Topics

1

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Giant Sparkplug

« on: March 30, 2019, 07:21:35 PM »

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this. Its a Champion 3X spark plug four time scale. Most of the parts were CNC'd about 50-75%. There is a battery pack in the top insulator that can be charged through a USB socket. The base houses a 400,000 volt module that can easily jump a one inch gap. I set the gap at 3/4 inch.

I made it as advertisment because I sell miniature spark plugs. Hoping it will draw attention to the business at the model engineering shows.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69DJEpu_64A

2

General Mach Discussion / Jogging A Axis ???

« on: March 02, 2019, 04:28:19 PM »

I just installed and configured a 4th axis on the mill. Everything is setup and working perfectly. I can use MDI to move the axis but I cannot figure out how to jog the axis with the keyboard. Is there a set of keys that are already configured like X, Y, and Z or do I have to manually setup the A axis with the system hot keys.

read somewhere it was - and + but that did not work.

I also tried to search "jogging A axis" but the forum won't search unless all words are more than one character so that was zero help.

Thanks in advance.

3

General Mach Discussion / Lathe making moves not in Gcode

« on: February 05, 2019, 09:15:38 PM »

I have a piece of code that I run. The tool change is just a way for me to clear the tool to do a little manual work. I hit cycle start again and the remainder of the code is executed then the lathe should move to G0 X0.020 Z0.005 and the program ends. Problem is X is moving to X1.000

Is there somewhere in mach3 that I am telling the x axis park at 1 inch after executing code?

 The attached piece of code is the only one I have noticed it doing this with. I would like to figure out whats up with the mystery move because I am soon going to make 4 pieces and the material is 125 bucks each and is larger than 2 inches. I would hate to cut for an hour and a half on a 5 inch diameter piece only to have the lathe move to 1 inch when finished. That would not be good.

4

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 totaly crashed.

« on: February 04, 2019, 05:25:23 PM »

Hello!

I have a problem with Mach 3. When I click on the icons to start mach mill or mach lathe all i get is a white screen and the computer locks and has to be rebooted. Where do I start to figure out what's going on? I'm running windoze XP with a parallel port setup.

5

Machscreen Screen Designer / Machscreen code debug?

« on: January 05, 2019, 11:00:16 AM »

I've been using machscreen to automate some code writing.  Is there an easy way to debug code. In vb you can step through code and watch variables change and step through loops in real time. Can that be done in machscreen?  I'm almost to the point where I have to put code in one line at a time and test it before moving on so if there is trouble I know where to find it.

6

General Mach Discussion / Cycle start button on panel?

« on: December 23, 2018, 06:24:56 PM »

I tried to search the forum but the search funtion is broken.

I would like to add an E-stop and cycle start button to the control panel on my lathe. The E-stop seems easy but the cycle start isn't as clear. I found this in the Mach3 docs.

Enable and define OEM Trigger inputs if you want electrical signals to be able to call OEM
button functions without a screen button needing to be provided.

I assume i would use one of these inputs? I can wire the buttons and configure the inputs but I cant find a way to define the chosen OEM input to trigger a Funtion "0" or cycle start.

Am I on the right track? There is no further info in the docs about OEM inputs. Is a Cycle start button possible?

7

General Mach Discussion / Diameter changes .001 every part.

« on: December 06, 2018, 09:39:59 PM »

Just finished converting a lathe. Gecko's, Nema 34's. Mach3 Lathe.

I turn a diameter and dial in to the correct size and the next part is perfect. THEN! the next part is .001 larger than the first. Hit cycle start again and the third part is .001 larger than the second. Now I know your thinking i'm loosing steps but I have the rapid speed way down and acceleration ramp looks like a triangle. Z axis is a 1200 Oz and X axis is a 600 Oz motor with a 2:1 belt drive. Way more motor than I need. The weird thing is the error is exactly the same every time. Is there a setting in Mach Lathe that could cause something like this to happen? Could the Gecko be configured wrong? Anybody ever heard of something like this happening?

8

VB and the development of wizards / Input box help?

« on: September 25, 2011, 09:23:52 AM »

This is the example from the reference. I'm guessing that the text in the first text box should be returned as TextBox1 but it always seems to equal "". If i'm wrong what variable returns what is input into the text box.




Sub Main
Begin Dialog TextBoxSample 16,30,180,96,"Text Boxes and Text"
OKButton 132,20,40,14
CancelButton 132,44,40,14
Text 8,8,32,8,"Text Box:"
TextBox 8,20,100,12,.TextBox1
Text 8,44,84,8,"Multiline Text Box:"
TextBox 8,56,100,32,.TextBox2
End Dialog
Dim Dlg1 As TextBoxSample
Button = Dialog ( Dlg1 )



Text in textbox one = TextBox1   



End Sub

9

VB and the development of wizards / DRO color help?

« on: September 23, 2011, 07:42:16 PM »

I am trying to change color of the dro's. I copied the reddro.png file into the wizard's "bitmap" folder. I then changed the text to black and the dro to white. In machscreen the dros look great but when I run the wizard in mach the dros are just white with black.

Is there a setting in mach that i'm missing? 

10

Tangent Corner / Anybody turn Woodcraft pen kits?

« on: September 19, 2011, 04:54:12 PM »

I am writing a wizard for machturn for turning pen blanks. I cant seem to find any information for the finished diameter of any of the pens. I do have a few from the guy whom i am writing the wizard for. There are 30 different pens, key rings, ect, and I would like to include as many as I can for him.



Anybody have the info or know where to get it. Here are some of the ones I know from measuring the bushings.



Wall Street II            .480

Wall Street III           .530

Slim Twist                .335

Slim click                  .375

Bullet                       .365

Key Chain                 .375

Cussion grip              .375

Bracelet helper          .455

Detachable Key chain  .430

Shot gun shell            .800

Tooth pick holder        .490