Messages

41

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 02, 2010, 01:35:41 PM »

Rich,

I have a few parts off the mill that I will post over in the projects section after I get a working camera. I haven't built anything with the lathe yet. I'm still learning to use it. As soon as I have some parts to show off the lathe, I will.

Most of the stuff I have built so far is rather unimpressive compared to some of the great things I've seen you guys building. There have been a couple of assembly jigs, and machining fixtures. Nothing to brag about.

Monty

42

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: December 31, 2009, 07:25:40 PM »

Thanks for the kind words guys. I'm not sure if "proud" is the right description.......perhaps "relieved" is more like it.  There were times that I was unsure of the wisdom of this undertaking. But it turned out eventually. Now if I can just keep from crashing it! The thought of ramming a 3/4 boring bar or worse yet the turret into that chuck at 4000 rpm scares the you know what right out of me.

I was going to post some pics of the inside of the control cabinet and some more of the outside of the machine, but my camera broke. I'll post some more when I get a new one.

As to videos, I'll try to take some when its cutting metal for my next project. I just promised my first born to Travers for tooling. I think it's safe to say I'll have more in tooling than I have in the whole machine before too long.

Have a Happy New Year everybody!!!!

Monty

P.S. Hey Brett do you have a good usb camera driver? Mine is crashing mach when I try to use it.

43

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: December 31, 2009, 11:36:09 AM »

The lathe is finally all systems go. I have begun to tool it up and have a project already lined up for it.

I had some problems chasing down noise on the machine before I finally discovered it was on the ground line from the geckos. I was getting nuisance trips on the E-stop. I didn't find it until I had re-routed half the wiring. Now it is as stable as a rock. I have the debounce set to 100. I also had a problem with the spindle drive faulting out under deceleration. At first I thought that it was a problem with the phase converter or the spindle drive. Turns out I needed an external braking resistor.

It has been a long road, complicated by the fact that I essentially retrofitted the lathe twice!!! In the future I think I will just spring for the bucks and get things going faster rather than try to scrimp and save. There is just too much time involved to justify saving a couple hundred dollars. Especially if you have to rip it all out and do it right in the end anyway.

The next project is going to be a big one. I have a 5 axis Artran mill to retrofit. I've slowly been collecting parts. It's going to require a big chunk of change to buy the axis motors and drives. I'll start another thread to follow it.

Thanks to everybody who helped me get this lathe up and running....special thanks to Brett and Art!!!!!

Monty

44

VB and the development of wizards / Re: toolchanger on Easiturn 3 Help!

« on: November 18, 2009, 10:22:13 PM »

 Basically what I did with my Dorian Power Dex is write out a flow chart of what needs to happen and when.
Then you need to write a macro in VB to do these things.
The motor is pretty easy.
You just need a run and direction relay.
That can be handled with two outputs.
Mine was a little more involved because I used a stepper to rotate the turret.
The inputs will depend on how the turret works.
I used a second Printer port to provide the inputs and outputs.
There should be no need for a separate manual turret activation.
You can accomplish the same thing with a VB button in mach.
If you only need to go in one direction the logic is simple and you can eliminate the direction relay.
If you want shortest path it gets more involved.

Monty

45

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: November 03, 2009, 10:48:34 AM »

Anybody out there running a cnc lathe have any good advise on tooling?

Most of what I have done lathe wise was on manual machines.

Right now I just want to have a fairly versatile set up. In the future I'm sure my tooling list will grow as jobs come up.

I have 8 positions to play with on the turret.

What I have in mind is the following:

1. Turning Facing chamfering LH
2. Turning Facing chamfering RH
3. Contouring LH
4. Contouring RH
5. .5 drill
6  Center Drill
7 . Combo boring bar LH RH
8. Parting turning combo

Keep in mind this is just off the top of my head. I'm a Noob with a CNC lathe.

Monty
 

46

VB and the development of wizards / Re: lathe turret macro

« on: November 02, 2009, 05:29:45 PM »

In an effort to help anybody else in the world who may be crazy enough to install a Dorian PowerDex turret under Mach3 control, I am posting my Macro.

The Turret that I have was a FleaBay purchase that had a bad motor in it. So I replaced it with a stepper I had on hand. If you are using the stock motor, You will have to add some code to control the motor brake and the AC servo. This can be a simple Run, Direction relay setup, controlled through outputs. You can delete all the motor control logic I had to use to get the stepper to work. The rest of the control logic should work. The stock AC servo will be faster, and should be easier to control.

I apologize for the sloppy logic. I'm sure somebody more in tune with VB could condense things a bit.

The M6start macro does the changing, and the M6end checks to make sure the change was done properly. You will be helped in understanding this macro if you have the .pdf programing guide from Dorian. Be aware that there is a typo on page 4 in the second column. They have transposed Index and Lock proximity in the operation description. The motor should be stopped when the Lock prox goes high, not the index. The index prox is used to detect when to stop after the motor reverses.

I have tested this on my machine and it appears to work well, however, I assume no responsibility whatsoever for this code. You are solely responsible if you use it to do anything. Assume I am a complete idiot......to do otherwise would be foolhardy.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

47

VB and the development of wizards / Re: lathe turret macro

« on: October 31, 2009, 08:20:21 PM »

Thanks Graham,

I fooled around with this all day and finally got it to work acceptably. I don't know if how I did this is the easiest or cleanest way, but it works repeatably.

I still have to add all the logic for looking at the encoder. I also have to add error checking plus determining which way to turn and how many stations.

