where it left off. Obviously, at the time, I didn't think to set the Z depth in the area I was working on, and kept setting it near the TC position lol. Rookie mistakes, I know hehe