Topics

41

General Mach Discussion / Driver test mayhem.....Oh NO!!!!

« on: March 09, 2007, 07:03:42 AM »

I can't believe it.

A family member was complaining that I had pinched his computer to run Mach.

It was running it adequately.  Celeron 1.6 Ghz 512 mb ram. Start ups disabled. Driver test was passable. Could have been better

My Main desktop, Petium 4,  2.8 Ghz driver test as solid as a rock. No optimization, network running, everything.

So I decided to get a new one for CNC. Capable of doing CAD CAM whatever. (not at the same time as Mach)

Core 2 Duo,  1 gig ram, nothing installed.  Should be the ducks nuts.

Run the driver test and OHH NO !!!

What's going on ??

42

NC Pod / New ncPod plugin available - 9th March

« on: March 08, 2007, 04:29:24 PM »

This is a link to a post Art made on the Yahoo group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mach1mach2cnc/message/70439

Plugin is in the download section.

The required firmware is not posted on the OEMtech site yet.  Hopefully won't be long.

Now the question (for me at least) is will dual drive homing work.  Should find out soon. 

43

NC Pod / What's happening. Things have fallen very quiet here. :)

« on: March 07, 2007, 12:30:05 AM »

Whats going on ?  Anything at all ?

It's like a graveyard on the ncPod forum.

How's the plugin going or has it been relegated down the list ?   

44

General Mach Discussion / Acceleration problem

« on: March 01, 2007, 05:04:24 AM »

I have got to the stage where I am doing test runs on my almost completed router.

I have set velocity and acceleration to a conservative level on the Z axis.

When jogging at 100% or doing G0 moves on the MDI screen the Z moves very smoothly.

Then when air cutting the Roadrunner, I can hear that the Z is jumping steps as it ends a move.

It is like it moves too quickly and stops too suddenly. Either up move or down.

Should not the velocity and acceleration as set in Motor Tuning be the overriding limit?


I just had a thought    Setting the scale up to 10 may have affected  this ....... would it


If that is so then changing the scale at the DRO discards the motor tuning.  Could this be so

45

NC Pod / The latest update re Plugin and Firmware as of 23rd Feb

« on: February 23, 2007, 04:08:01 AM »

The following is the paragraph relevant to the ncPod, of a post that Art made on the Yahoo group today.


The ncPod is till undergoing some final adjustments in its firmware as well,
its taking longer than I hoped (doesnt all firmware..), but
seems to be working fairly well at most sites, a jog bug has been discovered in
a few test sites, but other than that it appears to be working
well, the neww firmware for it will give ramped homing routines, fix the jog
bug, and then probing can be completed. That will just about do
it for the ncPod.


See link for the whole post,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mach1mach2cnc/message/69776

46

NC Pod / Soft or hard wired reset ?

« on: February 10, 2007, 10:58:19 PM »

Whenever the pod looses communication for whatever reason I have found I must

restart Mach and turn power off and on to the Pod to get it to reset before Mach restarts.

Am I missing something here ? Is there an easier way ?

Presently I am wiring up all the gear in an enclosure and want to know if I must provide a reset for the Pod. 

By that I mean a momentary switch to interupt the power to the Pod to reset it.

Greg

47

NC Pod / 1 PWM Output for Spindle Speed Control ?

« on: February 05, 2007, 11:54:26 PM »

Can anybody tell me if it is planned to implement the PWM output for spindle speed control for the Pod ?

Maybe even go as far as an estimate of when ?   

Greg

48

General Mach Discussion / Page up - Page down

« on: February 03, 2007, 03:07:47 AM »

I have got myself one of those flexible keyboards. It's great, impervious to dust an swarf.

One problem. It is not the extended version. Has no number keypad.

But what I did not think of is that it has no Page up or Page down which I use to jog the Z axis.

Is there a simple way to asign those actions to another couple of keys?

Prefer not at this stage to go making my own screens or any thing that complex. 

49

NC Pod / Homing with the ncPod

« on: February 02, 2007, 09:51:46 PM »

I have noticed that when slaving A with X that all settings for A become redundant and it just follows X. (as it should most of the time)

Even reversing the direction of A in "homing and limits" does not work while slaved to X.

I had to reverse wires on A to get  one motor to run LH and one RH.

So my question is will Mach's homing strategy work where using two homing switches will "square the gantry" ?

Or will the Pod not be able to differentiate between the two axis ?

See section 4.6.6 paragraph 5 of the Mach Mill user guide if you don't know what I'm on about. 

50

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Circular pocket question

« on: January 30, 2007, 09:09:27 PM »

I really like the circular pocket wizard in the newfangled set. 

When I do circular pocket in Sheetcam it does it in a strange way so I prefer the wizard.

I like how it can spiral down in the centre etc.

Now on to my question.

When I do a pocket and then want to do a second pocket in the same spot but deeper (smaller diameter)

how do I set the start depth of the second pocket to the finnished depth of the first?

What I have beeen doing is scrolling through the gcode and run "start from here"

There must be a better way.   

I could reset Z zero but then it mucks up my rapid clearance etc etc.