Messages

31

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: November 01, 2006, 02:56:11 PM »

Thanks a lot Art/Hood, I can see you have both been busy.

Good to see X and Y softlimits warnings seem to be working properly, Just need to sort the Z out then it will be perfect.

Cheers

Chris

32

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 28, 2006, 04:39:20 AM »

I think I found what causes the X Y warnings now, if you just have G0 and G1 it works properly but when you use G2 or G3 it causes problems.

Chris

33

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 27, 2006, 05:10:31 AM »

Hood

Your not misunderstanding me Z max is at the top of the travel and Z min is at the bottom. Imagine you have got a long tool in the spindle like 200mm long, you then need to have at work offset of at least -200mm so you can go to Z 0. With the current soft limit warnings if you put a work offset in larger than your softlimits you get a warning but it should take the tool offset into consideration as well and not give you a warning.

What the G code does:

Set G54 Z offset to -200 & T3 to +200, this is presuming your soft limits in Z are roughly from 0.0mm to -127.0mm, then run this.

%
G21                          This puts Mach into metric
G0G17G40G49G80G90 Rapid, XYplane, cancel cutter comp, cancel tool offset, cancel caned cycles, absolute
T3M6                        Tool 3, tool change
G0G54G90X0.Y0.        Rapid, G54 offsets, absolute
G43H3Z-1.                 Use tool offset go to Z-1.0 This should move your machine to Z-1.0 in machine coordinates -200+200-1=-1
G1Z-10.F1000.           Feed to Z-10 at 1000mm/min
M30
%

Cheers

Chris

34

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 26, 2006, 07:50:50 PM »

Hood

I meant the tool Length offset, I'm not sure what you have got your softlimits set to but I guess they will be about the same as mine with it been the same machine, anyway try this if you would please.

Set G54 Z offset to -200 & T3 to +200, this is presuming your soft limits in Z are roughly from 0.0mm to -127.0mm, then run this.

%
G21
G0G17G40G49G80G90
T3M6
G0G54G90X0.Y0.
G43H3Z-1.
G1Z-10.F1000.
M30
%


When I run it I get a Soft warning on Z min. Just want to make sure it not just me.

Also version 2.0.005 was changed without a version update

I'm glad you said that, I been having trouble with cutter comp and Art kept telling me it was ok on his so I've just totally uninstalled and reinstalled Mach 3 and it the cutter comp works again, I guess that explains why it wasn't working before.

Cheers

Chris

35

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 26, 2006, 06:19:15 AM »

Yeah I've tried version 2.0.005 and I'm still having trouble with the tool offsets and now X and Y, have a look at the screen shot below, it shows how far away I am from the soft limits but I'm still get a warning.

Hood if you put a tool offset in, large enough too send the machine on to it's limits do you get a warning?

Thanks

Chris

36

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 20, 2006, 07:20:14 AM »

Joe

Version R1.84 doesn't have the softlimit warning messages in at all, it's a new feature I've been trying to get Brian and Art to add but it's only included in versions D1.90.090 onwards and so far it's not fully working but they are getting there.

Art

I've just tried Version R2.0.003 it seams to me like the tool offset are the wrong way around again, or maybe the have allways be the wrong way around. I also tried a old program that I know works well and I got a softlimit warning on X max, I know it doesn't exceed the limits and I can see on the toolpath screen that it doesn't exceed the limits, I've tried to get my test program to throw the same error up but I can't so I can't quite work it out.

I'm also having trouble using cutter compensation with the last 2 versions, it allmost like the Y codes have become non modular (I think thats the right word), I had to put a Y value into every line after a G42 to get my test program working.

Thanks

Chris

37

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 19, 2006, 11:16:00 AM »

Joe

What are you doing when you get the warning in X and Y, I ask as when I've tested the softlimits I've not had any problems with the X and Y since version RC2.0d but my table is quite large for the job's I do so I might not have noticed it.

Do you use tool offsets? When ever I use tool offsets I get warnings for Z max/min or don't get warnings and proceed to go on to the softlimit. This is in the Version R2.0.001, I'm interested in what version you are using, if you are using tool offsets and they are working.

Cheers

Chris

38

General Mach Discussion / Re: Calling all post processors. ( Help me to help you )

« on: October 18, 2006, 05:04:28 AM »

Hi

I'm not sure if the post I modified will work or not but there is another post processor for mastercam V9 that I've found from the links section of this webpage, see here http://cnc.novalab.org/mach_files.htm about half way down the page.

Cheers

Chris

39

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 17, 2006, 11:45:09 AM »

Art

I've tried Version R2.0.000 this seams to be the same as I said in the last post i.e the tool offset the wrong way round I guess it may even be the exact same version.

I also tried Version RC2.0h earlier, this gave me a softlimits warning every time I used a tool offset wether it be positive or negative seamed to be the correct way around though with the + - direction.

Thanks and I hope this helps

Chris

40

General Mach Discussion / Re: Softlimits

« on: October 11, 2006, 06:37:45 PM »

Art

I think you have the tool offsets put on the wrong way, when running my little test program all works well with the work offsets but when using tool offsets it messes up.

If I just put a negative tool offset in and run my program I get a soft limit warning for Z max and if I put a large enough positive tool offset I get a soft limit warning for Z min. This is the wrong way around, well it is to me.

I've noticed if the tool offset is altered so it throws up a softlimit warning, it  doesn't matter what I do with the work offset it will always give me a warning as if it checks the tool offset on it own before adding the work offset and rechecking, maybe you intended it doing this and it will work properly when the tool offset is added the correct way.

It also seams to change the work offsets from abs to inc when clicking and typing into the box, this only happens every now and again, but I can't explain when this happens just that it has a couple of times when messing with the tool offsets.

Hope this helps and isn't to confusing.

Chris