Messages

4811

Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. / Re: Hardware problems

« on: April 10, 2012, 09:20:26 AM »

It depends if you are to use GCode to drive the laser - the laser thread has most of the details (you will have to skip through the boring parts because the thread has got a bit long now). http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,12444.0.html

If it is a laser machine (which use a form of HPGL) this forum may be of interest to you http://oplaser.co.uk/opsupport/

I would be most interested to hear how you get on with the laser.

Tweakie.

4812

Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. / Re: Hardware problems

« on: April 10, 2012, 08:22:14 AM »

Pretty bad luck, I would have to say    but perhaps that's the way luck goes sometimes.

Tweakie.

4813

Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. / Re: Hardware problems

« on: April 10, 2012, 07:46:28 AM »

I know it's no help to you but you would not be the first to get bad stuff from China.

When setting everything up you must ensure that the driver's motor current settings do not exceed the motor's rated current otherwise you will fry the driver or perhaps damage the motor - the stuff from China rarely has any tolerance for errors. Having said that I have been using a Chinese driver board for some years now without any problems (perhaps luck is involved here).
Also - perhaps a better quality BOB may be a good investment.

Tweakie.

4814

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Text workflow advice for instructor

« on: April 10, 2012, 03:17:09 AM »

Hi bradallen,

Another, relatively new, free, software you may wish to consider is F-Engrave http://home.comcast.net/~sskroch/Fengrave/fengrave.html
This can import any / all of the Windows TTF fonts and is excellent, not just for engraving and V-Carving but also profile cutting etc.
 
Tweakie.

4815

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bad cuts

« on: April 08, 2012, 10:39:30 AM »

Hi Dminnery,

Thinking more about this.....

As the Romaxx is a pretty robust machine and 0.1" step-over is not an unrealistic figure it may be worth checking your machine for tightness of all parts and perhaps also the front bearings of the Bosch Colt.

Tweakie.

4816

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bad cuts

« on: April 08, 2012, 03:46:35 AM »

Hi Dminnery,

My fist action would be to reduce the step-over size associated with the selected tool in the VCarve tool table and see if that improved the situation (obviously you would need to create a new tool-path at the new settings).

Just a thought.

Tweakie.

4817

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lazy Cam and this cnc

« on: April 07, 2012, 08:16:28 AM »

Hi Mads,

There are quite a few free PCB routing programs about and this may be of interest to you http://www.pcbgcode.org/

Tweakie.

4818

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lazy Cam and this cnc

« on: April 06, 2012, 11:19:47 AM »

Hi Mads,

The machine supplier says it runs from GCode and LazyCam outputs GCode so there should be no problem using this machine with Mach3 for routing PCB's.

Tweakie.

4819

General Mach Discussion / Re: Strange shift in Z-axis during machining

« on: April 05, 2012, 08:18:17 AM »

Hi Chet,

Just a thought, but ambient temperature plays it's part in determining the maximum speed at which rapids can achieve without loss of steps.

I live in the south east of England and we never really get cold weather here (unlike Hood in Scotland   ) but I have just started using aircraft oil (Arctic grade) as a lubricant and this has made a tremendous difference to my router's reliable rapid speeds.

Tweakie.

4820

General Mach Discussion / Re: File loaded from Cut3D, now what?

« on: April 04, 2012, 07:06:53 AM »

Hi Tony,

The initial problem is not to get swamped in information but this is a good place to obtain the basics (and more) http://cnccookbook.com/CCCNCGCodeCourse.htm

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.