Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / What version to run

« on: November 11, 2008, 07:02:27 AM »

I am currently running Mach3 R2.63. Is there any benefit to running the development version R3.041? Any glaring issues I need to look out for? Is 3.041 nearing certification as a production release?
Joe

2

General Mach Discussion / still getting softlimits warning

« on: October 20, 2008, 12:50:28 PM »

I posted about this a while back and ended up refining my mach3mill config in a number of ways, as well as the overall operation of the machine (removed table, saddle, drives, reset preload on ballscrews, cured misalignment on ballscrew supports, removed interfering material on the castings to free up another .2" of y travel, etc) and am now down to .002" or less backlash on my x and y axes. My axes are homing/zeroing in the negative direction. Machine runs witout a hiccup. Nonetheless, when I run a program that runs to within .300" or so of the y+ limit, I get a softlimit warning. I am sure of my numbers so I run it anyway, without an issue. What could be causing this? I need to be able to rely on the softlimit feature.
Joe

3

General Mach Discussion / softlimits question

« on: September 24, 2008, 01:36:31 PM »

I setup softlimits on my mill. I have the autozero option enabled on XYZ. X homes negative, and Y and Z home positive, so I set the - limit in x and + limit in y and z to 0, then kept the machine in machine coords, jogged to pretty damn close to the limits of the opposite end of the respective axes, noted the machine coords, and configured those softlimits appropriately. I tested by turning on soft limits, then jogging to the axes limits. I found the safe zone to be a bit limiting travel-wise, so I backed it off a bit, and the servos have no problem slowing the axes well in advance of the soft limits. When I run a program after doing a REF ALL, it immediately warns me about soft limits, even though I specify a work offset, then a G0 move that is away from the limits. Is this because the axes are still in the safe zone immediately after referencing? I think it's pretty annoying.

Joe

4

General Mach Discussion / M5 halts machine

« on: September 23, 2008, 11:05:09 PM »

Finally got 220V electric in my garage. Running Mach3 on a converted RF45 mill. Now I can turn the machine spindle on with M3/M4 but when I issue an M5, it shuts down the servos as well as the spindle, requiring a reset before any machine motion can be resumed. What gives?
Joe

5

General Mach Discussion / Jog capabilities lacking in Mach3?

« on: September 19, 2008, 09:00:15 AM »

I got my recently purchased retrofitted mill, which was delivered with Mach2, to run on Mach3. I cannot find a way to jog in steps within Mach3 like you could in Mach2. The continuous jog works fine via the arrow keys and page up/page down. How do I jog in increments like you could on the manual tab in Mach2 (other than MDI mode running single lines of G code)?
Joe

6

General Mach Discussion / backlash comp under Mach2

« on: September 15, 2008, 07:41:10 AM »

I have an RF-45 conversion that I picked up recently with very little use. It was built by Bohica Trading in 2006 I believe, and uses Reliance Electric servos (with Gecko drivers) rather than steppers. I am working on creating a config that will work with Mach3, but as delivered, I had a working config (and license) for Mach2. It did not come with a PC so I built up one of the spares I have lying around with 2GHz proc and 1.5GB RAM, running XP Pro sp3. I just got the machine moving yesterday and, after solving an issue with referencing the axes, was doing some tests. 3 axis G0 moves, circular interpolation, the thing seems to run great. I discovered .0045 backlash in both x and y axes. I added .0045 backlash comp in the "backlash" config dialog box, then enabled backlash comp in the "state" config dialog, and the x axis started oscillating and did not stop until I disabled backlash and closed/opened Mach2. Anybody ever seen this before? Is this an issue using axes motors with feedback? Are there other tuning options I can change to make software backlash comp work for me?

Joe