Messages

4031

General Mach Discussion / Re: Octimising Mach settings, help needed

« on: April 30, 2013, 02:07:36 AM »

Are the steppers more likely to loose steps at a given speed when wired in series rather than in parallel ?

As stepper rotational speed increases so available torque reduces. Parallel wired motors tend to have more torque at higher speed than series wired motors. There is also the mid-band resonance issue to be considered.

Probably the best information is here http://www.geckodrive.com/support.html

Tweakie.

4032

General Mach Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: April 29, 2013, 02:02:28 AM »

Hi Outlawkt,

Welcome to the forum.

Perhaps reading the manuals may be a good place to start http://www.machsupport.com/documentation.php
You won't understand it all (at least I don't) but they should give you a better understanding of the Mach3 software in general.

Tweakie.

4033

Feature Requests / Re: Print to Cut functionality & Mach3 on router

« on: April 28, 2013, 01:36:43 PM »

Ahhh - non-linear distortion - Thanks Ian.

I will crawl back under my shell. 

Tweakie.

4034

Feature Requests / Re: Print to Cut functionality & Mach3 on router

« on: April 28, 2013, 11:59:42 AM »

Obviously I am missing something ‘big-time’ here but I fail to understand the complication with cutting a linearly distorted graphic.

Picture1 – Graphic as produced in CAD, complete with registration markers.

Picture 2 – Cut tool-path produced in CAM (from the original artwork) as shown in Mach3.

Picture 3 – Graphic as printed (with exaggerated linear distortion and skew).

Picture 4 – Original Mach3 cut tool-path corrected for distortion and skew (Scale & Rotation) using camera location of the 3 markers and a basic bit of high school trig.

Perhaps someone could explain…

Tweakie.

4035

General Mach Discussion / Re: Octimising Mach settings, help needed

« on: April 28, 2013, 05:16:56 AM »

Hi John,

If your machine has ball screws then yes you should be able to increase your velocity (in motor tuning) to 1000 and achieve faster rapids without loosing steps. However, if you have the gibs set too tight or any other binding in the drive train then this may be causing your problem.

It may just be worth connecting an analogue voltmeter across your 48V PSU output and checking that there is no voltage drop when jogging X and Y at the same time.

Tweakie.

4036

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hall of shame

« on: April 28, 2013, 05:08:05 AM »

Anyone who is thinking of pirating this software should be shamed.
At $150 bucks or so its got to be one of the best value softwares around.
Pay the money it's worth every cent.
It's not like others which charge thousands.

Well said Al 

Tweakie.

4037

General Mach Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: April 27, 2013, 01:59:04 AM »

Hola Alejandro,

Bienvenido al foro.
Si te sirve de ayuda la sección española está aquí http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/board, 51.0.html

Tweakie.

4038

General Mach Discussion / Re: hola ... Mr BLaaCK is BaCK xD

« on: April 26, 2013, 07:53:13 AM »

Hola Blacky,

I am pleased you are making progress with your study project – there is indeed much to learn and understand.

You should be able to observe the step and direction signals from the parallel port with an oscilloscope irrespective of Mach3 being the demo version or not. Just remember that the step pulses are of short duration and there may be many of them in quick succession so you need a reasonable quality scope.

I love that video, especially where it says "wire everything up, plug it into the computer and you’re done”. 

Unfortunately, it’s not really that simple, Mach3 is basically an open loop control system which sends out step and direction signals – It is then up to the machine controller to interpret those signals into an exact positional movement. To do this the machine controller could use propriety IC’s to control stepper motors or servo motors with encoder positional feed-back, in any event the electronic technology behind this is quite complex.
When Mach3 issues the instruction for a machine axis to move (the direction signal followed by the required number of step signals) it really has no idea if the instruction has been completed, it just assumes that it has, so it up to us (the operator) to create suitable GCode that is within the realms of our machines capability.
I could ramble on but this is perhaps enough for now.

Please, don’t even consider attempting to build a CNC controlled machine out of old CD drives. In my opinion, it would be just  about as successful as building a perpetual motion machine.

Tweakie.

4039

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem engraving - depth changes

« on: April 26, 2013, 05:03:32 AM »

Hi Dminnery,

Not sure if this is any help because I am just stating the obvious which I am sure you are aware of already…

Perhaps you could first check your GCode file to see if it is calling for any changes in depth of cut (Z).

If the GCode is always calling for the same depth then you need to check your machine (loose coupling, tool moving in collet, electrical noise issues, etc.etc.).

If the GCode is calling for different depth’s then you need to read up on the Vectric manual / tutorial video’s etc. relating to different toolpath generation methods (engraving / profiling / v-carving etc.).

Tweakie.

4040

Feature Requests / Re: Print to Cut functionality & Mach3 on router

« on: April 24, 2013, 10:39:48 AM »

Thinking about this…

Provided the distortion (difference in printed image size) was linear then if the printed image contained 3 dots in a dimensionally known position (similar to the illustration) then the camera could be used to measure the actual distance between Datum and 1 to get the angle of rotation or skew and the Y axis scale factor and then between Datum and 2 to get the X axis scale factor (again compensating for skew). The calculations could all be done automatically in a script similar to the previously linked thread.

Tweakie.