Messages

6071

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

« on: August 14, 2011, 05:46:28 AM »

Relating to the Mach Impact / Laser Engraving plugin, Andrea (Robotmar) has very kindly provided me with a couple of his magnets in order to evaluate the plugin's impact engraving performance. It is a lot slower than the laser but the results are so similar that I thought you may like to see a side by side comparison with the same image produced by each method.
The first picture has been produced with the magnet and the second with the laser.
(This thread relates http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,16446.0.html).

Tweakie.

6072

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Gcode plugin

« on: August 14, 2011, 04:35:44 AM »

Hi Croy,

The Phlatboys use Sketchup and have the plugins for GCode etc. which are free to download from their forum. Although their machine is upside-down the Z Axis direction GCode is still correct for conventional machines. http://www.phlatforum.com/viewforum.php?f=147&sid=7b90298ca9c43218b1373a5bd7bf5cb6
They are an extremely nice group of guys and only too willing to offer advice and help if requested.

Tweakie.

6073

General Mach Discussion / Re: Slaved Axis Direction

« on: August 12, 2011, 07:31:37 AM »

I was just curious because I never got this type of setup to work successfully, I suppose it depends on the manufacturing quality of the motors but they were always trying to bounce off each others indented position except for the few places where they matched perfectly. I since thought that a flex coupler may have solved the problem but changed the design before trying it.

Tweakie.

6074

General Mach Discussion / Re: Slaved Axis Direction

« on: August 12, 2011, 05:15:22 AM »

The outsides are driving my axis and I have connected the insides together with a shaft, the idea behind that is that if one starts to labour a bit the other one will help keep it running, kinda like hooking up two locomotives in tandem. Maybe a bit of overkill, but it works.

Rod,

Have you used a flex coupling between the two motors ??

Tweakie.

6075

General Mach Discussion / Re: software question

« on: August 12, 2011, 02:22:22 AM »

There is no direct interface for "external to the system RTCP" but position data can be sent to external devices and control data can be received from external devices in as near "real time" as us humans would perceive. So I suppose the answer has to be Yes.

Oh and it's 6 axis. 

Tweakie.

6076

FAQs / Re: z home switch

« on: August 12, 2011, 02:01:34 AM »

Hi Chieffy,

I am pleased you have it working OK now.

Basically the switch contacts bounce, making and breaking contact many times and the software thinks the machine has backed off the switch when in fact it hasn't. The Debounce delay has been incorporated within Mach to take care of just this situation.

Personally, I would doubt the quality of the particular switch that caused the issue and perhaps replace it with one of better pedigree as soon as I could. 

Tweakie.

6077

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: G40, G41 and G42 have no effect.

« on: August 11, 2011, 12:10:24 PM »

Terry,

It does the 2.5D (xyz) and 4th. axis and DXF etc. Pretty versatile and it just keeps getting better. 

Tweakie.

6078

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:40:31 AM »

Se vuoi farlo ti troverà il modo. 

Tweakie.

6079

General Mach Discussion / Re: what software has this interface?

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:20:10 AM »

 

I must admit that some of the elderly people living in my street that I have spoken to are genuinely scared by all this. Think I may save up to buy one of your "Paramount Maurauders" 

Tweakie.

6080

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:10:12 AM »

Andrea is the expert on this, I am just a beginner. His site has more details http://www.robotfactory.it/

At the moment I am thinking that more force than currently available may be necessary for Marble, slate etc. but as said earlier I still have a lot to learn and a lot of experimenting to do.

Tweakie.