Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: UK Mach3 workshop

« on: June 17, 2008, 04:41:33 AM »

Not a workshop as such [ at the moment ] but TEE are tacking CNC onto their October show at Leamington Spa.
They have put aside a demo area and there will be lectures over the 5 days of the show.
Brain and Scott from Artsoft are coming, Tony Mac from Vectric, John Prentice and Steve Blackmore, possibly OneCNC
China are sending two new machines [ still under wraps ]

We have the new KX1 and KX3 in industrial type cabinets now, under coolant and power so they can cut steel at the shows. Brain is borrowing my prototype KX1 for his demo's.

TEE will be looking at this closely to see if there is enough interest to spin a stand alone show from it, they have the space and facilities and being show organisers things like insurance isn't a problem.

They will be advertising in Engineering in Miniature and I'll update this as things happen.

John S.

22

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Routing Wood

« on: June 17, 2008, 03:40:02 AM »

Replying to the questions about the samples used in Cut2D.

I did some work on this program when it was in Beta, in fact the loco wheel and con rod are my files that Vectric asked if they could be included.
Don't know who supplied the rocket file or if it was to be for wood or metal.

The loco wheel and conrod were done for metal, can't remember the time for the first operation of the wheel but the latter one, the spokes it took us 1 hour 13 minutes to cut but I dropped a goolie as I cut a blank out of stainless steel instead of mild steel and when on site at Leicester testing the new Sieg KX1, only a small mill, it was too late to do anything with it other than drop the feeds and speeds down to save the cutters.

Having said that I thought it did a marvelous job to cut stainless on a small machine like this.

Some things I noticed with the program that was reported back to Vectric were wasted moves which they were going to look into. The worst was it sets a default Z hight to about 10mm if in metric and raises the cutter to this hight after every cut. It then sends the cutter back into the cut at Z feed rate which for metal can be slow. In our case 10mm at 70mm / min just to get back to the top of the work and then to go another 5mm to get back to where it started before it puts the next cut on.
That's a lot of air time.

We compromised after the test cut by setting the Z clearance plane to 2mm which made a lot of difference.

I feel that it's all a trade off against ease of use and cost compared to a optimised toolpath.

I have to cut a load of washer like blanks out of a sheet of plastic and programmed this up in Cut2D last night, cycle time for 24 out of 10mm thick Tufnol is 36 minutes which I find acceptable as I'm doing something else anyway.

I may have been able to shave a few minutes off this job in another program but it would have took a lot longer then the 5 minutes it took to get the code out in Cut2D.

John S.

23

Flash Screens / Re: Mach3 Flash OEM .fla: "Mach Nation 11-20.fla"

« on: June 09, 2008, 10:58:44 AM »

This is what I mean about flash screens being selective to different computers.

Just loaded the Mach Nation screens, downloaded lastest flash from Adobe, and the plug in from the Artsoft download page and this is what shows.


That's on my desktop machine, same on the machine on the router and small son has loaded it on his games machine and gets exactly the same.

I have never managed to get one flash screen to load correctly, even on machines that are running Mach day in, day out

If it is going to be that picky then sorry but it's not for me, support and bug finding costs time.

John S.

24

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / The new KX1 CNC mill

« on: May 03, 2008, 07:22:12 PM »

Sneak preview of the new XK1 CNC ready mill prior to it's display at the Harrogate show new week, May 9th, 10th and 11th of May.



This is the display stand equipped machine as shown by ArcEuroTrade, the Sieg UK agent.



The New KX3 will also be on show, both will be cutting under power hence the enclosed cabinets.

Mike Milligan of Dolphin will be demonstrating the Dolphin software and Brian Barker and Scott Nicholls of Artsoft will also be attending the show.

Harrogate is the premier UK show, last years attendance was in excess of 26,000 visitors over the three days.

John S.

25

Sieg Machines / The new KX1

« on: May 03, 2008, 07:21:11 PM »

Sneak preview of the new XK1 CNC ready mill prior to it's display at the Harrogate show new week, May 9th, 10th and 11th of May.



This is the display stand equipped machine as shown by ArcEuroTrade, the Sieg UK agent.



The New KX3 will also be on show, both will be cutting under power hence the enclosed cabinets.

