Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / home switches

« on: May 10, 2012, 03:34:46 PM »

I wanted to set X axis home switch's.  I use two motors on the X axis "X" and "A".

My breakout board uses pin 12 for X home.  When I hit Ref home the X motor homes, back off, and slowly comes back and trips the X home but the A motor keeps going. 

OK, so I think, I'll just put a home switch on the "A" side of the X axis and wire it into the breakout board.

OPPS  There isn't an empty pin for "A" home switch.  This is how the break out board is wired.

  Limits     Y home     X home   Z home   E-stop
    P 10        P 11         P 12       P 13         P 15

So now what do I do?  After spending some bucks on nice roller switches and hours making ramps to trigger them and more hours drilling a tapping I'd really like to make this work...

2

General Mach Discussion / Wild "A" axis motor

« on: February 08, 2012, 04:54:14 PM »

This is just a standard 3 axis R&P router with two motors on the "X" axis the second is designated "A".

When I try to home all everything works until "X" homes. The "X" stops and resets off the home switch but the slave motor "A" doesn't see the home switch and keeps running. I tried telling it to see the same pins as "X" but it didn't.

Will restarting Mach 3 reset this??  Is there something I can do?

3

LazyCam (Beta) / Z negative will not post

« on: December 10, 2011, 05:12:41 PM »

Suddenly my Z will go to safe Z height then the X and Y will move to the first cut but the Z only goes to zero.  I looked a the g-code from lazycam and sure enough there is no Z negative posted.   I tried three times to convince lazycam that depth of cut is -0.275 and sent it to all layers but no luck.

It has always worked until today and I don't think I changed anything.   

Background:  Post DXF to lazy cam, autoclean, select tool, post to all layers.  Set cut depth, post to all layers.  Go to Mach3, load .tap file.  Look at the first few lines and no negative Z  shows up...only safe Z at 1 inch, then the move command then Z .000 f5 which should read Z-.275 f5.

I'm open to suggestions Thanks  Gumball

4

General Mach Discussion / screwed up sign

« on: October 03, 2011, 06:40:30 PM »

I designed a sign in Serif, a graphics program, and exported it as DXF to lazycam, looked OK so I set it up to cut from a 1x12 clear red wood plank.  Darn thing screwed up a couple of the letters and left a bunch of holidays behind.  Had to throw it away.  I even looked at the DXF file in DraftSight and it looked good, no extra lines or trash.  I have made smaller signs and it pocketed and left islands perfectly. This one was a big sign 12x36 and it's trash.

So it looks like I can't use Serif, at least with the fonts that come with it.

Question, where to get fonts that I can load into a CAD program like DraftSight and get a decent looking sign in 2D??

Or do I have to bit the bullet and buy V-Carve or something like it?

Shop made 48 x 48 inch CNC router...

5

LazyCam (Beta) / Lazy cam setup

« on: August 01, 2011, 05:14:49 PM »

I am programing lazy cam for the first time with a multiple part puzzle. When I ran a simulation it cut a couple parts on the inside that should have been outside, and all four of the pockets on the wrong side.  Do I have to set each chain using the lead in/out menu??  I did use the layer lead in settings and left it on automatic. What did or didn't I do right...??  The lead ins were also on the wrong side on some of the chains.  There is only one layer so I clicked on send to all layers anyway....

And shouldn't the lead in ramp down, mine just went down 1/4 inch then moved 1 inch and started cutting...
I see figure 8.4.2 on page 28 of your manual, shows the Lead in/out menu, is this where I select inside or outside??

6

General Mach Discussion / Wiring limit, home, an E-stop switches

« on: April 28, 2011, 03:48:24 PM »

I have my machine running with a plain Jane breakout board, problem is I keep getting transient signals.

If tightened up every thing I can and still get a quick flash on the diagnostics screen, so I don't think loose connections are the problem.

Of course the darn thing just stops and when I hit reset it happens again.
I used unshielded 2 conductor and separated it as far as I could from the motor wiring, still get stops...

Will a optical isolation board (expensive)stop the transients or should I rewire with shielded wire(cheaper).
If I have to rewire I can make sure the wires don't go near a motor wire.  And maybe use roller switches instead of the cheesy switches I am using now...