Messages

1

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Any text wizzards for marking parts using 4th axis rotation?

« on: September 05, 2009, 08:26:22 PM »

Greolt,
Thanks for the link, I can't wait to try it out. 

Vmax, I agree that Mach3 is a steal still at it's current price, I'm just kicking myself for waiting so long to buy the licensed copy that it had time to increase in price.  Rick's program is a good deal as well for all of the extra's it now includes but untill I upgrade to the full version I am still restricted to the 150 lines of code.  I have been getting around this by writing alot of macro programs.  I don't make any money writing code nor do I have time to dedicate to mastering all aspects of it.  If chips aren't flying we're not eating. -Mike

2

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Any text wizzards for marking parts using 4th axis rotation?

« on: September 05, 2009, 01:33:52 AM »

Vmax, I spent a lot of time tonight Google searching "wrapper" along with various other phrases and keywords and was unable to even find anything resembling what you describe, although for some reason "Fanuc"  came up alot.
I also spent some time on the other site suggested and even emailed Rich with a question regarding fonts to which he replied very quickly.  It's funny, back when we had a bit of money to spend programs were cheaper.  Now that we (home based machinists) are struggling to survive another year it seems everybody (used loosely) has raised their prices.  The initial offering of the indexer wizzards was $75, now $100.  I was browsing through the Mach3 offerings yesterday thinking about upgrading to the full final version and it has also gone up. My customers demand/expect discounts???

3

VB and the development of wizards / Any text wizzards for marking parts using 4th axis rotation?

« on: September 03, 2009, 11:56:05 PM »

Sorry if this has been brought up before, I don't spend a lot of time in this forum when my machine is running well. Luckily for me, it is running fine.
I have a need to engrave lettering on cylindrical parts held in my A axis chuck (oriented paralell to the X axis travel).  The wizzards I have work great for normal marking on flat surfaces but I need to maintain a .003" depth of cut. I believe that would limit the marking function to using the X and A axis to complete the letters/numbers. 
Is there already a wizzard out there that I am not aware  of ? -Mike

4

General Mach Discussion / Random E-stop and limit alarms -Software or relay board related?

« on: November 20, 2007, 11:12:59 PM »

Last winter I started conversion of an older mill/drill to a 3 axis stepper driven CNC. I got the mechanicals done, ballscrews, motors mounted etc. then covered it up and went on with my regular work. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the Mach3 trial software and started building the control using Gecko 203Vs, an older Hubbard CNC (Ebay) breakout board, a Hubbard Limit switch board, Kelling 70VDC power supply, and the usual bells and whistles.

Once I got it all wired and powered up I started having random E-stop and limit switch errors pop up in Mach3, requiring a reset.  Usually it happens when nothing is moving at all.  Occasionally I will see a quick flash on the pin designators on the diagnostics page just before the e-stop alarm starts again (when nothing is moving). I have been in touch with Brent Hubbard and he very graciously sent me a new generation relay board even exchange for the one I purchased last year. The new model appears to have been designed with mach3 and gecko drives in mind as both are mentioned in the set-up instructions.  I installed it this morning and the problem with the estop errors has slowed down to once every couple of minutes with nothing moving but has not completely gone away.

I am running 4.3A NEMA42 625 oz/in motors on X&Y and a 4A NEMA34 465oz/in motor on Z. I am wondering if I have somthing set incorrectly in Mach3 where there is some kind of feedback occuring which causes the estop/limit alarm to kick in.  I have jogged the axis many times and the problem usually occurs during motor start-up or slowing while moving, but sometimes the alarm goes off whrn nothing is moving at all. 

Is there some setting in Mach3 that I could have set wrong?

Thanks in advance -Mike

5

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Mach3 with Hubbard relay boards, random E-stops slowing progress!

« on: November 20, 2007, 08:18:05 PM »

Last winter I started conversion of an older mill/drill to a 3 axis stepper driven CNC. I got the mechanicals done, ballscrews, motors mounted etc. then covered it up and went on with my regular work. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the Mach3 trial software and started building the control using Gecko 203Vs, an older Hubbard CNC (Ebay) breakout board, a Hubbard Limit switch board, Kelling 70VDC power supply, and the usual bells and whistles.

Once I got it all wired and powered up I started having random E-stop and limit switch errors pop up in Mach3, requiring a reset.  Usually it happens when nothing is moving at all.  Occasionally I will see a quick flash on the pin designators on the diagnostics page just before the e-stop alarm starts again (when nothing is moving). I have been in touch with Brent Hubbard and he very graciously sent me a new generation relay board even exchange for the one I purchased last year. The new model appears to have been designed with mach3 and gecko drives in mind as both are mentioned in the set-up instructions.  I installed it this morning and the problem with the estop errors has slowed down to once every couple of minutes with nothing moving but has not completely gone away.

I am running 4.3A NEMA42 625 oz/in motors on X&Y and a 4A NEMA34 465oz/in motor on Z. I am wondering if I have somthing set incorrectly in Mach3 where there is some kind of feedback occuring which causes the estop/limit alarm to kick in.  I have jogged the axis many times and the problem usually occurs during motor start-up or slowing while moving, but sometimes the alarm goes off whrn nothing is moving at all. 

Is there some setting in Mach3 that I could have set wrong?

Thanks in advance -Mike