Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Machine goes to Z zero at start of a program

« on: April 18, 2020, 10:37:48 AM »

Quick question guys. Just went to help a friend with his machine running Mach3. We cut a piece of acrilyc in a jig and when we started the cut the machine went to zero on the Z putting a whole right through the part. This happened every time.
The cuts after i jogged the machine to a location away from the part before starting. It zeroed on the Z but at least didn't damage the part. Later on the machine would do the same thing now instead of the z going to zero it would go about .5" below zero.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.

2

General Mach Discussion / Machine stops in the middle of a program run

« on: July 18, 2013, 07:58:53 PM »

I had this problem before and someone here helped me changing something in the setup and it worked. Unfortunately I loaded a new profile for my new Velox machine and now I'm having the same problem and I don't remember what the fix was....

Here's whats happening. I load any G-code and the machine starts running normally, sometime within the process the machine stops and displays "external  limit switch activated"?
this is right in the center of the machine so I am not anywhere close to the limits.

Any idea what may be causing this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter

3

General Mach Discussion / Limit Switches stopped working

« on: April 24, 2013, 04:00:01 AM »

Its handled!

thanks

4

General Mach Discussion / DRO moving but motor not turning...

« on: April 14, 2013, 09:20:11 PM »

Here we go again...
So, I shut off Mach3 yesterday and the machine also. Today I turned everything back on and the Y axis is not moving.
I haven't changed anything. The motor is powered asI cannot move it. The other axis work fine.
The Y DRO moves but the motor does not turn.

Any suggestions?


Thanks

5

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / G-Code issue - different part than the design?

« on: April 02, 2013, 07:58:31 PM »

Tried to cut my first part today (another first since recent issues were solved). Zeroed the machine and started cycle.
At first it looked like the part was coming off center but it was too late so I waited for the full cycle. The result was nothing like expected.

Its a pretty easy task. just a flat fixture with the shape of a guitar fretboard. It will be used to hold a fretboard blank to mill.... (eventually!)

Would someone take a look at this G-code and tell me if they see anything wrong? I attached a screenshot from Mastercam so you can see the drawn part.

6

General Mach Discussion / Cannot do G1with zero feed rate?

« on: March 30, 2013, 12:36:36 AM »

VERY long story....I'll make it short.
One of our forum friends spend a huge amount of time with me and managed to get my machine setup after all this time(nearly 2 years).I had almost given up but now I'm thankfull I didn't. After Mr. Chaos finished helping me I loaded some G-code and the part didn't display correctly. Inches to mm issues. So we changed the G20 to G21 and off it went... Cut my first part!!!! YAY!!
Yesterday speaking with my programming friend he realized somehow the machine must be setup to millimiters which I could have sworn we had set for inches. Lo and behold...fired it up today and sure enough! Damn millimiters!
No biggie, I changed the native units back to good old inches, adjusted the motor tunings and looks fine but I am having a couple of weird things happening. Probably easy fixes but I don't know where to look.
If I'm on the MDI tab and type in an Axis coordinate (like X 1) I get this error "Cannot do G1with zero feed rate" and other times I get this "R ijk words all missing for arcline 15" every time without any G-code loaded.

Thanks for any input

7

General Mach Discussion / Need lots of help!! Nothing is working....

« on: February 19, 2013, 01:38:46 PM »

I bought a CNC kit a while ago with a Chinese controller. Thanks to this great forum and the help of some awesome members I was able to get everything set to go.
E-stop worked, limit switches and homing along with everything else. I never got to use the machine though. Unfortunately the "high quality" chinese controller burned out and that was the end of that. BTW, I was running mach3 through Smoothstepper and it worked fine.
Now I decided to upgrade to a Gecko G540 since it seems to be pretty good and I needed one anyway.

Well, I followed the instructions but nothing works. If I use the old smoothstepper profile almost everything works but the steps and acceleration are way off and if I load any G-Code it loads WAYYYY off the table and the coordinates are way off.

I finally have the time to get some projects done but this thing is not complying...

At this point I'd be willing to pay to get this problem solved. If anyone can lend a hand I'd be eternally grateful.

8

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Need help adding post file to Mastercam

« on: March 28, 2012, 01:29:05 AM »

Just downloaded the Mastercam Post from one of our forum members. Now I have no idea how to add the .pst file to MAstercam.
I am running a generic 3 axis gantry router mill and have mastercam X5

any help, as always would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

9

General Mach Discussion / Last question I promise.... (re: tool path position)

« on: January 18, 2012, 02:35:43 AM »

Well at least I hope its the last question! lol 

So, thanks to Hood I got all my axis moving the right direction and homing properly.
Right now it homes to the negative X and Y axis. (No home switch on Z axis yet)

Today after setting this all up I went to the wizards and loaded the G-code for surfacing. First time loading G-code. It gave me a warning that work was outside of limits and after poking around for a while I notice the tool path on the table display was loaded on the opposite side of the cross hairs...
So, instead of showing the work piece or tool path on the work screen it was displaying it to the left of X home and to the bottom of Y home. I jogged to the middle of the table and regen'ed the tool path but got the same result.
I know its gotta be something I did but can't seem to find out what.

Thanks guys in advance

10

General Mach Discussion / Homing and limit troubles....

« on: January 16, 2012, 02:01:39 AM »

Finally got my X and Y switches hooked up (still waiting for my Z switches) but having some issues.

First let me explain my setup. I have 2 switches per axis and each switch is supposed to act as a Home and Limit switch.

If jog away from the switches and then press "goto zero" and sometimes it goes to zero as suppose to. It slows down but never touches the switch, other times it engages the switch and triggers the limit and never backs off the switch. Not sure exactly what to do.
Do I jog the machine to the zero position and press "ref all"? and then mach3 knows thats home?  How do I set it up so it can find home and back off the switch and then save that setting? I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.  I've watch the videos but still confused.

Any help would be great! Thanks...