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Topics - tomcord

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1
General Mach Discussion / advice on trouble shooting an error required
« on: January 18, 2015, 12:34:14 PM »
Hi, some help required please. I helped a mate set up a small cnc router in his workshop 2 years ago for trimming carbon and glass fibre kayak paddles. It has worked perfectly for the last 2 years. Now we have a fault and I am no longer that familiar with Mach 3 as I haven't been playing with it for a while. So the PC, Gcode, machine etc. has not changed in the last 2 years. The machine has one stepper motor for z axis with reed switch and magnets for the limit switches. One for x axis with a chunky microswitch at either end for limits. Two stepper motors for Y axis (one slaving the other) with chunky micro switches. A Kress router for the spindle.
So, the machine runs about half way along the kayak blade blank, then switches of. No limit switches appear to have been activated in the diagnostics screen, but the error message lower left says limit switch triggered. We are at least 100mm from any limit switch.

Is there any kind of log file I can access and share to find out what is happening? Is there any kind of feedback from the stepper motors that indicate overheating or over load? It always around the point on the blade where the thickness increases from 1.5 to 2.25mm, so there would be a bit more load on the spindle and stepper motors, it doesn't always stop in the same place, but it is always around that area. If one of the stepper motors or spindle was overloaded at this point, would it feedback anyhow to the controller?.

If you start the machine again from the same point it stops again almost immediately. But it doesn't cut out all the time, sometimes it will trim up to 10 blanks just fine, then suddenly cut out.

We are thinking maybe a short on the Z axis limit wiring that just kicks in around that point, maybe some chafing in the wires, but not long enough to see the lights on the diagnostics screen light up, could this happen or would they stay permanently lit?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

tom

2
Hi all
can someone help me with this, I have a cad model in rhino, simple flat surface with a profile as a curve in x and y, I import the surface and curve into visual mill as an .igs file, chain the curve, then use the curve machining option generate  cutter path g code in visual mill, save as a .txt file, then import into mach 3.
the cad model is in mm, when I open up mach 3, it runs the cutter path ( x y z router) in mm but the units showing the progress are in inches on the programme run screen. The distances moved are in mm and it cuts the correct path. when I go to settings and change the units to mm, they go to mm on the programme run screen in the x, y z boxes, and I can jog the router in mm, and it moves in mm. but when I then run the g-code again, it jumps back to showing movement in inches, but still moves the correct amount in mm.

It makes setting the z height very annoying, as it keeps jumping back to inches, and if you are not careful you jog it in inches, when you think it is moving in mm, and crash onto the jig.

what I am missing? why is everything not in mm?
Probably a really basic question, but struggling to figure it out.

thanks

tom

3
FAQs / plug and play with old machine?
« on: August 07, 2010, 04:58:03 AM »
Hi
I have just purchased an 8 year old cnc router from a school. It all works but runs on some dos based system called pclathe which only imports autocad plot files. Its basically working as a plotter with depth control. So I want to get it up and running on mach 3. But I have no wiring diagram for the stepper motors or the driver board. It is all neatly connected to a power supply driver board and printer cable.  How will I be able to find out which pins do what? Are there standard configurations? Will Mach 3 just figure it out for itself when I just plug it in?

Any advice/help appreciated

tom

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