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1

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 Reverses Lettering

« on: June 25, 2012, 09:02:17 PM »

I recently purchased a used bench top CNC to use primarily for engraving. Mach3 was installed. First run of engraving job resulted in lettering being reversed-as looking
in a mirror. The lettering is fine in the CAM program simulation and on another machine that has Mach3 installed.
So I am concluding that the reverse engraving is being done somewhere in the Mach3 settings which I can't find.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Jim Barbieri
www.nfbmolds.com

2

General Mach Discussion / Black Friday in my CNC world

« on: November 25, 2011, 08:47:40 AM »

  I've been running an online mold making service for a couple of years using an older Microproto/Taig CNC machine with thier DOS based program.
Business has been good but I needed more speed.  So I sent my steppers and control box back to Microproto for upgrade to DSLS with Mach3.
Things have been downhill since getting them back a few weeks ago. Company provides XML specifically for the machine and everything is set accordingly.
Computer is clean install of Windows XP Home (DELL 4700 - P4 3.00GHz - 1.5 GB RAM - nVidia GeForce).
From the moment of opening the program I receive various error messages. First one is "External Estop Requested" which leads to
a long error message about "Your Reset command is failing due to an external influence...etc.". If I get through that and start the toolpath
I usually get a Limit Stop message and everything is over at that point. Things go round and round from there. I have, on occasion, gotten
through a complete run but it is rare. Sometimes the machine will stop right at the beginning and other times half way through.
   I have optimized the computer, reinstalled the OS, searched through the posts and tried different things w/o any luck. The company
hasn't had any ideas that have worked. I know MACH3 is a good program that many people use w/o any problems. Could it be the encoders or
something electronic rather than the program? or is it some setting? The Taig is a very basic machine w/o a lot of things to go wrong
   I am unable to take any new orders for fear of not being able to fufill them.
   Being a novice at the inner workings of the CNC world, I am at a loss at this point.
   Sorry for the long post but I am getting discouraged and would appreciate any ideas.
TIA
Jim Barbieri