Messages

1

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Coil winding machine ( Wizard needed)

« on: November 06, 2019, 10:25:02 PM »

oh no!

over 120 days since the last post!

forgive me... im sure that happens a lot on this site... you get crucified on other sites for it... oh well... resurrection!

so, ive had a gander through a few pages and didnt see my specific requirements listed, and looking at the screenshot... it doesnt have it.

i am winding induction coils AND output transformers. and a few other things here and there.

both require a pause in between each layer, then maybe a slow turn as i have to wrap insulation on each time.

and, as each layer has a slight overlap... i need the ends of each layer to stagger slightly, otherwise i wind up (oh ha-de-ha!) with a rather awkward bulge. for the induction coil it isnt that big a deal (as long as i make the box AFTER ive done!) but with the OPT it can be a struggle when you have to get that window as full as possible and theres a double layer of insulation right where its not wanted... not nice, damaging $80 worth of copper cus you tried squashing the coil in the vice... (actually, my stuff up was not realising the final core lamination sliced into the bobbin and cut through one strand... at least the second time i wound it it looked damn professional! only lost an inch of wire. very. last. turn. or first, i guess, from a winding perspective...)
yes, ok, just orient the bobbin so the overlap sticks out to the front (or back)... that works for the OPT i guess.

so far ive just been running under a lathe profile, simple winder from the bits and pieces off my old 3d printer, and a nested subroutine using M1 stops each layer. works... sort of ok.

spindle is A axis, stepper motor, so i can keep it synched up without any encoders.. i am noticing though, that it almost stops on each turn. just running incremental, X back and forth at the wire diameter, with A constantly incrementing 360. easy... but not perfect. CV mode. i suppose i can always go absolute and do the maths... 500 turns of 0.125 is 75mm at 180,001 (stagger!) degrees for example...

yet it seemed to not do that the other day... and only does it when i start pushing the feed rate over 130%... (feeding at 10,000 degrees/min... pretty slow)

lets just say its awkward when i snap the wire... which happens fairly often with the current coil, as im re-using the old silk wound and rosin impregnated wire from the induction coil (some old pre-1900's thing... i got carried away replacing its lead out wires...) have to unwind the last layer, reset it all... homing switches? whats a homing switch? i whipped this winder up in about 2 hours... dead basic. it also means i have to keep track of the layers ive completed, because a snapped wire invariably means i have to run the code again. i guess i could just un-nest that subroutine, seeing as i have to hit run on every layer anyway... but still have to keep track.

soooo... i have no idea how to modify this... what is it? VB code?

i dont really want to spend the next few days learning how to do so...

iunno. it just seems like it would be the final addition that would make this screenset super user-friendly! a pause for layers, and a few degrees of stagger on each layer. just a wee little extra option... hint hint!

anyway, only got 28 layers left. this ones easy. just frustrating. im procrastinating... yes, i just snapped the wire again!

i am dreading my next project though... 50,000 turns of 0.1mm... twice. yep. 100,000 turns in total, in 100 layers, on two bobbins... im aiming for about 500KV... gunna make one HELL of a jacobs ladder! (yes, i know how to deal with high voltages, dont worry... otherwise i wouldnt be here still!) local scrapyard has spools ranging from 4 to 20kg... $10 a kg. shame the sizes are mostly useless for just about anything but guitar pickups...

and yeah, i gotta do the other OPT on the stereo... i did set up a manual winder with printed gears and the leadscrew from the mill from when i converted it to CNC. two years ago. ive forgotten exactly what i did... and it was all held together with g-clamps anyway... i needed them!


yeah yeah, long winded post...

right. coffees drunk, ciggies smoked, post is completed... back to winding!

2

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: what the? coilwinder!

« on: November 04, 2019, 05:35:37 PM »

i just KNEW there would be a screen or someone with an app out for it... lol.

iunno. i just made a winder cus i needed something better than what i had.. 's'nuff for me... for now.

modify...?

VB code...? 

AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGH!!!!!!

i shall go have look see though...

3

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / what the? coilwinder!

