Messages

5871

General Mach Discussion / Re: 2 stepper motors to 1 port of the controller board?

« on: March 07, 2011, 07:17:02 AM »

As long as your controller board is set up to limit the current to the value of one motor it is unlikely to sustain any damage.

It is not, however, considered a very good idea to do this and it would much better for each stepper to have its own controller axis. There are many reasons but the modern controller chips measure back emf and reduce current when motors are stationary etc and connecting two motors (series or parallel) tends to confuse the poor little chip's logic.

Tweakie.

5872

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can you identify this breakout board

« on: March 07, 2011, 04:32:07 AM »

Hi Jeff,

Looks like your breakout board is a mystery to everybody.

Best put it back in the drawer again. 

Tweakie.

5873

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle speed varies when moving axis

« on: March 07, 2011, 03:20:39 AM »

Paul,

As the previous worked OK and this one doesn't it sounds as though you should be talking to CNC4PC as they may have made subtle changes to this function when introducing the later version board.

If you have, or know someone who has, an oscilloscope you could monitor the signal from Mach to the board and see if there is any fluctuation there that could be causing the speed variation.

Tweakie.

5874

General Mach Discussion / Re: Question regarding dsp ,control boards

« on: March 07, 2011, 02:24:13 AM »

I have never purchased anything from them so cannot comment one way or the other.

You may like to check out some of the threads on the Zone http://www.cnczone.com/forums/full_spectrum_laser/

Tweakie.

5875

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Thrown together coil winder ;)

« on: March 07, 2011, 02:08:53 AM »

Thanks for the info Hood, much appreciated.

Tweakie.

5876

General Mach Discussion / Re: Auto-height-compensation possible?

« on: March 06, 2011, 09:05:45 AM »

Sorry buddy, like you I have just read about the probing it is not something I have actually had the  need to do. There are a number of members here who do surface probing and I am sure one of them can help.

Tweakie.

5877

General Mach Discussion / Re: AutoZero Plate for Z Axis

« on: March 06, 2011, 09:00:44 AM »

Very nice video Nicolas - I like to tool store on the rear of the X Axis 

The Probing script I posted was only for trial use as it operates in a different way to the one you were already using and was intended just to try and identify the problem.

As Sage mentioned, the auto tool probing scripts have advanced as Mach revisions have occurred so the one you currently have may not be the most reliable - you may want to update this at a later stage.

Good fortune with machining aluminium - a router is not really a suitable tool compared with a mill when it comes to metals (it's a rigidity issue as well as coolant and chip clearance) but nonetheless it still has to be tried.

Tweakie.

5878

General Mach Discussion / Re: Auto-height-compensation possible?

« on: March 06, 2011, 08:25:03 AM »

Hi Marc,

I have never seen anything like this before although if a panel was that distorted I would not want to engrave or fit it onto my equipment anyway. 

The facilities exist within Mach to probe the surface but you would need other CAD/CAM software to read the data in order to create the GCode with varying depth according to the position data.
I am sure it can be done, not automatically as shown in the video, but would it really be worth all the effort ?

Tweakie.

btw. Thanks for posting this video, every day I learn something new and this is just amazing.

5879

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle speed varies when moving axis

« on: March 06, 2011, 07:15:13 AM »

Paul,

I trust you set up the spindle output according to the instructions.

I am sure you did but it is just a thought.

Tweakie.

5880

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: order of operations

« on: March 06, 2011, 06:36:16 AM »

G-Simple is a basic but quick to learn CAD/CAM solution which will get you up to speed in just a few hours. http://www.gsimple.gr/ The best part is it's free and it works.
My very first CNC part was made with this program, I have moved on a bit since then but I still use G-Simple on occasions.
There are, of course, many other free programs out there and the choice is yours. 

Tweakie.