Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing the machine.

« on: November 22, 2009, 06:27:56 PM »

When I make the switches, the green square lights up in the diagnostics screen.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing the machine.

« on: November 22, 2009, 05:58:16 PM »

Hood,
I did that, at least I think I did. X is on input 11, Y is on 12, and Z is on 13. Did I miss something?

13

General Mach Discussion / Homing the machine.

« on: November 22, 2009, 04:04:26 PM »

I just converted my Chinese bought router from a pendant operated to a Mach 3 operated machine. I installed a C11G board from CNC4PC and all looks good. When I try to "Ref all home" the machine, the X and Y axis DRO's turn to zero (without the axis moving) and the Z just stays at the same value.
What do I have to set up to get the machine to home properly?

Martyn.

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 07:20:07 PM »

Hood,
       I am going to reduce the acceleration on the "Y" axis and restart the cut. I will let you know what happens. I looked at the paperwork for the docs I have for the Controller package and it is a 3 axis HobbyCNC PRO kit. I have no PDF File but do have a paper copy. Send me an email if you want and I will send you scanned copies of the papers.

Martyn.

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 07:04:57 PM »

Hood,
     I just looked and Enhanced pulsing has a checkmark beside it. Is this correct?

Martyn.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 06:38:23 PM »

Here is another shot of the same problem. I started to cut the top of a plate out of Maple. I ran the roughing, changed the tooling re zeroed the machine and then started to run the finish toolpath. The path was fine until a short time into the run. I hope you can see in the photo, kind of blurry, sorry, that all of a sudden the co-ordinates shifted and now the tooling is cutting the material off centre of the original cut.

Martyn.

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 06:14:46 PM »

Hi Hood,
          I purchased a 3 axis controller package from Mike Beck, www.mikebeck.org way back in September 2007 and put my machine together in 2008. There is no breakout board with this system. The reason I bought it was that it was basic plug and play.

Martyn.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 03:18:14 PM »

Hi Glenn,
            I checked the connections and all seems good. I cut a circle yesterday approximately .060" deep and the start and finish points did not line up. I was using a 90 degree V tip cutter and the finish point was out by approximately .030". Not much but enough to be noticeable.

When I am cutting a pocket, say .500" deep, I can see on the Mach screen that my cutter has entered the workpiece by .090, when I actually measure the depth of cut it is out, sometimes by .050".

I cut a project yesterday, the material is pine and is the top of a plate. When I did the rough cut it looked good, when I did the finish cut it did not line up with the rough cut by almost .125". I the did another project and cut a Harley Davidson emblem into another plate you can see the result, the emblem is supposed to be centred in the plate but is way off to one side.

Martyn.

19

General Mach Discussion / I could really use some help.

« on: January 05, 2009, 12:56:08 PM »

Howdy all,
             last year I built myself a small (26" x 13" x 2") CNC Router. I set it up with Mach 3 on an older computer running windows 2000 Pro and it seemed to run fine. I would have a problem with the "Z" axis not repeating when I changed bits but all in all it was something I could live with.

Now however it is becoming very annoying. Not only is the "Z" not repeating but now the "Y" is out as well. I just tried to do some 3D work and the paths are not lining up at all. I have checked my rate of travel and it seems okay. Is there any setting in the control panel that I may have missed or that has changed on me somehow that would account for this?

I am ruining more material than I am keeping.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Converting a DSP Controller system to Mach 3

« on: December 20, 2008, 06:14:02 PM »

I will keep that in mind. Hopefully things will go a little smoother in the New Year.

Martyn.