Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: December 03, 2015, 04:06:52 PM »

Realized I probably didn't fully answer the question. The laser itself is an NdYg laser. We use argon to keep the seam weld from oxiding during the welding process.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: December 01, 2015, 08:33:44 AM »

We are setting up a 70W laser (roughly the size of an American dishwasher) to weld metals together. Mainly stainless steel pieces. Actually this set up is going to be used to take over for some high volume stuff we do for the medical industry.

We also have 3 600W lasers that are riding on re-purposed HAAS machines. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, those machines are used to weld aluminum. Because of the high reflectivity of aluminium, higher power is required.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 24, 2015, 02:20:53 PM »

That did it! There was a slight tweak I had to make because it appears that the space bar was mapped to the gas solenoid as well as the laser, so I just had to change that using the mach screen editing software.

Thank you very much for all of your help.

I have some clean up of the wiring to complete and need to order the argon gas regulator, but have that is all in place, I'll post a video of the final process.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 23, 2015, 03:06:58 PM »

A button below the spot weld button would be perfect.

Gas ON is what the button will do. I guess to keep it simple the 'G' button would be a good hotkey for this function. The output that I have the solenoid plugged into is output 5.

Thanks again for your help. I'll have to post a video of the machine running as soon as I clean up the wiring and do a few test parts.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 23, 2015, 11:32:32 AM »

Rob,
I was finally able to run the new screen set and spot weld macro. They work great! Thanks for all your help.

I do have another question though. Is there a way to add or rename and move buttons within the screen set? I'm trying to add a gas on/off button.  

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 16, 2015, 08:06:50 AM »

Rob,

Sorry for the lack of information. To be honest I have not had a chance to upload the files and give it a try. I've been putting out fires at work for the last several days (the wonderfulness of manufacturing engineering). I'll see if I can get it online this morning barring anything else happening.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 11, 2015, 03:24:43 PM »

Thank you for the offer Rob, I think I'll take you up on it. Sorry it took so long to reply, been a crazy day here today.

I've attached a snapshot of my screen set. I believe it is just the standard mach3 mill screen set as I haven't changed anything.

As far as where I'd like the button, I think it would go nicely in the box that now has the spindle speed. Our machine does not have a spindle at all so that information is unnecessary anyway.

A button for Laser Fire there would be great, and maybe a light indicating that the laser is currently firing (if possible).

The m function I have written is labeled as m1000 in the  mach directory. I think I'd still like the spacebar to be the keyboard hotkey though. I have wired an external pause button already (although I probably wouldn't have had I read the hotkey list before).

Thanks again!

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 11, 2015, 08:27:06 AM »

The laser I am using has a series of steps that have to happen before it will fire.

There are two logic lines going to a DB37 connected to the laser that have to be closed to a COM line in the laser.

I'm using the K1 (Output 1 in mach3) relay on  PMDX-126 as the laser stop and the K2 (Output 2 in mach3) relay as laser start. The sequence to make the laser fire is :

Activate K1
Pause >50ms
Activate K2
Pause >50ms
(Laser is firing at this time)
Deactivate K2
(Laser still firing)
Deactivate K1
(Laser stops firing)

The way I am controlling K1 and K2 is by having the two relays mapped to the spindle control and mist control respectively.

So to activate/deactivate K1 I call M3/M5
to activate/deactivate K2 I call M7/M9.

I've written an m-function to mirror the laser firing sequence above in the hopes that I could link it to a button on the keyboard so the welder can do his spot welds.

I'm not on the correct computer to copy my screenset, but I am using the standard mill screen currently. The laser is attached to a 4 axis mill that I re-purposed from an old sherline hobby set up.

9

General Mach Discussion / Keyboard M-function?

« on: November 10, 2015, 04:17:24 PM »

Is there a way to map the spacebar (or any other key) to activate a custom M function that I use? The M function is to activate a laser for spot welding the ends of the work down before the program welds the full profile.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

10

General Mach Discussion / PMDX-126 relay trouble

« on: August 10, 2015, 10:44:59 AM »

Hello,

I posted a while back about a 4 axis mill that I have been trying to set up for laser welding some of our lower power parts. I'll link the old thread below.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,24799.0.html

I have worked through nearly all of the issues with this project. The only thing I can't seem to figure out is how to get Mach3 to use the K1 and K2 relays on the PMDX to fire the laser.

I currently have the jumpers JP1 and JP2 set on pin "1" and "14" respectively, which is what OUTPUT1 and OUTPUT2 are set as on Mach3.

I've also set the spindle relays and flood mist control relays as output 1 and 2, so I could use the M-functions to control the laser output.

Whenever I run a simple program to test the functionality of the relays, I get no response from the LEDs on the PMDX.

If I move JP1 and JP2 back to the multimode setting and run the g-code, I get pin "1" and "14" on the J6 terminal to light correctly.

I don't know if there is a setting on the dip switches I am missing or something like that.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.