Messages

7331

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

« on: September 22, 2010, 12:40:19 PM »

Hi Guys,

I was issued with bit of a challenge recently to produce the Mayan Calendar to set dimensions on Oak together with their company name at as good a quality as their commercial controller and software can achieve. I think this full-size version is at least equal to their published example (the half-size was done just for a joke).
As with the others, this was produced with the Mach3 Engraving plugin – OK it’s a bit quirky but it gets the job done.

Tweakie.

7332

*****VIDEOS***** / Re: Laser Raster Engraving.

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:57:41 PM »

Hi Andrea,

Looking at the video of the Metaza that seems to be operating at (as near as I can tell) the same speed as my laser (1 second per line). Then how, I wonder, does it manage to fire all the dots per line that quickly ?.

Some alternatives to look at;

Have you tried drastically reducing the feedrate of the Mach plugin and seeing if you can get the pulses far enough apart to operate your magnet (I suspect that the Metaza magnet wire only travels a max of 0.025mm) ?
Can you redesign your magnet (reduce the mass) to make it faster ?

Tweakie.

7333

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Basic Problems

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:38:17 PM »

Franklin,

Mach outputs step and direction signals using two parallel port output pins for each motor.
The direction signal is held HIGH for one direction of rotation and LOW for the other direction of rotation.
The step signal is a pulse (usually active low) with one pulse for each step (or microstep) of the motor.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie. 

7334

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help suddenly arrow keys do not operate

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:29:12 PM »

If you mean the numbered arrow keys then 'Num Lock' affects the operation of those.

Tweakie.

7335

*****VIDEOS***** / Re: Laser Raster Engraving.

« on: September 20, 2010, 09:24:48 AM »

Hi Andrea,

I am sorry but I do not fully understand your question.

I have made a bracket to mount a hand held engraver pen to the Z Axis of my machine and then used virtually the same GCode I would use for routing to Impact Engrave but this method is only really suitable for vector work http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/impact5.wmv

Art's impact engraver / laser plugin was originally designed for raster magnet work and as far as I can see Mach's 'Digital Trigger' output is configured to an output pin of your choice which in turn, through an appropriate driver circuit (transistor) fires the magnet for one stroke. This action gets repeated according to the plugin's pulse repetition frequency until the image has been completed, one line at a time in much the same way as I use it to trigger my laser.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

7336

*****VIDEOS***** / Re: Marilyns Angel

« on: September 20, 2010, 04:12:28 AM »

That's great Dave, excellent job and excellent video.

Tweakie.

7337

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Guess what these are used for

« on: September 19, 2010, 03:16:51 PM »

Jammerm,

You watched too much Star Trek as a kid. 

Tweakie.

7338

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Guess what these are used for

« on: September 18, 2010, 07:07:46 AM »

You have me stumped.

But the do look like they would fit nicely onto some of these 



Tweakie.

7339

Tangent Corner / Re: WD-40 funny

« on: September 18, 2010, 07:03:27 AM »

  Thanks for sharing Sam 

Tweakie.

7340

General Mach Discussion / Re: Current release not compatable with year old machine

« on: September 18, 2010, 06:54:50 AM »

Wade,

This sounds really weird as I have updated to the latest lock-down versions, as they become available, and not had any issues at all.

Perhaps someone may be able to suggest a possible reason for your problem and I for one would be most interested in the outcome.

Tweakie.