Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / New maching- Converting HM48 to CNC with mach3 or mach4?

« on: July 21, 2016, 03:27:19 AM »

Hey all.
I bought a HM48 which is the largest machine that fits under my house,
next step- CNC conversion.

I want to run the standard motor at the moment, but have high hopes of rigid tapping and VFD controlled spindle- maybe I should go the whole hog first up?

My question is (Hoping HOOD can throw in his two cents too... I'll put the questions in number format for easy helping...

1: I am really familiar with Mach 3, but how far along is Mach4 now? With mach 3 I can even do probing and indexing hex stock on a 4th axis, how are the plugins coming along? I would like to use it as its so fast at doing things in comparison but I have so much invested in M3

2: Buy individual motors/power supplies/ drivers etc or get a kit off ebay/alibaba for about 1000 bucks for 1400oz+ steppers?

3:  Controller - I like the idea of CSMIO/KFLOP but never used them, for things like rigid tapping and indexing boring operations would I need this with a servo motor as a spindle and run it as an A axis etc? I have heard you can get servo motors with Step/Dir but how to achieve this will be mind**** without some serious help. -> Lookin at you Hood! I am happy to interpolate the threads with a thread cutter, but the machine is a gear head and I'll convert it to belt drive so I can run 6000rpm. Should I just do that and run with a CNC4PC controller or go the CSMIO

4: Ballscrews... 20mm is cheap, 25+ are crazy expensive. 20mm work ok?

5: This is the first time I'll be wiring this up from scratch, and I do have in my mind that I hated the homing and home switches on my last machine always being out. If I turned the machine off, re-homed it, it would always be a little bit different each time... is there any way to linear encode steppers or get really good home switches?

Thanks guys. I have 1 semester left at uni and plan to make videos of all my steps in a clear and easy way to contribute to future people wanting to do the same. I will ask for a bit of help along the way but its all appreciated.

2

General Mach Discussion / Help me retrofit a VMC with ATC to Mach 3

« on: August 22, 2015, 11:58:20 AM »

Well the topic all rhymes!

Hey all- gonna need some help on this one. I've decided to sell my old router and upgrade to true second hand VMC, and add a 4th axis later. I have my Mach 3 now so well setup thanks to guys on this forum like hood, hoss and CNC2010 bloke so I can't thank you enough.

Anyway a nice (but old) VMC has come up I want to get but the controller is super old and may be busted.

It has ATC and I wanna make this work.

Can some one tell me for a reasonable price where I could purchase a kit that will plug into the existing drives and spindle?
Or would it be more economical to buy a complete servo motor kit and drives from another vendor, like gecko for example.

I did loads of research and keep banging my head against a wall and I don't have money to get it wrong. People talk of drive kits like kflop but I don't want to use their software.
Can someone suggest where I can go to buy it all in one place, I should be ok with wiring it up after provided I get what I need for motion and to use the in built ATC.
Thanksguys.
J.

3

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 Providing a baseline setup for ESS Users

« on: June 05, 2015, 07:09:03 AM »

Hi guys,
I'm having a hell of a time setting up ESS on Mach4.
So far I have my axis's jogging, and thats it, my home switches light, but the moment i hit Ref an axis the system stops responding saying the switches have been hit.
I'm not sure why my keyboard wont jog but if I have to assign every single key i'll be grumpy.

So heres my idea.
If someone has a working version of Mach4 on ESS that has the spindle, 3 axis, and homing working, please provide the Mach4 loader file so we can see all the I/O screens on ESS that you have done. It seems there are just so many people with differing problems maybe its time we got together and started with a baseline setup that we can expand on as a group.

So does anyone running warp9 ESS actually have this working functionally, or is it still a pipe dream?

4

General Mach Discussion / Need help smoothing out 4th axis..

« on: August 19, 2014, 05:01:04 AM »

Hey guys,
I have a 4th axis setup and I want to run a pass along the outside of the cylinder to smooth it up.

My post processor (All the ones I have tried) post the surface mill the same way... like this...
( OPERATION: FINSH)
( N1 T1 = 3FEM )
N45 G21 G17 G40 G80 G90 G94
N50 G15 H1
N55 G0 X0. Y0. Z20.0
N60 M6 T1
N65 S24000 M03 T1
N70 G00 X-105.0 Y0.
N75 M11
N80 A115.189
N85 H1 Z12.092 M08
N90 G01 Z-2.012 F300.0
N95 X-104.988 Z-2.006 A111.624 F600.0
N100 X-104.968 Z-2.0 A105.89
N105 X-104.938 A97.278
N110 X-104.918 Z-2.003 A91.538
N115 X-104.898 Z-2.014 A85.882
N120 X-104.888 Z-2.0 A83.06
N125 X-104.873 Z-2.019 A78.53
N130 A78.485
N135 X-104.859 Z-2.0 A74.449
N140 X-104.845 Z-2.02 A70.457
N145 X-104.844 A70.412
N150 X-104.829 Z-2.0 A65.837
N155 X-104.816 Z-2.022 A62.115
N160 Z-2.021 A62.07
N165 X-104.799 Z-2.001 A57.226
N170 X-104.786 Z-2.022 A53.639
N175 A53.594
N180 X-104.769 Z-2.001 A48.616
N185 X-104.756 Z-2.022 A45.028
N190 A44.983
N195 X-104.739 Z-2.001 A40.005
N200 X-104.726 Z-2.022 A36.417
N205 A36.372
N210 X-104.709 Z-2.001 A31.394
N215 X-104.697 Z-2.022 A27.896
N220 Z-2.021 A27.851
N225 X-104.679 Z-2.001 A22.783
N230 X-104.668 Z-2.02 A19.599
N235 A19.555

ETC ETC. Problem is... when the code runs, either with rot rollover on, it rolls all the way around for each change in X-location, with it off, it start/stops...start/stops... SLOW AND ANNOYING.

Is there a way to make mach 3 interpret this into one smooth motion?
Thanks.
SJ