Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Stepper Motor sync

« on: May 19, 2013, 05:09:55 PM »

I'm thinking of putting together a cnc plasma table. I'm on the fence about using one per side of x axis with rack and pinion or tie both side together with chains and sprockets using one motor. I prefer the two motor method because I think it's cheaper but not sure how to sync the motors together. Does Mach3 software automatically do that or is there any special configuration?

2

General Mach Discussion / Gecko 540

« on: April 11, 2011, 02:54:30 PM »

Everything was running good and walked outside after I started some then came back and the tool went of path. Not sure what exactly happened so I zeroed to a different spot and started the code again and everything was way off. I went into Mach3 and redid the steps and checked backlash, it was off so I redid the settings but they won't hold into memory for some reason it looks like. Now the day this happened it was about 80 degrees, could this have something to do with the temperature? The controller is not in an enclosure but I have no moving air on it. I remember reading about not needing a heat sink unless it was in an enclosure. Is this right? Is this software or hardware related?

3

General Mach Discussion / Cutter Comp

« on: April 05, 2011, 09:40:18 PM »

Having problems setting up cutter comp. Whenever I add a G41 or G42 I get a cutter gouge error. I was taught to program on a HAAS but it seems like if I run a simple program like below it's the only way it runs BUT I can never put cutter comp in the code because it messes up. Now the below code will run but like I said if I add code to make it run on a HAAS then I get nothing but errors. I usually write code in Discriminator and test code in that and this code works, just doesn't have a G41 or G42. I have read the manual and did a few things I have seen wrote here but nothing seems to work. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Oh, another problem is that I had my X axis going the opposite as the screen was showing so I reversed the setting and now when I manually operate the tables goes the reverse way I tell it to. Everything else seems to be working OK, so far. Backlash is set, surprisingly the was none on the Z axis.



G01 Z-.01
G01 Z-.04
G00 Z.1
G00 X-2.125
G01 Z-.04
G00 Z.1
G00 X-1.0625 Y.1875
G01 Z-.01
G01 X0.
G02 X.1875 Y0. R.1875
G02 X0. Y-.1875 R.1875
G01 X-2.125
G02 X-2.3125 Y0. R.1875
G02 X-2.125 Y.1875 R.1875
G01 X-1.06
G00 Z.1
M00

4

General Mach Discussion / Setting Tool Offsets

« on: February 21, 2011, 11:04:53 PM »

Read the documentation and I guess I'm not seeing how to set the tool diameter. I'm not really worried about tool height offset right now but can someone tell me where to put the tool diameter at and to save it? I have the cutter comp in the code I wrote but of course without putting in the tool diameter it won't apply that to the cut.

5

LazyCam (Beta) / AutoCAD and LazyCam

« on: February 04, 2011, 03:04:26 PM »

Hi, newbie here. I am having problems opening DXF files with LazyCam. It keeps saying "no entities found" then says file loaded but it doesn't show the image. Any suggestions?

Better yet, I have Inventor Professor 2011 and I can somehow import a file from to LazyCam then I would soooo happy.