Topics

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General Mach Discussion / How to stop de-referencing in Turn

« on: October 12, 2009, 01:59:41 AM »

Hi folks, the manual and this forum have been really helpful for adding functionality to my G9972z conversion. After asking a question about tool setting the other day, I decided to add homing switches to my X and Z axis. This should allow me to accurately know the distance from the home switches and with tool offsets, I can finally get repeatable dimensions.

Everything is working well and I can set home and return with good repeatability. The problem comes up when I want to use an spare input as a tool setter for the Z axis. If I configure Mach to use this input as Z-- limit and then jog until the limit is active, both X and Z are de-referenced. This means that I have to re-home both axis each time that I use this method to set Z. I am using the cut and measure method to set the X offsets.

Can anyone provide a method to stop travel when an input goes active without de-referencing the axis?
Thanks for the help.

2

General Mach Discussion / Mach3Turn Auto Tool Zero?

« on: September 19, 2009, 07:10:16 PM »

Hi folks, I have been trying to get some form of tool zeroing work for my converted mill and lathe. Hoss has what seems to be a very good screenset for the mill, but I have not been able to find the same for Mach3Turn. When I select "Auto Tool Zero" on the main screen an error message "Not Yet Implemented" is displayed. Has someone out there written a script to enable this functionality or is my installation corrupt? Any help with this would be much appreciated!

My original plan was to take a piece of stock that is 1.00" in diameter and chuck it in the lathe. Then I would use a PCB board with a known height to place between the tool and the piece of stock. When the tool completed the circuit with the PCB, I would have an accurate position of the tool. I could repeat this procedure with the other tools and given that the AXA toolholder maintained the same angle, I should have repeatable cuts over time.

After a bit of thought on this, maybe there is another way that people deal with zeroing tools? Is there a better procedure to set the tool depths?
Thanks!
-Chris