« on: November 04, 2019, 05:01:22 AM »

i had to rebuild an induction coil from, iunno... 1890? the lovely smell of silk-wound rosin-sealed paper-insulated coils...

anyway. whatever. thats irrelevant.

but i did have to whip up a quick winder, what with 12000+ turns...(took me a day to unwind, and of course my counter decided to stop at 3000 or so...) pulled apart the old 3dprinter, started looking at arduino, the cruddy board from the printer, saw accelstepper, screamed, stole the gecko g540 from my mill instead... gcode is so much easier...

my code.

g21 g91 (metric, incremental, no need to zero or home)
f10000
m98 p1 l100
m30
o1
m98 p2 l100
m1
m98 p3 l100
m1
m99
o2
g01 x0.25 a360
m99
o3
g01 x-0.25 a360
m99

pretty simple. allows me to enter different coils nice and easy.
P1 L(x) is half the number of layers.
P2 is feed right, wire diameter, rotate A, however many times it needs to be.
P3 is return to zero but keep rotating A.
pausing after each layer to wrap it in paper.

obviously incremental so i can keep spinning that A. i might change that to 359 degrees though, so i can stagger the overlaps of insulation... makes a big lump otherwise.


so, it seems to be working, and i did figure out the one actual ISSUE i had, which was it would keep incrementing up by 0.25 every cycle... as far as i can tell, i had the P1 M99 command right at the end of everything rather than at the end of that particular subroutine (line 10 was my last line previously)... newbie, can you tell? just figuring out where the M30 is meant to go took a while!

i havent actually wound the second coil yet, so im yet to see. my dry run worked as expected this time. (had to hit Estop every few layers and nudge the feeder back over a smidge on the first one...)

so.

what i am getting still is the toolpath display seems to reset after traveling approx 20.75mm either way.

its not an issue, it still seems to function fine... but is anyone else getting the same thing if they try to run it?

and if so, WHY? ive never had any g-code do that before!

i doubt its the demo mode being the blame. (it is licensed, i just havent registered it yet. only blew the dust off that PC yesterday and installed mach3. keep meaning to find an old copy of XP and do a format/reinstall... nice clean CNC dedicated puter for once! ha ha. i will miss the sound media player makes when you fire up mach3...)

what else? there was something else bugging me... um...

oh! yeah!

any ideas how to count the number of cycles? i prefer to have my 360 rollover enabled, and i guess i could just leave it and divide by 360, but it would be nice to know exactly how many turns and layers i have completed...

is there a limit to how high it can display, btw?

this wire is 0.2mm under the silk. it tends to break occasionally (i blame the rosin and the quick and nasty tensioner/wire guide...). its pretty tricky to get going again, and all too easy to lose track...

and as i have a roll of 0.1 for future coils (wee! 50,000 turns!) it may be handy if i can just glance at the screen and know...

yeah yeah... just use an endstop switch or a trigger on the shaft... its just... i dont wanna open the box my gecko lives in to attach extra wires!

yeah yeah... just stick a socket in the gecko box and plug in and then i can simply unplug... like, i do have switches on the CNCmill, right? i had to undo them, right?

yeah...right... wink wink.  theres only ONE important switch! that massive red one...

it would be nice to do it with the software instead... i spent longer making the bobbin supports than i did making the winder itself... switches are a hassle! meant to be winding coils, not making coil winders...


ah well. its good to actually write some code after a 1year hiatus... even better when its got practical benefits rather than making a mess...

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: angle slot wizard being strange on arc slot.

« on: July 21, 2018, 12:32:00 AM »

last one...i just tried my desired start and end points, 45 to 135.

but i tried changing the centre points to 0.

and now it works.

if i try any centre point other than 0,0....it wont generate.

oh well... guess i just move to 20,10 and re-zero there...

cuss cuss cuss...

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: angle slot wizard being strange on arc slot.

« on: July 21, 2018, 12:11:54 AM »

just for giggles. heres a screenshot if i try starting at 135 and finishing at 45...


once again. 135 has automatically become negative.

its not creating the gcode but just keeps the last toolpath that did generate. (screenshot2)

note that my chord length/radius lengths are now negatives.

last time i did this it threw back the tool diameter error...

it basically appears that it wont tolerate any start angle under 90. i need it to start at 45! grrr!

i suppose i could live with it, and cut that straight slot at 45, but its a nuisance cus then i have to do some maths...

and last, heres a screenshot of my combined final g-code...with the wrong arc!


why? why does it doooo this to me?

lol...

i think im going to go set up the rotary table and just cut this manually now... not in the mood for technology playing silly buggers!

6

General Mach Discussion / angle slot wizard being strange on arc slot.

