Messages

1

Mach Screens / Re: New Plasma Screen Detail help

« on: May 04, 2015, 11:58:51 AM »

Wow! That was a fast response.

Turning off Boxed LED's did the trick. I'll have to work on the Buttons.

Thx

2

Mach Screens / New Plasma Screen Detail help

« on: May 04, 2015, 11:35:33 AM »

Hi all.

This is probably a little nit picky but I'm getting a light witness lines below and to the right of my DROs and inputs. I set the Background and DRO color to the same color I had set in cad when designing the background. Also the size in the Machscreen shows larger then when I actually run it in Mach3.

Another issue I'm have is with the LED indicators I have positioned inside my Image Buttons. The Reset Button LED works fine but the Start LED would only show for a split second unless I set it to Blink.

Thanks for any help.

3

General Mach Discussion / Should I Upgrade, I'm running R2.63

« on: September 11, 2009, 04:06:58 PM »

I mostly do plasma cutting w/thc and routing on plastics and wood.

And if I do upgrade can R2.63 and the new version coexist?

Thx

4

General Mach Discussion / Plasma Probing question

« on: July 16, 2009, 11:21:50 AM »

I use Unigraphics CAD/CAM to generate all my solids and Gcode which has a nice user programming interface to aid in automation of Gcode creation. I now have a program that will take a solid CAD part and automagically create Gcode and send it to my computer running Mach3 after just inputing the material and thickness. My only issue is all starts are either with or without a probe and probing every start on a large part is time consuming. At the moment I have all the probing commands in a macro called M300. Is there a wizard or something available that will only probe if the next start point is a certain distance away for the last? I just recently found the nesting wizard which is very nice.

Thanks in advance for any info.

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z height problem

« on: February 07, 2008, 11:14:27 AM »

Thanks Jim. I'll try that. I'm also going to relinstall the latest version of Mach3 and create a new profile just for milling. I have always used the profile I originally created for plasma cutting. Might not get to it till this weekend though. I wish I could quit this day job:)

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z height problem

« on: February 06, 2008, 12:14:24 PM »

Good question Jim. Router spindle is definitely a good 5 to 10 lbs heavier. But I'm working on a ball slide with a 270 oz/in motor driving a 3/8-16 lead screw and the errors are all when dropping the spindle under no load. I will try running the program again without the spindle in free air and see what happens though.

Thanks for your feedback.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z height problem

« on: February 06, 2008, 10:18:41 AM »

I believe your running in IJ Absolute mode. I'm running in IJ incremental mode. I was able to get the errors you are experiencing when changing modes. Unfortunately that doesn't solve my problem. But thanks for your input.

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z height problem

« on: February 06, 2008, 08:15:41 AM »

Please excuse my ignorance, I'm by no means a skilled CNCist. Can you elaborate on the end point errors? Mach3 gave me no errors from the code while cutting the part. As my original post stated with the exception of the few -Z depth issues the part came out fine. I have cut thousands of parts using Unigraphics CADCAM software to generate the gcode for machined and plasma cut parts. This is the first time I had any unexplainable issues.

Thanks for your help.

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z height problem

« on: February 05, 2008, 01:38:48 PM »

My original code did have a line: N0050 G43 Z-.025 H00 but I removed it. Here's the code I used to cut the part. A quick search showed no more G43 or G49 codes.

10

General Mach Discussion / Z height problem

« on: February 05, 2008, 08:15:27 AM »

I have been experiencing a Z height error on my machine. After about 30 minutes into a program machining a block of nylon, the Z would correctly raise up to 0.000 at the completion of a path, the gcode is calling for another 1/8 inch deeper cut, the DROs read correctly but the tool is 1/2 too high, cutting only air. Everything is very tight on the Z axis. It's a pinned lead screw drive and the axis is never under load at the time of the error. You can hear and see that the tool never touches the work. I can restart the program at the point of error and it continues correctly for some time and then the same Z axis error will occur, but I just keep re-zeroing the Z and restarting the program and completed the part. The error has always occured on the -Z instruction.

I mostly use the machine for Plasma cutting with a Bob Campbell THC controller and have never had this issue while plasma cutting. The THC was on at the time but the THC button in Mach3 was inactive. I'm running a 2 1/4 hp Hitachi Router Spindle.

I have not updated Mach3 for over a year. I'm at work right now, not sure what revision I'm running.

Does this sound like it could be a controller problem?

Thanks in advance for any help.