Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Home and/or limit switch

« on: September 06, 2008, 02:43:28 PM »

I am trying to figure out how and where to put home and/or limit switches on my Taig mill. The Z axis has a tee slot on one side where I can easily mount a home switch to home to just short of the mechanical top stop which is where I think that may belong. I can't really see the need for a lower limit as depending on the tool having a hard limit there is not going to keep me from crashing into the table, is that where the soft limits come in? Are soft limits set in the program coordinates or machine coordinates? For the Y axis I was thinking a switch mounted to the motor/leadscrew mounting plate will work and contact the movable slide, setting home as the furthest out position of the table. There is a pin fixed to the Y axis carriage that I can use to contact a switch mounted on the Table for my X home which I suppose should be table full right hand side for XY=0,0.

Does this make sense in the grand scheme of things, home would be table full right, full out toward the front and Z axis full up position? I am still figuring if I should use slotted opto sensors or microswitches so I really need to clear up my confusion with "Home" position before I can make the mountings and actuators or I might end up with a mirror image of what I need.

Once all this is done, if I have set fixture('s) say for engraving a plate I should be able to home the machine and either just load the program code or use the MDI to move to my X,Y zero position and run, that is my limited understanding.

Thanks,

Kristin

2

General Mach Discussion / Microstepping & Torque

« on: August 31, 2008, 08:28:34 PM »

I can't really find any clear information on the effects of microstepping and torque, right now I have my board set for 8 microsteps (jumper selectable) just happened that way as I was careless reading the settings. I have been just getting set up but last night I had to mill off some fins on the heatsinks I was making and the machine groaned and jammed a couple of times. So I am wondering if I should pop another jumper or two and go to 1/4 step or 1/2 step or even full step mode? Seems from what I have been able to find microstepping will not improve resolution and may actually make it worse if it takes a few bumps to get the motor to move or switch direction.

Kristin

3

LazyCam (Beta) / Learning Curve ahead! Problem Solved!!!!!

« on: August 26, 2008, 12:59:55 AM »

Methodology

Here is a file I would like to cut, could probably hand code everything but would rather not if the computer can do it for me. I am thinking I need to run LC about 3-4 times with different entities on a separate dxf file and then merge them together into a single tap file with stops for tool changes.

I was thinking first off running a #11 drill for the five holes and perhaps even the two points at the ends of the .75r arc (all the holes have a point so I can loose the circles) then switching to a 3/16” mill and doing the 1.25 diameter hole and the arc and finish up by trimming the corner radius perhaps with a larger mill cutter.

I forgot to mention there is a .5 x .125 deep counterbore around the four holes in the array, they would need to be delt with on the second pass with the 3/16 cutter.

I am not looking for someone to run off a file but to learn how to do this myself for future projects, if anyone does post some code please add some notes as to what is going on.


Ideas and suggestions welcome.

Kristin

4

LazyCam (Beta) / Some general questions

« on: August 23, 2008, 04:48:27 PM »

Say I take a DXF and load it, optimise, autoclean... How do I set the depth of cut? Is it some fixed default or do I have to use the button on the right to set it or the Layers Tab? Sure would be nice if there was at least a short quickstart guide. Reason I ask is I have used it for a few test cuts and it seems to be pretty random as to how far the cutter plunges or it could just be me.

Kristin

5

General Mach Discussion / Basic initial setup question

« on: August 21, 2008, 01:18:45 PM »

I finally got my new leadscrews and steppers installed on my Taig mill, using a HobbyCNC Pro controller board w/205 Oz motors, got the motors tuned to provide the correct distance (duhh, after I realised that the controler was set for 8 microsteps). Now here is where I start getting confused between machine and work cordinates, I was able to write a bit of g-code to drill holes for the heatsink for my driver chips and was a little confused when I started out at the lower left corner and the machine moved to the lower right before starting! It worked out fine but I was not expecting the lower right as a start point, good thing I did a little "air cutting" first to see where it went.

Now I would like to activate the home/soft limits, I tried by entering 10" and zero for X with a .25 zone and it didn't seem to work at all (xml. attached) Do I need to edit the G28 box too? I still have not installed any physical home switches as I wanted to use the mill to make the brackets and am still between using micro-switches or optical slotted ones. Should I just wire a pushbutton and move the table with the jog keys to where I want home and fake it?

I ran one dxf through lazycam and it partly worked, I think I worked out why the circle was an elipse though as I didn't clean the dxf first. I am slowly finding all the little tweeks such as being able to direct enter to the DRO's and set scale (Is it obvious I didn't RTFM? got to take that to the printer and get it run off and bound).

Is there a way to zoom in on the toolpath window, all I see is a tiny flyspec in the center, no way to see what is going on.

Well that is enough of my rambling for now, sure I'll have dozens of more questions soon.

Kristin

6

General Mach Discussion / Minimum operating system?

« on: July 29, 2008, 01:39:23 AM »

Hokay,

Mach 3 says win2000 or XP, so what is the min for Mach2? Does NT4 qualify?

Reason I ask is I am having a He** of a time re-installing XP on the old laptop, I know either NT or win 2K would go easier.

HELP>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Kristin

7

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Simple G code example needed

« on: July 21, 2008, 08:20:27 PM »

Ha, thought I knew what I was doing almost, finally got the X & Z axis motors mounted on my Taig,

Wrote a bit of code:

g0 z0

g1 z .25

g0 z0

g1 x .01

g1 z .25

g0 x 0

g0 z0

g1 x .2


g1 z .25


etc...



Sure there is an easier way with loops but can't find the examples I have seen here.


All I want to do at the moment is say take a piece of round stock in the lathe, and turn say .5 long with repeat passes off .010" for the purpose of taking a video, I also seem to have forgotten how to put a dwell time in as I would like to have say 15-30 seconds to man the camera after I hit cycle start. Think that is g4 but can't remember the syntax like g4 P30?


Thanks

Kristin

8

General Mach Discussion / Is jog one speed only?

« on: July 21, 2008, 08:12:20 AM »

Just wondering if there is a way to change the jog speed without changing the motor tuning? Is there a hot key or something to run jog at say 50% 0r 25% speed?

Kristin

Just making automatic swarf for the first time today!

9

General Mach Discussion / Figuring out a linear accuator stepper

« on: July 19, 2008, 07:31:24 PM »

I just got a Hayden accuatiator 1.8 deg/step and I think 0.00125 linear motion/step so how do I set up the steps/inch I can set my HobbyCNC board to microstep of 2/4/8 which I suppose I should do. So is it 1/0.00125 x 200 x microsteps = 1 inch???


Kristin

10

General Mach Discussion / Sanyo Denki steppers

« on: June 07, 2008, 11:11:20 AM »

I just got two Sanyo Denki steppers from an old IBM wide format line printer, Type 103-820-28 4.5V 1.4A 2 deg/step.

So how do I set these up, 2 deg/step so 180 per rev?

Kristin