Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gear Cutting Wizard

« on: February 04, 2012, 11:37:28 AM »

Yes, it is the gear and spline cutting wizard. Tried setting the Y axis 0 as centre of shaft but still moves one side of the blank to the other so not sure what happening really

While I was waiting for reply I decided to have a go try and write something.

Based on the G code the gear wizard generates, I managed to write what is below to cut a 108 tooth gear. Never written any G code before and chuffed it works even though it's simple!
Ideally I would like to have 5 passes of cut depth 0.05mm, and rather than put each one in as separate lines in the code, can a sub program be entered to do these passes then move the A axis and repeat and how would I do it?

Thanks

M04 S4000
G00 G64 A0
M98 P0001 Q108
M5
M30

O0001
G01 Y1.5
G01 X-25 F50
G00 Y-3
G00 X0
G00 Y0
G01 Y2.54
G01 X-25 F50
G00 Y-3
G00 X0
G91 A3.3333
Y0
G90
M99

2

General Mach Discussion / Gear Cutting Wizard

« on: February 04, 2012, 07:59:12 AM »

I have been trying to use the gear cutting wizard for a while and it does all of the right things for number of teeth, cut depth etc., but I cannot make sense of the start position, I must be missing something!

Where should the cutter be placed relative to the workpiece when the axis are zero'd? When I click start cycle the Y axis moves a large amount, from one side of the work piece to the other and then the movements for the cutting cycle start?

Peter

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting 4th Axis to work from Vectric Vcarvepro 6.5

« on: January 04, 2012, 04:40:29 AM »

Thanks Greg, You were right, I had version 3.043.022, downloaded 3.043.022 altered the settings as suggested and now it works fine.

When I installed the new version I lost all my settings, ie spindle speed, limits etc. Is there anyway to install a new version but retain or copy the existing data into the new version?


   Peter

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting 4th Axis to work from Vectric Vcarvepro 6.5

« on: January 02, 2012, 01:55:06 PM »

Motor tuning details are:
Steps per 400
velocity 2058
Acceleration 300
G's 0.0305928
Step pulse 5
Dir pulse 0

On the mach screen the 4th axis can be made to jog and if rotated 180 degrees on the screen it moves 180 degrees on the scale on the axis itself.

When we download a toolpath from Vectric it runs the program in a sort of fashion but the tool path in the display bears no resemblance to the one generated in Vectric.

Any clues to what needs tweaking?

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting 4th Axis to work from Vectric Vcarvepro 6.5

« on: January 02, 2012, 06:55:53 AM »

Tried both but no difference, also tried various combinations of the suggestions, axis of rotaion as x, y etc. In the settings page it is called Rotation Diameter rather than radius, tried values for radius and diameter but again no change. 

Tried running a job but the A axis just rotates contiuously and the image of the toolpath shows nothing meanigful.

Can't help but think it's close, but one small thing wrong?

Peter

6

General Mach Discussion / Getting 4th Axis to work from Vectric Vcarvepro 6.5

« on: January 01, 2012, 10:19:41 AM »

Hi,

Struggling to get Mach3 to work using the 4th axis using a text toolpath generated by Vcave pro. Vectric seems to generate it ok and it looks like it is wrapped. After saving in the correct wrap.txt file the wording in the file does not appear when we open the file in Mach3, it all seems to be in a lump or thin line? Tried toolpath setupmenu checked 'A' rotation is enabled and selected the axis and the z zero for the job as the centre of the axis  but no luck.

What are we doing wrong?

Thanks  Peter

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Zeroing with movement?

« on: March 28, 2011, 05:43:47 AM »

Thanks for making the enquiry with John S. I tried the settings suggested and it produced a max measured spindle speed of 1750 rpm. Set it back to 188 and 7500 and it goes to 5000rpm again which is fine, think I can live with the slight discrepancy.

Just read your post about centering and I like the approach. Hope I can ask another question. What is the difference between the goto and goto zero buttons? and if I set the soft limits presume any setting needs to be within the limit switch setting?

Peter

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Zeroing with movement?

« on: March 27, 2011, 04:00:52 AM »

The motor is just described as 5000rpm 1000w Closed Loop Brushless DC Spindle Motor on the Arc Euro site, cannot find anything more technical except that is seems to be an uprated version of the 3500 rpm motor used on a Sieg lathe.


Peter

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Zeroing with movement?

« on: March 27, 2011, 03:37:23 AM »

Just set the speed to 2500 and that shows  a reading of 200% at the full 5000rpm so I think I will just leave like that as it is easy to relate to that when I use it.

Just finished a batch of 28 spacers so pleased with the progress so far in a week---many thanks for your help---sure I will need more soon!

Peter

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Zeroing with movement?

« on: March 26, 2011, 10:49:58 AM »

Briil, thats it, changed to pulley 1 then spindle steps to 188 and speed now measured with tacho at 5000rpm. The SRO is showing 250% at 5000rpm and 100% is 2000rpm so not sure what that means? Is that another tweak somewhere?

Peter