Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / What about using two China VFDs to drive one spindle?

« on: December 01, 2012, 10:06:41 PM »

Hi Guys,  I just bought another China 2.2kw motor/VFD unit just to have on hand now that one of my units has been in service for so long.  I paid under $400 including shipped and it just got me thinking has anyone heard of using two of these units to drive a single spindle.  You could use a double J-section pulley belt system.  Even have it set up so that you are only using one motor with the other on standby when the HP is not needed which for me would be most of the time.  A pneumatic pressure idler pulley could be used with a cage arrangement similar to what Fadal had used on there two speed systems.  With 3-1 ratio you would end up with a 10k spindle and gob's of torque when you need it.  Just dreaming.

2

General Mach Discussion / My favorite things this year!

« on: November 30, 2012, 10:40:49 PM »

A BIG thank you to Hood for being such a huge contributor to thousands of builders.  Hood I am sure you don’t remember me but you helped me get my first machine up and running when I was having problems.  This was back at the beginning when there were just a couple of dozen active people on the forum.  That’s how long ago I am talking about.  Thanks to your help I got the bug and have been building machines ever since.  I feel really guilty that I have not been a regular to the forum.  I am going to make more of an effort to contribute more.  My first favorite thing is Hood.  Ha-ha  My next favorite thing is my duo VFD/ Spindle setup.  It gets a lot of use and runs awesome day after day!

3

General Mach Discussion / Router to plasma and back for $300 w/water bath

« on: May 01, 2007, 11:48:31 PM »

Hi All,
I am extremely pleased with the parts I made with my new Plasma Cutter!!  I built a cnc router/engraver that I have used for years and yes I can even machine 1” aluminum and even steel with beautiful results as you can see in the video!!  I have had a Hypertherm 1000 that I have had a lot of fun using-  a very well built machine.  It is a rather small machine really but will cut ½” steel plate with a very slow feed rate.  I have built a very simple way to convert my cnc router to a cnc plasma complete with water bath in about 20 min. and back to cnc router in less than 5 min. not including clean-up of the plasma tank.  That takes about 30 min. the way I do it.  I built the hole thing in a weekend.  There are two main components to construct.  The first is an extension arm that mounts in place of my Portacable 3 ¼ hp router.  The second is a water bath built from expanded pvc foam board.  I tried the system out cutting a couple of large “C” plates from some 3/8 mild steel plate.  Wow they turned out beautiful!!  I had the feed rate turned down pretty low but even at that it only took about 10 min. to cut each, I made two.  The cost to build the system minus the plasma machine was around $300.  One thing is for sure I don’t thank it could be any easier to set up than this.  Hope you like the pics and video.
Werner


http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2026423991

4

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Cannot change values (Fields)

« on: April 22, 2007, 03:40:28 PM »

Hi All,
I put my NFS Lic. in the Mach3 root but NFS still looks like it is in demo mode.  As soon as I press enter the field switches back to what it was.
Any ideas??
Thanks,
Werner

5

General Mach Discussion / Cannot input in wizards!!

« on: April 22, 2007, 02:38:20 PM »

Hi All,
I have tried to play with the wizards but if I try to change the field (number) it switches back to what it was.  Strange thing is I have the Newfangled set of wizards licensed and they do the same thing.  Any ideas?

Thanks,
Werner

6

General Mach Discussion / Can Mach3 be run with Mach2 driver??

« on: March 24, 2007, 11:54:30 PM »

Can Mach3 be run with Mach2 driver?? 

Thanks
Werner

7

General Mach Discussion / Stepper motors chattering at reset problem?

« on: March 23, 2007, 04:54:32 PM »

Any help with this one is greatly appreciated!!
My name is Werner,  I have set up a new machine and had Mach3 working great with one computer only to have it freak out at startup with another.  Specifically the problem is when I click reset.  The motors start to chatter getting some crazy signals .  I have tried a lot of thing to this point:  switch computer a few times without moving wires around, tried it in Sherline mode, tried changing the kernel speed,  different parallel cables, motor tuning not that I thought this would do anything!  Keep in mind I have the same version of Mach3 on both computers and appear to have everything configured the same.  At this point I am not sure what is going on.  I am using a PMDX-131 with 201s and Win XP.

Thank in advance!
Werner