Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Servo drift due to EM noise. Optical encoders not preventing it.

« on: December 06, 2017, 07:49:54 PM »

I am a bit confused. On my mill I have servos that have optical encoders. The EM noise from my spindle has always been a problem, and I get servo drift on my Z axis. I thought that optical encoders should be talking to Mach3 to prevent drift. However when I observe the drift, via a micrometer mounted vertically in my vice, I can see the Z axis dropping, but the readout on Mach3 does not show this change. Am I wrong to assume the software should be sensing this through the optical encoders and preventing the drift? Am I missing a setting somewhere?

2

General Mach Discussion / On the fly z axis adjustment?

« on: August 20, 2012, 01:24:08 PM »

I am commonly running into a situation that requires me to stop the operation and go back to zero to make fine depth adjustments to my cutting bit. The problem is created by the fact that the surface I am engraving into is not perfectly flat and I am only engraving down .0025". The surface is extruded aluminum that I wet sand and pre- polish on a buffing wheel to get a mirror finish. then I set my zero at the corner of the stock. Because the buffing wheel does not leave the surface perfectly flat, the cutting bit will sometimes engrave some areas deeper or lighter than the other areas.

So I was wondering if there was a feature in Mach3 that allows me to compensate for lower or higher surfaces on the fly by clicking something on the computer screen instead of having to stop the program and manually lower or raise the cutting bit.

3

General Mach Discussion / Weird, Z axis randomly increasing travel. Causing deeper cuts

« on: January 18, 2011, 03:52:51 PM »

So I went to do some .005 " engravings today which I have done everyday for 5 years, and after just a couple commands to lift Z and lower back to .005 it started to cut deeper, then on the next engraving letter deeper still until it was below the flutes on the ball cutter and the cutter snapped.

I took down my Z servo and air blasted the encoder. I ran a Z test bringing from 0 to 1 back to 0, 20 times in a row and it never lost accuracy.

I then did a hard restart on the PC and when I went to fire up Mach3 it gave me an error and instead of showing me an error code it just gave me a blank gray window where moch3 should have been. I clicked close and got a Mach3 has suffered an error message. I restarted mach3 again and it was fine.

I ran my engraving program and everything was fine except a couple engravings in the middle of the program where clearly not as deeply cut as the rest.


Does this sound like a signal interference problem or a software problem?

I'm hesitant to run the program again out of fear of loosing more cutting bits and material stock.

4

General Mach Discussion / servos not traveling proper distance, new install of 2.0

« on: May 07, 2007, 06:43:24 PM »

Ive been running tests all day and im at a loss to figure out whats wrong.
I just installed v2.0 and am having trouble figuring this out
Here are the symptoms.
1. The z axis when traveling down 1" only goes down .995  . When I cycle it up and down, it always comes back to perfect 0 but never goes down below .995  .
     This exact .005 error is happening with each Axis. It always arrives .005 short of the mark, but always returns to zero.
2. No matter how much adjusting I do with backlash compensation all my circles are all slightly round boxes. When I de energize the servos and roll them back and fourth by hand, there is zero play.
3. When I run a 350 line gcode file, that has a final depth cut of .225, the actual depth is .350  .

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
Rob

5

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 launching media player as z axis movement

« on: May 06, 2007, 12:18:01 PM »

I was wondering if anyone here had mach 3 launch a media player or web browser during machine operations?
Mach 3 has been doing something to launch my media player and listing the media it is attempting to play as "z axis Movement" then my web browser pops up and mach 3 freezes while machining.
I emailed Art, but I wanted to see if anyone else had this problem?

6

General Mach Discussion / backlash, how do I determine it from looking at a circle

« on: January 04, 2007, 12:10:15 PM »

I calculated my backlaash originally by clamping a micrometer in the work clamp and moving the table back and fourth a number of times to see what the difference was from actual micrometer readings and the mach 3 dro.
I settled on y= .009 and x =.007.
When im making circle cuts, the circle is not round. How do I use the shape of the circle to determine fine tuning the backlash?

7

General Mach Discussion / can not do zero repeats

« on: November 22, 2006, 12:59:24 PM »

I just tried to run this drilling file and got that error. Any ideas on whats wrong?


G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90 G20
(Standard Drill )
T0 M6
G43 H0
M03 S2000
G00 Z0.0312 X-0.8688 Y0.0000
G81 X-0.8688 Y0.0000 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.7828 Y0.3769 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.5418 Y0.6791 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.1935 Y0.8468 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.1930 Y0.8468 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.5413 Y0.6791 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.7823 Y0.3769 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.8683 Y0.0000 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.7823 Y-0.3769 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.5413 Y-0.6791 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X0.1930 Y-0.8468 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.1935 Y-0.8468 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.5418 Y-0.6791 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312
G81 X-0.7828 Y-0.3769 Z-0.235 R0.1 L0.0
G80
G00 Z0.0312

8

General Mach Discussion / How do I configure 4th axis gear ratio?

« on: August 29, 2006, 05:17:13 PM »

I told the a axis to go 360 and it went 600

I have a 72 to 1 ratio on my rotary table and a 3-1 raitio on my servo to the pully, so that makes it 216 to 1

Oh and where would I adjust this ratio in mach 3
Thanks
Rob

9

General Mach Discussion / Mirror image when engraving, why?

« on: June 15, 2006, 06:53:02 PM »

I never noticed this untill the other day and for the life of me I cant figure out how to fix it.

I am engraving and everything is a mirror image. Even in the engraving wizard that comes with Mach3.

I tried reversing the servos in the homing limits tab and all it does is flip the engraving so its upside down. but its still a mirror image.

Any suggestions?

((((EDIT))))
In an effort to out do my sself in stupid mistakes, I just realized when I reversed the  servos I reversed both x and y. It was not until just now that I realized that was my mistake. I just now reversed only the x and fixed the problem. Maybe if this topic comes up agin my post will help others deal with brain farts like mine.

10

General Mach Discussion / Limit switches don't work when all are plugged in

« on: June 10, 2006, 06:16:59 PM »

I have a Camtronics servo system and on the back it has the following:
Limit: pin 15
home: x  pin 10/ y  pin 12/ z  pin 13


I have a N/O switch on each axis
The switches are all wired together so regardles of which switch is triggered they all light up.
Now the problem is this. Mach3 performs perfectly if only 1 switch is connected. I made a parralell breakout board so I can plug and unplug the switches.
When I plug in another switch, the software refuses to come off estop when limit is triggered, even with auto over ride activated. The funny thing is with just one switch connected. I can use that one switch as both a limit and home and auto override works perfectly.

Does shareing the same pin for more than one limit switch cause this problem?