Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Toolpath Display

« on: October 09, 2017, 11:37:41 AM »

Hello!  We are running a plasma table with sheetcam/mach3.  Our first computer died last month and we have since purchased a new one and loaded a new copy of mach onto it. Whenever we loaded a file into mach with our old computer, the image was large, clear and we could easily watch the toolpath....we never had to zoom in. From the beginning with our new computer, the image has appeared miniscule. We can zoom in and it looks ok, but still not as clear as we previously had it. We'd just like to find a default setting to make the image populate the toolpath display the same way it did before. Any help is much appreciated!

2

General Mach Discussion / ////Sheetcam - Mach3 Help CONT'D////

« on: March 28, 2017, 12:39:31 PM »

This is a continuation of my last post Sheetcam - Mach3 Help.  Some technical issues so I had to start a new topic.

Some pics that I took of my drawing...though only a couple of errors shown, they are throughout the drawing.

Any help you can offer would be much appreciated!
Jodi

Having a bit of a hard time posting screenshot of z axis motor tuning settings:
Steps per - 25551.17329
Velocity - 12
Accel - 6
G's - 0.015541
Step Pulse - 5
Dir Pulse - 5

3

General Mach Discussion / Sheetcam - Mach3 Help

« on: March 28, 2017, 11:43:10 AM »

Good day,

I've been posting on various cnc and software forums for the past while and have gotten some great help and advice.  We've made progress, but for every step forward, we take 3 back.  I try to give a brief history of the issues...

Brand new to all of this.  New 4 x 4 plasma table purchased last year - my husband assembled it.  Hypertherm PM45 with machine torch.  Using Corel X8 and Sheetcam TNG on pc with windows 10 and Mach3 on separate pc with no internet connection using windows XP.  Could not cut a clean file from the beginning - jagged edges, wobbles/waves.  Started with the mechanical side of things - we basically took the table apart, put it back together, received some upgraded parts (motor, gears), squared it off a dozen or more times, hardwired it, bolted it to the floor to avoid any possible movement...and the list goes on.  To us, it then seemed accurate and ran smoothly.  Next Corel Draw...fixed some glitches in the software and now export all drawings in SVG format - appears much cleaner in sheetcam than DXF.  Next Sheetcam...all imported drawings look clean and toolpath looks accurate - no deviations from the drawing.  We've worked a great deal with the settings and now have them set to where we think works best for our setup.  Finally Mach3...again, we've received a great deal of feedback and we played with the settings a fair amount, but the end result is always the same.  The torch "judders" in random areas (yes, we've experimented relentlessly with the CV settings) and several arcs look flat - especially in fonts.  We've experimented and simple files come out much cleaner - more detailed files have several errors in them.  I'm posting some screenshots of a file that we've been working with, some of our current settings and some pics of the end result - a heads up, because of all of the issues, we've attached a pen to the torch and have been drawing all of our files - wasting too much metal.

Please let me know if there is any other info that would help to diagnose the issue and I'll be more than happy to provide it.

Thank you!!
Jodi

There will be a couple of posts due to the number of attachments...thanks for your patience.
Attach 1 - Screenshot of imported file in Sheetcam with drawing import settings
Attach 2 - Screenshot of toolpathed file in Sheetcam
Attach 3 - General Config settings in Mach3
Attach 4 - X axis motor tuning settings

4

One on one phone support. / Re: Hesitations and Small Wobbles

« on: March 28, 2017, 10:58:59 AM »

Good morning Tweakie,

Thanks again for the info.  This has been a very frustrating few months trying to get it right.  We spent all day in the shop again yesterday playing with the velocity and acceleration as well as some more sheetcam settings.  We read through the online mach 3 installation and configuration manual and are still no further ahead.  I'm going to start one more thread as kind of a last ditch effort to see if anyone can see something we're not.  I'll post screenshots and pics to show where we're at.

Thanks again Tweakie
Jodi

5

One on one phone support. / Re: Hesitations and Small Wobbles

« on: March 27, 2017, 09:32:52 AM »

Good morning Tweakie,

Thanks very much for taking the time to check out our plasma profile and for the link.  We've been experimenting a fair amount more this weekend and feel like we're onto something.  We've continued playing with the drawing import settings in Sheetcam and are starting to see some improvement, but still not where we need to be.  I'm not sure if when you looked at our plasma profile, you were able to see our motor tuning settings?  We have yet to change them - they are what the company we purchased our table from told us to enter.  Could the steps, velocity, acceleration and other settings be potential issues?  Can you offer us any advice on where to start making adjustments to these settings?

Thank you!
Jodi

6

One on one phone support. / Re: Hesitations and Small Wobbles

« on: March 24, 2017, 12:04:51 PM »

Hello again!

Found it...thanks for the help.

Hope you can see something we're missing

Jodi

7

One on one phone support. / Re: Hesitations and Small Wobbles

« on: March 24, 2017, 10:07:00 AM »

Good morning Tweakie,

Thank you for taking the time.  I've been looking through all of my Mach3 files and am having a hard time finding the profile for our plasma settings.  I've been able to locate .xml files and profiles for Mach3 Mill and Mach3 Turn, but nothing for plasma.  I've taken a screenshot of the Mach3 files in my computer - maybe you can shed some light?  My apologies for my lack of technical experience.

Thanks again,
Jodi

8

One on one phone support. / Hesitations and Small Wobbles

« on: March 23, 2017, 03:39:21 PM »

Hello!

We have done extensive research and spoken with several people regarding the issues we're having.  We are now hoping to speak with someone from mach3 to try and figure this out

I'll try to provide as much information as possible, but please do not hesitate to ask for more if necessary.

We are currently working with CorelDraw X8 - Sheetcam TNG - Mach3.  We're using a 4 x 4 Spidercut CNC plasma table with Hypertherm Powermax 45 with machine torch.  CorelDraw and Sheetcam are run on a PC with Windows 10 and Mach3 is run on a pc w/o any internet connection with Windows XP.  For the past several months, we've corrected issues with corel and minor mechanical issues with the table.  We've narrowed our issues down to Sheetcam and Mach3.  We are using SVG format for all of our files and they import well into Sheetcam, though we're finding that many nodes are added to all imported drawings.  I've spoken with Sheetcam support and made adjustments to settings to give me the cleanest lines.  All is well and g code is created.  It looks good once loaded into Mach3.  We've attached a pen to the torch due to all of the issues we're having, so just drawing instead of burning for now.  We set everything up and it starts out drawing fairly clean lines, but each drawing ends up with min 2 - 6 small areas of wobbles or wavy lines and the torch head seems to hesitate at those areas for a fraction of a second - almost like its unsure of where it wants to go.  There is absolutely no indication of this in Corel or Sheetcam.  From further advice, we've unchecked all of the boxes under CV Control and set LookAhead to 200.  There were slight improvements once we did this, but the wobbles and hesitations are still present in random areas of the drawings.  Our selected post processor in Sheetcam is currently Mach3 Plasma - our THC has yet to installed on the table.

We've read a fair amount about decoding the gcode - the current file we're working with is a simple letter "R" and we gone through the gcode line by line to see if there's anything obvious that stands out.  For inexperienced users like us, we can't see anything.  I'll attach the gcode to see if someone is able to see any issues with it?

As I mentioned, please let me know if there is any other information you need from me.  Any advice or help would be much appreciated!

Jodi