Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / XBOX Controller not working

« on: February 01, 2013, 06:20:23 PM »

Hello,
Just purchased an official Microsoft wired xbox contoller. Installed the drivers and directx and Windows XP sees the contoller
and says all is working properly. Downloaded the plugin from the Downloads portion of this site and installed in the Mach plugins folder.
Mach does not see the plugin and does not have any error messages. I removed all but the downloaded file from the folder and
Mach still cannot see the plugin...
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you
Art

Attached is the file I downloaded...Is it correct???

2

General Mach Discussion / z axis reverses direction

« on: January 30, 2013, 08:19:41 PM »

Just finished reworking my machine to use ball screws on the x axis. Y and Z stayed the same and worked fine prior.
Also hooked up x and y limit switches which were inactive before.
Now here is the problem.
Page up raises the Z. Release Page up and Push again....Z axis goes down. Wait about 3 seconds and press the page up and the z goes up.
Same thing happens on the Page down. If I wait in between key strokes for about 3 seconds each direction works fine.
I did not rewire the z on the rework and the router is not on.
What is really strange is that everything worked yesterday before hooking up the limit switches.
There was a similar post in 09 but there was no "answer" and I do not know how to bring that thread back to the top.
Thank you for any help or suggestions.
Art

3

General Mach Discussion / 1605 Ball Screw settings

« on: January 27, 2013, 08:28:44 PM »

Hello All,
I replaced a 1 motor chain drive on the x-axis with 1605 ball screws on each side of the gantry. Mach is set up in inches so I did the math and came up with 2013.597 steps
on the x and A(slave) motors. I think I did the math right starting with a 5mm pitch on the screws. My problem is that when I tell Mach to move 5 inches in the x , it
measures short. In order to solve the problem I increased the steps to 2050.
My question is if this is a viable way to correct the error or is there something else I should be doing?
I also set the velocity to 30 and the acceleration to 2 which seems to be accurate with a stop watch.
My problem with the velocity is now none of the axis controls react to the "shift" key and "arrow' key to go "faster".
Thank you for any guidance.
Art

425 oz motors
200 steps/rev
driver set to 1:2

4

General Mach Discussion / Problem with pocket holes and z axis

« on: January 11, 2013, 06:32:44 PM »

Hello,
I'm making new uprights for my diy cnc machine. I drilled the original one on a drill press.....
It seems that each time it goes to pocket a new hole, the z axis moves up off of the zero point.
X and Y move to the correct spot, but each successive hole is shallower than its predecessor.
I'm using .5 inch aluminum and the depth of the pocket is .55 inches. I've attached the g-code that CamBam produced.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I can't figure this one out!!!!
Thank you
Art

5

General Mach Discussion / Out of round holes

« on: September 23, 2012, 02:01:12 PM »

Hello,
I am new to CNC and have built my machine from a combination of various designs. I am having trouble making round holes...
I have tried changing motor settings both in the x and y axis, even increasing the steps per inch on the x. I keep getting the
same result. I have attached a photo of the results of a simple 1" hole with a .125 milling bit.
Any suggestions as to where to look for a solution would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Art

6

General Mach Discussion / Compensating for table misalignment

« on: September 03, 2012, 12:45:27 PM »

Hello,
This is my first CNC build and I have completed a project with a 30x48 table. I am using Mach3 and CamBam for design. After setting all the parameters I checked the accuracy by measuring cuts across the x and y axis and have an acceptable tolerance of about .002 in. My problem is the table is slightly off relative to the gantry in both the x and y axis. it appears to be linear so I am asking if there is a way to compensate the z axis relative to the position on the table so that when I set up a milling operation the depth of the cut is constant across both x and y.
Thank you for any help