Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Curious occurrance

« on: April 09, 2010, 10:45:32 PM »

Bill
  The exact same thing happened to me this week.  I have rebooted, checked all settings (mach3 and parallel port addresses), re imaged my pc from a backup I took and still nothing is moving except the dro’s in Mach3 when I move any axis with the keyboard.  
I had a smoothstepper setting around so thought I would try that, it is now working with the smoothstepper but would like to get the parallel interface working again.
I have a parallel PCI card and the one on the motherboard, neither works when 10 minutes before all was fine. No power hits/drops, no storms in area. Nothing was happening that I know of that would cause this.
Using the latest Mach3 lock down version, XP on a 3ghz pc.  My next step is to try my PC that I use for non cnc day to day work.
George

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Choosing a second hand PC to run Mach3 ?

« on: June 19, 2008, 03:58:32 PM »

Hi Hood and Overloaded

Hood, thanks for the info, I will make those checks if it ever happens to me again, I was so pissed the second time it powered down I put it in the trash and used my wife’s PC until the one from Tiger arrived.

Overloaded, I use the on board video, seems to handle Mach3 ok, but it is very bad if I try to look at a video using it. Very slow and choppy.  Since PCIe video cards are so cheap I been thinking of picking up one for it.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Choosing a second hand PC to run Mach3 ?

« on: June 19, 2008, 09:24:32 AM »

Sometimes a “good price” on a used PC turns out not to be so good.  I picked up a used Dell for a good price. (free).  I only had it powered on when using the router, everything ran fine for a few weeks. But when I did a job that lasted more than an hour it decided to power itself off in the middle of the job. Not fun. Did this twice, after the second time I put it on the street for Friday morning trash pickup. 

Here is an example of what I replaced it with.  (mine has an AMD processor) http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/wem1641.asp

I leave it running all the time and so far no problems.

For the price you cant beat it.  Ordered a lot of pc stuff from tiger and yet to have a problem.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Has anyone used a wood router or a larger dremmel as an engraver

« on: March 24, 2008, 05:46:26 PM »

Agree with Rich, a dremmel would not be my first choice. You might want to look into the spindle that a seller on Ebay has, his name is Wolfgang, it uses a 120V motor and is very smooth and no sloop.  I have one of Wolfgang’s spindles and it works very well. It takes 1/8 cutter.  There are some videos on YouTube with a guy cutting a circuit board.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT0xDY31ZX0

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: What does the "To Go" button do?

« on: January 27, 2008, 10:15:25 PM »

Sorry I was a little confusing.

In Vcarve I use the bottom left corner as my home position when I draw up parts.  So I jog my z to that position on my work and lower the z to almost touch the work.  Then press the Zero x,y,z.

I have all the buttons under the DRO display turned off. I do not use home switches. I played with the “Go To” once and the z when off on it own so have not played with it again. (I too will have to do some reading, I think I should have the soft limits turn on.)

After you position your z axis to the home position on your work, pushing the zero x,y,x tell Mach3 that is the home position to start from.  After your part is cut Mach 3 will move your x,y,z back to your start position. 

If anyone sees me giving the wrong info, please jump in and correct.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: What does the "To Go" button do?

« on: January 27, 2008, 07:48:38 PM »

Rich

  You are standing where I was three weeks ago. First time I ran Mach3, I thought OH NO,  this is going to be hard.

First I assume the people you bought your machine from also provided a configuration file for Mach 3 and you want to run it with the preset setting they entered.

 This is what I do and it gets me started. 
1.   Load the g code file.
2.   positon my x y axis where I configured them in my cam program  (bottom left hand corner as I face my machine)  I then position the bit in the spindle very close to the top of my work and hit the Zero x,y,z buttons followed by the Regen. Toolpath button.
3.   Press the  Cycle Start button and  I'm cutting parts.

At my current level the only buttons I use are the Zero z,yz,. Reset, cycle start, feed hold, stop, rewind, regen. Toolpath.  Also the Tab key to bring up the MPG sometimes when needed.

Don’t worry about any other of the other Mach 3 pages (yet). The input part of the MDI page comes in handy tho.

I use Vcarve Pro to generate all my files and they pretty much make the tool selections full proof to start off with.

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: July 15, 2007, 12:33:39 AM »

Hello all.
Real name is George and have never have ran a CNC machine. About to buy small one to see if I have can learn something about CNC. Will be using Mach3 and VcarvePro/PhotoVcarve.

 I needed some MDF cut and took it to a local guy who has a shopbot and after watching him I was hooked.

Day job is telecom tech.  Spent a little over 6 years in the US Army in computer operations. Got out and stuck with computer operations and or network types of jobs since.  Hope to learn enough about CNC in the next 3-5 years so it will be able to support itself as a hobby when I retire from my day job.