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Topics - spinnaker

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1
General Mach Discussion / Switching X with Y axis?
« on: January 12, 2016, 09:56:04 PM »
Total newbie to CNC.  Getting my machine all setup.  The Y axis of my machine is longer than the X axis.    In most cases it would seem to me I would want it the there way around.

Can I just swap the cables?  Or is there a better way to do this in software?

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General Mach Discussion / Can't get X Axis to work
« on: January 10, 2016, 02:53:56 PM »
I am a total CNC newbie.  I have been playing with Mach 3 trying to get my new cheapy CNC machine to work.   All axis were working.  

Soft limits are disabled.  
I am using a parallel port controller.  


I can't seem to get my x-xis to work.  My X axis is set up for pin 2   as the step pin and pin 3 as direction.    I placed a scope on pin 2 and pin 3 and they both remain low.   Y Axiis is pins 4 and 5 and when I place my scope on them, I see transitions.  Pin 4 pulses low when stepping and pin 5 changes when chaning direction.

I noticed that Y axis was not working at all until I exited Mach3 and got back in, then it was only working in one direction, until I did something (can't remember what)  and now it works in both directions.

I have confirmed pi configuration more than once.  Is there something else that could keep the x-axis from working aside from a bad parallel port?

 


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General Mach Discussion / Milling and drilling in 2 steps?
« on: December 23, 2015, 11:54:16 PM »
Total newbie to CNC.  In fact I don't even own a machine yet.   I am considering buying one of those cheap CNC 3020 routers on eBay.   Mainlly to etch PCBs.   I figure it will make a really cool toy.

I saw some articles on etching PCBs.   A really important step is to get the PCB really flat.   One trick to do this is to super glue the PCB to an aluminum plate (a little acetone and the PCB is free).  But would this make drilling an issue?  I think the people that do this, work with surface mount parts which require no drilling.

Is it possible to do this operation in two steps using Mach3?  Is there any way to set a "home position"  so the routing job matches up to the  drilling job?

I would imagine there would be similar issues with double sided boards.


 

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