Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Serial connecting all 6 home and limit switches

« on: June 26, 2009, 07:33:35 AM »

Hello

Is it ok to connect all home and limit switches and the emergency stop in serial and connect them to one port?
I can´t see why not.
The only thing is that I wouldn´t be able to see which switch is beeing trigered, but I don´t use this feature anyway. It´s easy to find out which one of them it is.

The other thing is that I don´t have much room left in my energi chain :-)

Adam

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY and Z zero

« on: June 08, 2009, 05:53:27 PM »

Al- it took a few minutes to visualize what you discribed, but now I can se and understand it. Thanks. That will work.

Simpson - I´ve been playing with the different tool offsets. It works, but I don`t have the tool holder.
Im building a larger router and I use the Kress spindle. I dont think there is a tool holder for Kress, but I could weld some kind of stop on all my tools and messure the lenght from there.

I know I didn`t invented a new problem. I just thought there is some kind of a smart macro doing all the job.
I like the way you explain it for a newbee like me  "You LEAVE these items together so that you change the holder/endmill together as if it were one solid piece".  

But thanks for all your help. I know how it works now.

Adam

43

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 07, 2009, 03:46:47 PM »

Thanks simpson.

It`still hard for me to understand it, but I have only read your last post 10 times :-)

The first line you wrote about starting at the bottom - is it something you do with the CAM software or Mach3?  The Gcodes starts at the bottom or the tool is touching the bottom when it´s zeroed?

Because I think that if I set the Z zero at the bottom of my material, the machine wil try to mill my table. But it can`t  - thanks to limit switches.
I think my coordinates are always positiv, but I didn`t play enough with different settings.

I don`t know how the professional Cam software works, but I`m using Meshcam. If I generate the Gcodes, I can save them one by one. f.ex. first Rough and then Finish. When the rough pass is over with an endmill I load the Finish pass Gcodes, but I need to change tool to a ballmill first. The "start point" for both passes is the same, but my ballmill is maybe longer then my endmill.
And because the top surface is milled away during the roughing pass, I can`t zero the ballmill. The ballmill needs to be zeroed on top of the material surface, which is gone.

Thats where I am now, but I need to try this Zero at the bottom next time.

Adam

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 06, 2009, 06:46:27 PM »

Sorry Ray. I just can´t understand this. I don`t know enough about cnc.

I think I will leave some part of my material unmilled, so I will still be able to Zero the top surface before the finish pass with ballmill.
I just want to make the wing mould when I`m ready for it.

Adam

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 06, 2009, 10:05:50 AM »

Thanks again.

Is it possible to make some kind of Offset from my "job Zero point" to a location where I always be changing tools? That will be the best way to do it but I don`t know how.

Adam

Ps. Simpson36 - its in the Yahoo Groups. Look at Mach support window.

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 05, 2009, 12:43:39 PM »

One more question.

Now I can zero the top of my material, but if I mill it away and I need to change the endmill to ballmill and run a finish pass - how do you do it?

My future plan is to mill a wing mould for a radiocontrol aeroplane. But if I mill the top surface of my material, I will loose my Zero.

Adam

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 05, 2009, 10:39:30 AM »

I can`t thank you enough Ray - it`s working :-)

But the Vise X - why does it touch the same side of my material twice? There is only 1 zero point.

Edge Finder:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwOuTb0O1_Y&feature=channel_page

Vise X:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rtn5gTvzeU

Center finder:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUwVK6FYN0&feature=channel_page


Adam

48

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 05, 2009, 07:09:15 AM »

Thank you Ray

Something is moving on Mach 3 screen on my home PC - without the router. Now I go to try it with my router.

I`m a metric user, and I saw you wrote something about inches - do I have to modify something, somewhere?

This PCB I use or a piece of a metal pipe as the Z zero and edge finder tool - is it enough to conect it to port 15 and have some wire connected to GND and my router bit, and mark it as a Probe in config menu?

Adam

49

General Mach Discussion / Re: XY zero

« on: June 04, 2009, 12:22:31 PM »

Thanks for your answers.  I will try that.

But one more thing.  Is the Offset screen in Mach3 working? I don`t know anything about this VB scripts, but I`ve seen that the Edge Finder buttons has some scripts assigned.

I use the PCB as a Z axis zero tool which is connected to GND and port 15 - it works great.

But can I use the same tool to find the X and Y edges using the Edge Finder screen?   And how?

Adam

50

General Mach Discussion / XY and Z zero

« on: June 03, 2009, 05:13:10 PM »

Hello

I`m playing with my little router milling blue foam and learning. I just made a Z touch PCB plate and it works great.

But how to zero the X and Y axis?

I used my eye and moved the X axis so the edge of my router bit was touching the material. I did the same with the Y axis and zeroed them.  I was expecting to mill 1 mm around my material, but the first 2 edges was not milled, and the opposite 2 edges was milled 2mm.
Here is my milling video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXxEmQW-Ro

Is the X and Y zero not where the tool touches the material?

Can I get any help how to zero the X and Y axis?  I like the PCB idea - how can I use it to zero the X and Y axis? I`ve seen it on youtube somewhere, but without a description.

Adam