Mike Milligan of Dolphin will be demonstrating the Dolphin software and Brian Barker and Scott Nicholls of Artsoft will also be attending the show.

Harrogate is the premier UK show, last years attendance was in excess of 26,000 visitors over the three days.

John S.

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: Datum Zero

« on: April 16, 2008, 07:51:41 PM »

Sorry for the delay, just got back from a bombing run 

Because the lasers are remote from the cutter you can keep the cutter in. I drop the cutter onto the work, zero Z,  then raise the head until both lasers converge then move X and Y to line up.

At that point I take the Z reading and enter it into the tool table then re zero all axis.

Because the Z hight is in the tool table for the cutter in the collet a file can be run straight away. If I then swap to a thicker or thinner board just lining the lasers up will keep the tool offset in the table the same.

As this Router has no positive way to swap tools and keep the settings any tool changes have to be re done but not material changes.

John S.

27

General Mach Discussion / Datum Zero

« on: April 15, 2008, 07:23:34 PM »

First load the sound track.

http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk...dambusters.wav

or

http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk...dambusters.mp3

Now read the history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dam_Busters_(film)

Now watch the pictures.



Two cross haired lasers [ no it's not a breed of dog ] mounted either side the router head at 45 degrees. My finger is over one so only the other shows.

The camera is picking the laser line up a lot fatter than it actually is, in real life it's quite fine.



Both lasers shining together, head is too low at this point.



Raise head.
Both lasers converged, bombs away. That is bang on under the centre of the tool and Z hight is exactly 40mm above the work.

Set tool hight, zero axis and open bomb bay doors.

In real life I can get between 5 thou and 10 thou of where I want to be, may not be accurate enough for some in metal but for the router guys who work from the start point then everything from that point is accurate, mostly outside shapes are discarded.

Won't suit everyone but it's very quick.

[Edit] the tracks in the chipboard as the outline of Phenolic brush rings out of large DC motors. It can make a complex ring with curved slots in about 2 minutes.

John S.

28

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Wizard for clockmakers.

« on: February 03, 2008, 05:30:21 AM »

I realise that it can be done in CAD as can most of what the other wizards do.

Here's what I am talking about but you need to D/L a program to see it.
Go here to get the D/L
http://www.colinusher.info/Software/index.html

And then here's a shot of the screen.

http://www.colinusher.info/Software/CNC%20menu.html

Near the bottom left is the menu for 'Cutting a spoked wheel' which when opened gives you various options.

This software is workable but very basic, it writes to the PP on the fly and doesn't store it as code, or not that I can find.

The whole program is wizard operated and there are some nice ones that would do well ported over to Mach. I was looking at it more for trying to grab the code than run it as a program.

John S.

29

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Steam Engine Name Plates

« on: November 26, 2007, 07:14:07 PM »

Rob it's late now and I haven't been great today but I'll reply later with better detail.

The 8000 is just a default speed for the tool, I can't be bothered changing it but I usually cut badges on the router which has a Kress spindle that goes from 10,000 to 30,000 but I usually run at about 12,000 because of the noise.

The uncut parts are due to the fact V carve programs the code to the cutter and if the angle is different you get a different look to the part, undercutting etc.

I'll post a screen shot later of the setup screen and the cutter, that will also answer Davids questions, but for now David a D bit is a round tool that when looked end on looks like a 'D' with the flat part being 1/2 the diameter and is also the cutting edge.
Good pic here [ no connection, just a pic ]

[edit] The limitation on V carve is it can only post files that can be saved with the .crv suffix. The demo can't save but if you have the file then you can rework it. That's why you can cut the bulls head file and others inside V Carve as they have given you the crv file.

30

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Steam Engine Name Plates

« on: November 25, 2007, 08:13:29 PM »

Two files to cut this, first is with a 20 degree vee shaped D bit and it will cut 0.5mm deep
File is here.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stevenson.engineers/lsteve/files/rsw_engrave.tap

Next file is a 3 mm cutter to do the outer profile 1.1mm deep

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stevenson.engineers/lsteve/files/rsw_profile.tap

First file takes 7 minutes 34 seconds and the profile takes 26 seconds

John S.