Messages

191

General Mach Discussion / Re: Some basic setup questions

« on: April 27, 2008, 06:32:24 PM »

Thanks,

I can actually set jumpers for 1/8 and 1/16 step on the board but if Mariss says over 10 is not worth it, from his lips to god's ear! What is the pulse width setting, I am still not clear on that my board seems to work with it set at zero or 10 ms??? I am about to go back and set up a motor to drive the cross slide so I will "play" with the settings and see what it looks like, or sounds like running a static dummy program so nothing can crash. Might get to the printer tomorrow but sometimes they are backlogged with printing forms for the town or county and just can't do a job right away, well once they copy the file I'll just have to go back later in the week and pick it up unless the owner who lives nearby will deliver to my gate.

I am actually getting pretty excited about getting this all running although as I just bought another Taig micro lathe the other day I may wait a week and modify that one as the CNC monster as I will not feel so bad about drilling and tapping holes in a less pretty older model for mounting brackets and will not have to worry about making it so the motors are removable to convert to manual operation when I need it.

Kristin

192

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

193

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Some LC questions

« on: April 26, 2008, 07:35:52 PM »

Chip,

Thanks for the corrected code, I finally got my three axis control board all sorted out and was able to run it, now to tackle the DXF file and see if I can covert to G-code. Now I have three working channels I can actually see what I can do and get to work on the mechanical end of things. This has turned into some sort of project, at least now it looks like I only have to fight the software from here on.

Kristin

194

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Some LC questions

« on: April 25, 2008, 03:35:22 PM »

Chip,

I tried to run the TAP file and it hangs for a long, long time on line 3 trying to travel several thousand inches, tried to add a decimal point after 2 digits and got an error. Help.

195

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

196

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need info on Denford Starturn 4 CNC lathe

« on: April 19, 2008, 10:16:43 PM »

A quick search turned up http://www.denford.ltd.uk/ would probably be best to contact them for info and ask if they could provide you a manual.

Kristin

197

General Mach Discussion / Re: FREE 2D CAD (Solid edge)

« on: April 17, 2008, 04:23:29 PM »

Thanks Paul,

I also got a good response on the Solid Edge BBS from one of the Semiens crew. Part of my "problem" was I was using the wrong DP for one of the gears so the result I got was not as expected! With that cleared up and the snap to grid thing it looks like I may yet figure this out.

I've noticed the sluggish startup also, and I get a warning my virtual memory is low every time, I'm only running 256Megs of memory so that is probably why. What the heck were we thinking when we used to run DOS on a 286/2MB with a 10MB hard drive!

Over all I like it so far with limited time using it, it seems to be fairly intuitive unlike AutoCad and the clones. I would be interested in seeing some more folks here report in and share how they are using it and any hoops they need to jump through to get a drawing exported to generate code. I'm new to this whole DIY CNC thing so it's going to be a learning curve to say the least.

Kristin

198

General Mach Discussion / Re: FREE 2D CAD (Solid edge)

« on: April 16, 2008, 11:01:27 PM »

Benny,

Do you know this program well? I am trying to line up two DFX's (worm and worm gear) and not having much luck, there is supposed to be centerline option but darned if I can find it or how to use it if I do. I can send the file if you want so you can see what I am trying to do.

Kristin

199

General Mach Discussion / Re: FREE 2D CAD (Solid edge)

« on: April 15, 2008, 09:36:18 PM »

Glenn,

I finally managed to download it, seems most of the problem was on my end (I think) I had a new wireless card and it seemed after about 15 hours something went wrong, buzzing coming out of my monitor speaker with the vol all the way down. Swapped it with another and woosh 25 min later had downloaded solid edge.

I have had little time to play and learn yet but... I was able to draw shapes, dimension, measure volume all in under 5 min without reading anything just following the tool tips as to what they do! It looks pretty user friendly at least not like AutoCad and clones. Now to really learn it and put it to use.

As for the PC issue, I have two 1.7MHz P4's on the way, cube style with CD-ROM drives, plenty of USB ports, serial, LPT port and no HDD (Got a pile of them saved just for this) I will install the software, make a few backup HDD's so it will be a quick swap if something goes south + having a 2nd backup PC, all for about $100. A LCD monitor for another $50 and with my collection of keyboards, mice, trackballs I should be ready to rock and roll, well at least do something. (Jethro Tull- "too old to rock and roll, but too young to die")

Just received 6 replacement driver chips for my HobbyCNC Pro board today so I need to drill and tap a couple of heatsinks and get them on the board ready for the big test this weekend. I have several options for powersupply so that's not a worry I just hope the 74HC14's didn't take a hit too all I can get local are 74HCT04 hex inverters and I am not sure they will work although they are pin for pin the same with very close specs.

A few more visits from UPS, USPS, FedX and I should be good to go. It's just a pain waiting for parts to arrive one at a time from many sources and I still have to design and build motor mounts among other things.

Kristin

200

General Mach Discussion / Re: FREE 2D CAD (Solid edge)

« on: April 15, 2008, 01:30:16 PM »

Their server seems real slow, has anyone else had this problem? Perhaps it's just time of day and traffic.

Kristin