Messages

4891

Tangent Corner / Re: Pyrography.

« on: July 01, 2013, 07:50:10 AM »

As more people are trying this CNC pyro-engraving and experimenting with different heated wire designs, the results are continually improving.

This is one of the latest images to be posted.

Tweakie.

4892

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Grill Temp Gauge Chart

« on: June 28, 2013, 11:25:35 AM »

Yep, we've actually been trying to come up with something "witty" to do on the opposite side as it looks unbalanced now

How about cooking time versus beer consumed ?

Tweakie.

4893

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: postprocessor w/o arcs

« on: June 28, 2013, 04:20:55 AM »

There is a little bit of confusion with terms (as we think of ATC as being Auto Tool Changer) but the Vectric ATC (Arc Tangent Curves) post processor is what you need to select when generating the GCode within VCarvePro if you don't want arcs.

Tweakie.

4894

General Mach Discussion / Re: jog lockup

« on: June 28, 2013, 04:02:37 AM »

Hi Guys,

This thread also relates to the same problem http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,24665.0.htm
To my knowledge, the cause has not yet been proven as to being an SS or Mach3 issue. 

Tweakie.

4895

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Grill Temp Gauge Chart

« on: June 27, 2013, 03:19:58 AM »

Nice work Dave. 

A couple of cans of Bud and some of the 160 deg. stuff would go down well here at the moment (Glastonbury). 

Tweakie.

4896

General Mach Discussion / Re: Axis movement problems while running code.

« on: June 25, 2013, 07:50:42 AM »

From what you describe, my guess is that you have a corrupt .xml.

If I am right (50/50 chance)...

You could either create a new profile (not as a clone of the original) and configure it (port & Pins etc.) from scratch.
or
Look in your Mach3 xmlbackups folder and choose a fairly recent (before the problem was noticed) one from there ( copy it, rename it to [your profile].xml and copy it into the Mach3 folder - backup your existing [your profile].xml from the Mach3 folder first, just to be safe)

Tweakie.

4897

General Mach Discussion / Re: Axis movement problems while running code.

« on: June 25, 2013, 05:44:56 AM »

Do you get any message in the status window at the bottom of the screen ?

Tweakie.

4898

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: June 25, 2013, 02:38:01 AM »

Hi John,

Thanks, that is a very good suggestion and something I will look into.
Basically, my initial thoughts are that for diode laser operation (slower feed-rate) changing the calculation ratio between output power (amount of ‘dot-gain’) and feed-rate will achieve the desired result (a bit like the way in which the ‘greyscale compression’ function currently works for the CO2 laser). Anyway this is something I will investigate, as time permits and report back.

Tweakie.

4899

General Mach Discussion / Re: Emergency stop erroneously activates

« on: June 23, 2013, 02:16:10 AM »

The first thing I would suspect is the WatchDog timer - it is of debatable use - Config /General Config – uncheck the ‘Use WatchDogs’ box.

If that does not solve the issue then the next thing I would do is fit  0.1uF miniature ceramic capacitors - connected between each used switch input and GND at the breakout board.

Tweakie. 

4900

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: June 22, 2013, 12:21:10 PM »

Although there are still only a handful of us worldwide that are using the Mach3 Impact / Laser Engraving plugin I thought you may all be interested in the latest update.

Because the output from the plugin is bi-directional, the exact registration of the horizontal lines produced is dependant on device activation speed and from version 1.1 to date this line registration had been set to a compromise between the speed of a laser trigger and the speed of an impact magnet trigger.

Arising out of necessity, I have recently had to adjust this line timing to better reproduce some fine detail work with Lithophanes and in order to preserve the plugin’s compatibility between Laser and Magnet operation I thought it would be wise to include a user adjustable horizontal alignment feature.
To this end I have now added a group of 4 buttons to the GUI - these new buttons will allow the registration of the raster lines to be advanced by +1 or retarded by up to -2 image pixel widths (with the default being zero) and this should now be sufficient adjustment to cater for the correct operation of both devices.

I still have a bit of tidying-up to do (I always seem to get into a terrible mess between the manual coding and the automatic coding from the wizards when using Microsoft’s Visual C++), and I need to do some more testing but the latest version of the plugin (1.2c) will shortly be freely available to any that are interested.

Tweakie.