Messages

7191

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill or Router - which is best for this application?

« on: February 21, 2011, 01:02:34 PM »

Hi Jen,

My 2 cents.....

Routers for wood and plastic, Miling machine for metals (and some plastics).
Ballscrews are best and if the router has a table larger than about 600mm x 600mm then servos are best. Three phase high speed spindle with VFD is best and good dust / fume extraction is essential.
Exact model and where to buy - that's another story.

Tweakie.

7192

General Mach Discussion / Re: CAM recommendation, other than CamBam

« on: February 21, 2011, 10:10:05 AM »

Sorry Guys, the confusion is all my fault.

You are both quite right, i don't have a use for Cut2D so I can delete this from my list. 

Tweakie.

7193

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 09:11:58 AM »

It's more likely that the belts are innacurate. (almost the same pitch is different to exactly the same pitch)

Tweakie.

7194

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 motion control over two LPT ports?

« on: February 21, 2011, 08:27:39 AM »

What else can I motorise  Cheesy

I suppose that depends on your age Brad 

Tweakie.

7195

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 08:20:51 AM »

Dont know if it's any help to you but attached is the GCode file (thanks to Sam) I used for initially testing my laser. (it is Inch units so you may need to scale it)

http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/laser1a.wmv


Tweakie.

7196

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 07:52:58 AM »

Apart from the obvious it came out very well.

On the 'R' you have a vertical shift and on the 'A' a horizontal shift so the problem is occuring on both axis.

Surely that gap is too large for missing steps (how many steps would have to be missed, consecutively, for a gap that large?) so something loose on your machine ? or your PC multitasking ? or drive belt jumping a tooth ?. I think you need to be extremely methodical in testing this to discover the cause, just try one thing at a time until you find it.

Best of luck.

Tweakie.

7197

General Mach Discussion / Re: CAM recommendation, other than CamBam

« on: February 21, 2011, 07:39:32 AM »

Thanks Rich.

If CNC was the only thing I had to spend money on it would be great but my responsibilities have increased with age and my family now takes priority. So, somewhile ago, I set a limit on my annual software expenditure (just managed to squeeze in Art's Gearotic Motion last year - really glad I did that) but Vectric Aspire at $2000 is just too steep for me at the moment.
Not sure if Cut3D is any better than DeskProto (which I already have) or Meshcam, perhaps Gerry has tried a comparison on this one.
PhotoVCarve has many rivals and once you get the hang of it Art's Mach1filter makes a pretty good job for free.
I may just buy Cut2D as this seems useful and easy to use and at a price I can afford. I tried the SheetCam trial version and the jury is still out on this one at the moment.

Incidentally, a buddy of mine has more money than he can count and he said to me the other day "don't you ever get bored" ? he was genuinly supprised when I said "no, don't haye the time to get bored". Perhaps the moral here is to have almost just enough money but never too much.

Tweakie.

7198

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 06:24:51 AM »

This logo has just been downloaded from "Brands of the World".
Loaded in Lazycam and toolpath produced.
GCode and dxf attached - see what you can do with it.

(this has been set up for my vinyl cutter so you will need to edit the Z in the GCode  and scale etc. to suit your machine)

Tweakie.

7199

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 05:11:37 AM »

So not really sure what else could be wrong with it now, apart from software.

Dan,

Which software do you think is causing the problem ?

Tweakie.

7200

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 21, 2011, 03:22:52 AM »

Don't rely too heavily on Sketchup it was never designed for CNC and may not be doing the best job.

Tweakie.