« on: July 20, 2018, 11:57:27 PM »

ok, first up...sorry if this isnt the place. i tried searching and came up trumps.

so. im trying to cut a slot and an arc slot.

using the included angle slot wizard, i can make the straight slot no problems.

now, i then want an arc using the same xy zero point as the straight slot.

so... i plug in the xy coords, the radius of arc, blah blah. all good.

when i tap in the start and finish angles though...

first off... i type in 270 say. it decides it requires a minus sign in front of it. thats no problem. any figure over 90 and it automatically sticks a minus sign in front of it. i can work around that and figure out my coords to be in reverse...

the problem is that if i try any arc with a start and finish angle of anything other than 90 to 270, it wont generate the code. i cant get rid of the minus sign. it tells me things like arc chord length is a negative value, once it threw back an error that the tool diameter was too small...

it used to work, ive used it before (like, before i formatted my HD and reinstalled win7 and downloaded the latest mach3 release.... if that means anything?), but right now...its not doing what is expected!

maybe some screenshots will explain it better.
screenshot 1. the only arc it has decided its willing to create.

screenshot two. lets try changing that start angle...all is good, it did that. it even allowed 110 degrees to stay as a positive.

screenshot 3... my desired start and finish angles. i did NOT put that minus sign in front of 135!

and obviously, its the same g-code as screenshot2. it simply wont generate my desired arc.

i have just spent an hour or so plugging in various coords and so far, thats all it is doing. creating an arc from around 90 degrees start to 270 degrees finish, a 180 degree arc facing the wrong way... i actually want from 45 to 135.

so...is there something wrong with what i am doing here, or do i give up and go use the arc cut wizard instead? i just prefer the finish and ramp on the angle slot wizard... for obvious reasons.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: What's setting free the magic smoke? Help please.

« on: May 21, 2014, 04:27:04 AM »

new lead from NON to PC.

non? i still type by sight and the white out on half my keys from some program that made it into a piano doesnt help...

BOB to PC...

BOB itself... i still couldnt be bothered backtracking and seeing if you mentioned what breed, what species of gecko you have...

intergral BOB or separate?

and finally, what happens if you hook the lot up to the other PC you have that also has mach3 installed? just incase its your motherboard?

just ideas...if swapping doesnt help, etc etc...

8

MACH TOOL BOX / Re: Any more gizmos or gadgets needed ????

« on: May 17, 2014, 10:39:09 PM »

fine. i go back to writing g-code and saving dollars for a while

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: What's setting free the magic smoke? Help please.

« on: May 17, 2014, 09:16:42 PM »

is the y stepper working when not attempting to drive anything?

sounds like a step pulse issue. id start at the default 2 and fiddle from there. step direction and pulse possibly, but nah...one would make it go backwards, and one would make it spin UNTIL you tried jogging, which would stop it...

and try the x axis from the y driver, etc, etc

tis why i have a large box of various steppers lying around. nema 17s are cheap enough to sacrifice when required! ie, free from the scrapyard

10

MACH TOOL BOX / Re: Any more gizmos or gadgets needed ????

« on: May 16, 2014, 09:48:18 AM »

i already stated my demand elsewhere but ill try again

a gear generator for people that 1)  dont want to buy a hob and make a machine to use them, or 2) buy a full set of ground cutters that are only good for certain numbers of teeth, hence the full set, that then need to be purchased again when working a different module.

the current mach3 wizard is obviously geared to the people that buy cutters or can grind flycutters of the correct involute profile.

a gear can easily be generated by a series of gashes along X, with A being rotated and Z lifted simultaneously at the end of each full rotation of the work. the Z axis will start off centre and travel past the centreline, working its way to the opposite side of the centreline...

the finer the rotation of A, and the smaller the lift on Z, the finer the profile produced. and the lighter the DOC. ie, a single pass, on the centreline, would be a very coarse finish tooth, with a heavy DOC. three passes, one either side of centreline, and one on, would make a slightly more refined profile, with shallower cuts on each pass to boot... sorry if thats obvious break it into 5 passes, 7, 9...get the drift? more passes, more accurate tooth profiles and lighter cuts.

just like more teeth/diameter on a hob

the amount of rotation/zlift being determined by the module and the teeth required simple bit of pi.... mmm, pi


Y stays at full depth of tooth +clearance during the operation. just like a hob.

this means you only have to grind a simple 20 or whatever chosen pressure angle tool, with straight sides. no involutes needed, it would resemble an acme thread tool instead. simplicity itself any gronk with a boring bar could cut a gear...

also, by calculating the Y and Z offsets required to produce an apparent angle of 20 degrees, you could get away with a straight sided tool! meaning, slitting saws and or endmills, depending on which way you choose to cut... tool starts well below centre, moves up and forms one half of the tooth. then retracts moves up past the centreline, and continues the process for the remainder of the tooth profile.



i could sit down and write a few lines of gcode to demonstrate what the %$&^ i mean if required...(its just the current gear wizard with some tweaks...)but i couldnt write a wizard