Messages

61

General Mach Discussion / Re: Suddenly rough stepper.

« on: May 14, 2007, 02:11:25 PM »

Ah Gekko's.

Any ideas?

Jim

62

General Mach Discussion / Re: Suddenly rough stepper.

« on: May 14, 2007, 01:08:45 PM »

Hi Chaoticone.

They've been running fine, it's a new problem, developed mid-job.  They are all tuned nicely, and I checked that nothing had got altered in the motor tuning.
I dunno what the drives are, i'll try & see

Jim

63

General Mach Discussion / Suddenly rough stepper.

« on: May 14, 2007, 11:55:08 AM »

an hour into a job I hear something isn't right. a problem has developed on the X axis, where it is losing 5mm at a time, going x+, and a few mm x-. I have dissassembled down to the motor itself, and the problem is still evident - hand held the motor will tug tug tug twich twitch twitch as it turns, rough, like a missing car engine, instead of a nice sweet whine, unless I ask for some rapid movement, when as it reaches higher speeds, it becomes smooth.

Classic symptoms of.....?

Thanks in advance.

Jim

64

General Mach Discussion / Re: Ugly Circles pt 2: Troubleshooting for a beginner

« on: February 22, 2007, 05:11:30 PM »

Dagjad.
It does sound like a mechanical problem.
I guess the jerking and growling shows up more when it's cutting air, becaouse you don't have a router screaming - I would guess the machine is still jerking and growling.
 If you've got this far, you can fix it. Can you post pics of your ugly circles. That can tell a lot. And get you dad round - He might spot it straight away. Fresh eyes sometimes do

Jim

65

Tangent Corner / Re: HELP!! does anyone know about floating heads for engraving??

« on: October 19, 2006, 02:24:55 PM »

Mark
You asked about floating heads and got info about beds....Mmmm How do you feel about that?
Seriously though, is there any MDF on your machine? It does make it tricky. Mine is 19mm Foamex- closed cell structure pcv.

I remember reading something somewhere like...and that bracket will take one of the readily available floating spindles,....now...where was that?

Jim

66

Tangent Corner / Re: HELP!! does anyone know about floating heads for engraving??

« on: October 17, 2006, 05:11:18 AM »

Your're right the swarf would need to be extracted, and a sketch would help...
I experienced a similar thing to you - after a perfect skim, - even using a square spiral to take any z axis irregularities out, the job still cut poorly because of highs and lows. The problem was the vacuum was compressing the bed down slightly. Obviously when skimming it wasn't turned on...

Lets hope we get some clues soon..

Jim

67

Tangent Corner / Re: HELP!! does anyone know about floating heads for engraving??

« on: October 16, 2006, 03:32:54 PM »

Good one Mark.
It's something I've been thinking about for a while, to get over a problem of slight differences in material thickness giving different line widths when using Vbits.
I don't think there has been anything on this in this or the mach2/3 Yahoo forum
All I can say is: aren't all floating heads just heads - with the power transferred to it by bands, so there's no real weight to be made to float?  And don't they have a ptfe collar riding on the workpiece?

What are the benefits to you of a floating head?

Jim

68

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Cutting order

« on: October 05, 2006, 05:51:02 AM »

That's one for the Lazycam people then Faby, sorry I can't help.

Jim

69

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Cutting order

« on: October 05, 2006, 03:13:11 AM »

Faby. thats a fast  machine!
For me the easiest way was to alter the cut order in the cam software, under 'object properties or it's equivalent.
I know you're familiar with G code, so this may not be the easiest method for you.

Jim

70

General Mach Discussion / Re: loop function doesn't work properly

« on: September 29, 2006, 03:45:11 AM »

rceebuilder.

Did you resolve the problem? I noticed there were no replies posted.
Sorry I can't help you, but I've kept coming back to the picture you posted and looking and thinking 'how has he got the corners so sharp on those pockets?' If there's 50 on an a4 sheet, that makes them tiny.

'fess up please. How is it done?

Jim.