But it's a start!! 

The formating is a little screwed up for some reason, and it keeps jumping around in the text window on the forum. I'm too tired to pretty it up. It should be clear enough to read.

'Inputs are as follows:
 '
'
'OEMTRIG1 = Encoder Bit 1
'OEMTRIG2 = Encoder Bit 2
'OEMTRIG3 = Encoder Bit 3
'OEMTRIG4 = Encoder Bit 4
'OEMTRIG5 = Parity Bit
'OEMTRIG6 = Strobe1
'OEMTRIG7 = Strobe2
'OEMTRIG8 = Index Proximity Switch
'OEMTRIG9 = Lock Proximity Switch
'OEMTRIG10 = Door Switch
'
'
'Outputs are as follows:
'
'
'OUTPUT10 = Lock Solenoid
'
'   
DoOemButton(138)         'Go home       
While IsMoving()         'wait for movement    
Wend            'to end     


For I = 1 To 18         'Slow jog is needed    
DoOemButton(112)         'for extra torque
Next I                  


DoOemButton(310)         'Rotate Turret CW (axis Y-) 
sleep (500)            'Turn for .5 sec 
DoOemButton(1003)         'Stop Motor   


For I = 1 To 18         'Back to Fast jog    
DoOemButton(111)
Next I 


DoOemButton(310)         'Rotate Turret CW (axis Y-)       

For I = 1 To 5         'Count number of stations     

While Strobe1 = 0         'Wait for Strobe1 to go high       
If IsActive(OEMTRIG6) Then       
Strobe1 = 1       
Else       
Strobe1 = 0       
End If    
Wend        

While IsActive(OEMTRIG6)      'Look for Strobe1 to go low    
Wend            'Number of Srobe1 falls =                   
                                                                'Number of stations

Strobe1 = 0    
Next I 

ActivateSignal(OUTPUT10)         'Energize lock solenoid 

LockProx = 0 

While LockProx = 0            'Look for Lock Proximity Switch
   If IsActive(OEMTRIG9) Then      'to go high
    LockProx = 1
   Else
    LockProx = 0
   End If
Wend 
DoOemButton(1003)            'stop motor 
Sleep(100)               'wait for damping 

For I = 1 To 18               'slow jog    
DoOemButton(112)         'for increased torque
 Next I 

DoOemButton(309)            'Reverse Motor
  sleep (200)               'Turn for .2 sec
  DoOemButton(1003)            'Stop Motor
 For I = 1 To 18               'Fast Jog    
DoOemButton(111)
 Next I
  DoOemButton(309)            'Reverse motor
 While IndexProx = 0            'Look for IndexProx to go high
   If IsActive(OEMTRIG8) Then      'IndexProx must complete
   IndexProx = 1         'OFF-ON-OFF
   Else
   IndexProx = 0
   End If
Wend
  While IsActive(OEMTRIG8)         'Look for IndexProx to go low
Wend
 DoOemButton(1003)            'Stop motor   
  sleep(200)
 DeActivateSignal(OUTPUT10)         'De-Energize Lock Solenoid
                            'Now in position

48

VB and the development of wizards / lathe turret macro

« on: October 30, 2009, 11:09:40 PM »

I'm trying to move an axis motor from a macro.

The end goal is a macro to run my turret which I will post when it is a little further along.

I need to be able to do a rapid one way until a sensor trips and then reverse until another sensor trips.

What is the easiest way to do this? I know I can use G0 but then how to trip it? This is event driven not a distance thing.

Can I just use the oem scan code for fast jog?

Something like:

rapid +Y  'move Y in + direction

while a = 1
a = GetOemTrigger(1)
wend

stop Y 'stop Y axis

rapid -Y  'move Y in - direction

while b = 0
b = GetOemTrigger(2)
wend

stop Y  'stop y axis

end

Monty

49

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: October 25, 2009, 05:11:45 PM »

Back from the dead!.....

Started working on the lathe again. I had some noise issues with the turret wiring. I tried to use an all in one cable. Which was a bad idea, and I knew it but I tried it anyway. So I wound up running separate shielded cables for the stepper and the IO on the turret, tracing down all the shielding and making sure there were no ground loops. I managed to kill all the noise gremlins. Then work intruded.

So now I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.

I used Scott Shafer's diagnostics screen to make sure that all of my inputs are working properly. THANKS SCOTT!!!! You saved me from being committed because I thought for sure I was going insane.

I am going to have to write a macro or a brain to control the turret. So in keeping with the baby steps before running philosophy I thought I would start out by getting an LED to correspond to each input state for the turret.

I'm using OEM triggers 2-13. (I would have started with 1 but that causes a notepad screen to maddeningly appear. This is very disconcerting to be rotating the turret and have a bazillion notepad windows open up.

I've set them up in ports and pins, and confirmed they are working.

In screen designer what is the mysterious process used to interface the oem trigger to the LED? I have tried the OEM trigger number. I have tried the corresponding signal number from the wiki. What gives? Nothing works.

After I get that to work I want to make a button that activates the locking solenoid on the turret. Then assuming I haven't  run screaming from a cliff, I will attempt the brain or macro.

Monty

50

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: February 10, 2009, 06:16:15 PM »

Vince,

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. Right now I am planning to use mach to control the turret with a macro or brains. I am rethinking the whole thing now that I have it all torn apart and the DC drive is no longer taking up so much space in the cabinet.

Monty