Messages

7101

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing

« on: March 21, 2011, 07:35:18 AM »

Andy,

Don't know if this is what you are think of but there is a probing routine which can be enable as a plugin. You need to restart Mach after it has been enabled.

Tweakie.

7102

General Mach Discussion / Re: Zeroing with movement?

« on: March 21, 2011, 07:22:38 AM »

Peter,

I don't think there is a common format for directly transferring files back and forth between Mach and VCarve. The nearest would probably be .dxf but this would involve using LazyCam for the toolpath and because the features of VCarve are so superior to LC this would really be a waste of time.
The best bet is to stick to the native VCarve format of .crv for your work and using the VCarve post processor save your Mach toolpaths as .txt

Tweakie.

7103

General Mach Discussion / Re: Is is possible that some motherboard does not work with Mach3

« on: March 21, 2011, 06:02:45 AM »

Jeff,

All the probs. you have described could be attributed to severe electrical noise.

Have you perhaps left off an earth connection that was previously there ?
Have you added another connection which could be causing a loop ?

If it was working OK and now it isn't working then you must have done something additional to just changing the motherboard.

Have you checked the bonding of your computer earth and machine earth to your incoming supply earth ?
Have you checked the polarity of your Live / Neutral (or whatever you call the AC supply) is correct ?

(it is not unknown for power company's to rip out earth stakes or earth wires to become disconnected).

Tweakie.

This system was working great before, absolutely no flaw and then...

No help but it reminds me "If it ain't broke...."

7104

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Mach3 - G code loading problem

« on: March 21, 2011, 03:47:31 AM »

Do you get an error message in the status bar at the bottom of the screen ?

Tweakie.

7105

FAQs / Re: Breakout board

« on: March 21, 2011, 03:43:10 AM »

Hi Jan,

The CNC4PC, C10 and C11 seem to have become the industry standard with good price and good quality as well as good back-up if you ever need it.

Tweakie.

7106

General Mach Discussion / Re: A axis not matching actual angle.

« on: March 19, 2011, 08:29:36 AM »

I think it only confuses the issue we are talking about here but to elaborate on what Rich has said, I wrote this some time back.

Some notes on setting up a rotary axis for use with Mach.
 
For such purposes as cutting spur gears, machining splines or flats on round stock etc etc the position of the rotary axis is usually expressed in degrees. A GCode command such as G0 A10 will rotate the axis 10 degrees and so on. To set up the axis within Mach it is necessary to specify the ‘Steps Per’ (degree) and this is achieved by taking the steps of the stepper motor and multiplying by the micro stepping setting (if any) and then multiplying by the gear ratio then dividing the result by 360. In my case this is 200 (steps) x 8 (micro steps) x 60 (reduction ratio 60:1) / 360 (degrees) = 266.6666 steps per. Unimportant really but had I thought about this a bit more at the time I was cutting the worm gear for my rotary axis I would have made the reduction ratio 63:1, then I could have had a nice round figure for the steps per degree.
 
Angular mode is the most common and also the most useful way in which a rotary axis is used but there are alternatives….
 
When engraving on the surface of a cylinder, for example, it is convenient to have the rotary axis set for movement in mm but as this will vary, depending on the diameter of the work, there is a trick to getting it just right. One method for finding the ‘Steps Per’ is to calculate how many steps are necessary for the axis to complete one revolution and divide this figure by pi. In my case this is 200 (steps) x 8 (micro steps) x 60 (reduction ratio 60:1) / 3.142 (pi) = 30553.787 steps per to enter in Mach. Now this figure represents a linear movement of 1mm around the circumference of a 1mm diameter cylinder. In order that this can be used for any diameter of cylinder another calculation has to be performed and that is 1 divided by the diameter of the work (1/diameter). The result of this calculation is then entered into the rotary axis scale DRO within Mach. My version of Mach did not have an A axis scale DRO (like the X,Y &Z axis have) so this had to be added using Screen4 (which can be downloaded, free of charge, from the Artsoft website – For reference the A axis scale DRO is OEM Code 62 and it’s associated LED is OEM Code 44).
As an example, to engrave on the surface of an 80mm diameter cylinder it is 1 / 80 = 0.0125 so 0.0125 is entered in the A axis scale DRO now a GCode command of G0 A10 will rotate the axis so that the surface of the 80mm diameter work rotates 10mm. Using this method means that simple, conventional, engraving programs and existing GCode programs can be used for engraving onto curved surfaces such as tumblers, cups etc.
Although perhaps not quite as accurate as when the axis has been set up for angular movement in the first place - entering pi / 360 or 0.00873 into the A axis scale DRO will allow the axis to then operate in degrees ie. G0 A10 will rotate the axis 10 degrees.

Tweakie.

7107

General Mach Discussion / Re: A axis not matching actual angle.

« on: March 19, 2011, 03:33:49 AM »

Odd one this but you still seem to be confusing units.
The unit that a rotary axis uses is degrees, inches and millimetres are irrelevant to its angular position or rotational movement. 

Tweakie.

7108

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 01:00:37 PM »

I think you have to be extremely logical in your approach to this problem if you are going to solve it. Change just one thing at a time.

Try what Russ suggested:-
Drop your velocity to 120 on the X and Y then reset your kernel speed to 35kHz.
Carry out as much testing as is necessary to establish if you still have lost steps at these settings.

Tweakie.

7109

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:29:41 PM »

In motor tuning with acceleration at 10 what velocity do your motors stall at ? (what is the maximum speed you can achieve ?)

Tweakie.

7110

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:11:21 PM »

My stepper motor output from the drivers to the motors is shielded and bonded to the equipment ground.  My control wires from the interface card and stepper drivers are bonded to each other.

Are your limit switches wired with shielded cable ?
Are those shields bonded at the controller end only ?
Are your stepper motor cables bonded at the controller end only ?

Tweakie.