Topics

11

General Mach Discussion / Brand new problem

« on: May 16, 2008, 06:33:15 PM »

OK I finally decided to set up the spindle index, booted up the PC and apparently it had restarted due to a windows security upgrade, now when I opened Mach I got as far as selecting pin 10 as an input for the spindle and as soon as I click OK my mouse & keyboard freeze up! Tried it first in Turn, then went to Mill and the same thing happened! I don't even have the port connected, strange! Suggestions? reload all the software, not a big problem since I am still in the test phase and would only need to re map the outputs and inputs?

Accck!

Kristin

12

General Mach Discussion / Spindle speed

« on: May 14, 2008, 04:58:20 PM »

Just wondering I have a bunch of U shaped opto switches I bought surplus, if I put a disk on my spindle with either a slot or possibly drilled holes will inputing that to Mach provide a RPM readout? I'd go play with the program but it's hot back where it is today and I don't even want to step into the room till later after the sun is off that wall.

Kristin

13

General Mach Discussion / Some basic setup questions

« on: April 27, 2008, 03:08:32 PM »

I finally got all the bugs worked out of my HobbyCNC Pro driver board, got XYZ humming along and getting ready to connect some motors to my Taig lathe. So now comes the questions, I can set full, half, quarter step on the board and also see something in Mach where there is a Shereline half step mode and probably other settings I have yet to discover. For some reason Dave over at HobbyCNC seems to suggest half or quarter step settings on his board, if I understand it this reduces the available torque from the motor.

So since I am now thoroughly confused I'll start with the cross slide, the leadscrew drives that .050/rev so do I set the motor tuning to 20*200 or 4000 steps/inch? What is the pulse for step and direction do or control? I think once I have a clear picture of how all these things interact I'll be able to transfer to the carriage drive, I have two options there, I can drive it via the rack that is standard which moves something like .596"/rev or I have a set of worm gears and a spur gear to reduce it to .051/rev which I have yet to have built up(I was hoping to CNC the parts for that). The Z axis for the milling table would be the same as the cross slide.

I know read the manual, well as soon as I can I am going to have it printed out so I can, just can't seem to follow it reading on screen it's easier on paper where you can stick post-it notes to the important pages.

Kristin

14

LazyCam (Beta) / Some LC questions

« on: April 23, 2008, 08:11:06 PM »

I see there is a sticky note about needing microsoft .net, it seems this installed with my recent download of Mach3 demo, do I still need to update this? I followed the directions someone had listed for getting a DXF to LC to Turn and don't see any Gcode loaded and can't find any that had just been generated in the Mach directories. I am a complete novice at CNC so bear with me if I don't make a lot of sense with my questions since I do not know the term's quite yet to describe what is going on or wrong.

Now what would be nice is if someone could post a simple DXF say a shaft with 2 or three diameters turned, the coresponding gcode so I can try to duplicate the result. I have been trying this with solid edge to make the dxf file, perhaps that is the problem.

Thanks,

Kristin

15

General Mach Discussion / First post, LPT and limit questions

« on: April 07, 2008, 08:48:44 PM »

Hi,

I have a HobbyCNC Pro board I am going to setup with Mach3, right now I am awaiting steppers and driver chips as I got this board 2nd hand and it seems all three chips were blown. I am setting it up with a E-Machines Eslate laptop and wondering if that is where my difficulties lie, I've seen some comments elsewhere that laptop printer ports may not be full voltage but I don't feel like pulling out another big PC, monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Anyway I hooked a momentary n.o. switch to the board, went to Config, ports & pins, inputs and tried the autoconfigure thing with no reaction. I can see there is +5 on the pin 10,11,12,13 &15 and it switches low when I depress the switch as measured with a DVM. There is a note somewhere on that screen that says "you may not have the port configured corectly" OK how do I configure the port, is this refering to the device properties in Windows or some setting in Mach? Pretty sure I have a 25 pin cable as I had it marked ser/par and it has DB25 M/F connectors.

Well I am sure to be back with more questions.

Kristin