Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Please help with lathe tool tables

« on: November 03, 2013, 05:00:18 AM »

I've been using MachTurn for several years but have just yesterday tried to make use of the tool tables. I've spent nearly 20 straight hours trying to make a run of 20 parts with three tools and am getting nowhere. Can someone point out what I'm doing wrong? Here is what I'm trying to do.

I set tool#1 in the tool window and I reference this tool to my part with skim cuts in x and z by setting the appropriate dro's on the manual screen. Then I put in tool#2 and I go to the offsets window where I set #2 in the tool number window and reference this tool to the same x and z surfaces. I press the 'touch' buttons which store the x and z offsets in the tool table. I look in the tool table and the offsets are there for t2 and zero for t1 as expected. I do the same thing for tool#3. I run the program and everything runs as expected. Then I put in a new workpiece and the problems start. I set tool#1 in the tool number dro on the manual page again and then I proceed to take skim cuts again on x and z and I reference the new surfaces in the dro's on the manual screen again. I realize doing the x again is likely redundant. Now when I restart the program, tool number one will not start cutting in the proper place in either x or z or both. I can try referencing tool#1 again and after several tries the tool may or may not start cutting in the proper place. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It seems to only be t1 that has the problem. Once it is in the right place, the other tools are invariably correct. I've never had to re-reference t2 or t3. Can anyone tell me where I should be looking to fix this. Restarting Mach will let me re-reference t1 to the new workpiece but it seems I shouldn't need to do this every time is insert a new workpiece. - Terry

2

General Mach Discussion / Is this a valid line of VB script?

« on: December 18, 2009, 07:20:30 PM »

I'm troubleshooting an OEM macro (that seems to work in version .029 but not in version .032) with little VB knowledge. It contains a line that I can't figure out:

"wait = GetOEMLED(11) = 0"

Is this line with two "=" symbols valid and if so can someone tell me what it is trying to do?

Thanks - Terry

3

General Mach Discussion / CSS question

« on: January 19, 2008, 12:03:42 AM »

I'm trying to figure out the CSS mode for MachTurn and have a few
questions.
I don't normally use the CSS mode but discovered while testing a
postprocessor that I'm writing that I probably don't know how it works.

In metric, is CSS in m/min or mm/min? (ft/min for imperial)

Is the following proper to turn on CSS?

G96 S100 where 100 is the CSS in some units
G48 S3000 M3 where 3000 is the maximum rpm allowed

Is the order of the lines impoirtant?

To turn CSS off:
G97 S3000 where 3000 is an rpm I am willing to set

I've tried to piece this together from some old forum posts, but I'm
not sure how things really ended up. There is nothing in the
documentation  to help.

Thanks in advance
Terry

4

General Mach Discussion / Cut Type/Infeed type

« on: April 11, 2007, 03:47:15 AM »

In the MachTurn 'Turn' options can someone tell me what the 'cut type' and 'infeed type' numbers mean and are these used by the threading wizards or the G76 that is implemented in mach3?

Thanks,
Terry

5

General Mach Discussion / G75 Request

« on: April 08, 2007, 02:45:34 PM »

Are there any plans to implement a G75 Grooving/Parting cycle in MachTurn?

Terry

6

General Mach Discussion / MachTurn F DRO

« on: April 01, 2007, 08:21:37 PM »

I'm running version 1.84 of MachTurn. I like to use U/rev feedrates and usually need 3 digits to the right of the decimal for typical feedrates I use. The Feedrate DRO seems fixed with only 2 places to the right of the decimal point and so my feedrates show 0.00. Is there an easy way for me to change this?

terry

7

General Mach Discussion / Spindle DRO (Mach2)

« on: January 31, 2007, 03:26:34 AM »

Sometimes when I'm running g-code I want to bump the spindle speed or
feedrate DRO's to fine tune a feed. Bumping the feedrate DRO causes the
actual feedrate to change almost immediately. Bumping the spindle speed
DRO, though, seems to only enable the change sometime later - maybe a
minute or so later. Does anyone know why the delay? Is this a feature
of Mach2 or our hardware? This only happens while
running code. The spindle speed changes are immediate otherwise.

Terry

8

General Mach Discussion / License question

« on: October 31, 2006, 07:19:02 PM »

In installed my licensed copy of mach2 software on my shop computer that is connected to my mill and that is
working OK. Then I decided I would like to also install it on my office
computer so I could use it offline to sanity check .NC programs generated by my
CAM software. When I installed it I opted to NOT install the driver
because the office computer already uses the parallel port and I didn't
want to generate any conflicts.  It installed OK, but if I do an "about mach2"
form the help menu it says it is running in the demo mode. I didn't
think much about this until this evening when I found out that as
installed it is limiting the length of programs I want to test to just
under 1000 lines. Does anyone know how to get around this without
installing the driver? (which I am assuming is the problem). The license file is present in the program folder.