Messages

101

Mach Screens / Re: Can't see background jpg

« on: December 14, 2006, 09:24:38 AM »

Hi Dave,

Yup, I worked on mine for quite awhile by refreshing the wizard in Mach3, moving things around in Screen4 and saving, then refreshing Mach again and so on......

After placing a copy of each jpg in Mach's bitmap folder things sure got a lot easier.    The png's for skinned DRO's was another story.  Those you just pretty much just use them from where they're at, but I found that once I had one on screen, I could only do a copy/paste to get another one. ??

I never had the problem of having to open things twice though.

Regards,

102

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: December 14, 2006, 07:50:39 AM »

Hi Chip,

Sorry for the delay here.  My machine is a six year old ShopBot PRT96 (48" x 96") with Oriental Motors 3.6:1 steppers.  The gantry is relatively light and does flex or wiggle in the Y direction, thus the difficulty with high acceleration.  I've done some modifications to stiffen things up, but it needs to have the X car reinforced or redone in order to stiffen that up and probably a second Y motor on the opposite side.

I just stripped the Z moves and F values from the sample file and just manually set the feed rate up and down.

Here's one of a number of gun box files that I have been running lately.  This particular one gets the rear site notch rounded out and the muzzle end also get the detail removed while a sharp corner at the front of the grip is just fine.  High acceleration makes the the direction changes too harsh.  Adding in a CV distance of 0.1 is about as low as I seem to be able to go without Mach stopping at each line of code like it was in exact stop mode and still rounds corners.  I don't understand why we have to hesitate between two lines of code that need little to no ramping between them like along the underside of the barrel and the back of the handle (these hesitations just introduce more vibes).  A stop CV on angle limit of any value just results in an exact stop condition and an overheating tool.

The attached photo is the same gun, just a different type of box.  This one was done with my old controller.  I wouldn't even attempt the design on the cover at this moment, in fear of it rounding out every detail, even if it's just a scratch path on the line.

V-carving files seem to need another whole different setting that I haven't found yet. 

I've come to the point where I don't have time to fart & fiddle with it anymore and just need to get stuff done now.  I'll have to do some machine modifications after the holidays and hope for something closer to exact path w/ramping, like I've been used to, in the future. 

Regards,

103

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: December 10, 2006, 11:54:40 PM »

Thanks, I'll check into it more tomorrow, but right now I'm pretty sure that my Steps Per are 1834.864039 for XY, Velocity at 817.2 (the top of the scale for 25000) and the Acceleration has been tried at 13 to 15.  15 makes it more crisp, but also gives a aftershock that will leave ripples on any edges that are affected by it.

I have been able to run as high of a velocity as it will go at the 35000 setting, but that seems a bit fast.  I have run for quite a while with it at 840, but then out of the blue, it will loose steps big time during a jog with quite a bit of racket as things try to catch up.  I'll get everything reset and it will be fine again for another day or two before it happens again.  So I just set it back down, but it has happened at the lower setting too.  Seems like something all of a sudden causes the loss and then is gone for a while again, making it hard to pin point and find a setting that I can set and forget.    I'm running a slightly overclocked Athlon XP 2500+ with 512 ram.

Regards,

104

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need help with new macro or wizard

« on: December 10, 2006, 11:08:54 PM »

Hi all,

I finally had some time to finish my "Hangslot Wizard".  There is a readme file included.  If you think it may be of some use to you, check it out.

Thanks to Brian and Graham for helping me out with my first wizard.  It's relatively simple, but it was a good learning experience.

I'm not the best mathematician so if you find something that doesn't add up, let me know. 

Regards, 

105

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: December 10, 2006, 08:36:02 PM »

Brian,

I'm not sure that we're on the same page.  At least I hope not.

If you take a look at the attached jpg and see the red and blue segments of the toolpath, they each represent one line of code.

Here's the senario;

CV on with Distance Tolerance unchecked (off) and Angle limit unchecked (off), run at 120ipm and 150ipm.  Motion is just fine. Albeit with some corner rounding (understood).

Next, CV Distance Tolerance checked and a value of 0.1 applied.  120ipm runs okay and 150 ipm hesitates at each segment (red, blue, red,.....)  If you raise the Distance Tolerance value, you can get to the point where it doesn't hesitate, but you have then negated the limit on corner rounding by raising the value.

Next, CV Distance Tolerance checked or unchecked (doesn't make a difference) and Angle limit checked with a value of 89 (again, it doesn't matter what value you put in there except for the 90 degree angle in the toolpath), it will hesitate at each segment again.  Feed speed makes no difference here.

Why do we need to stop at each segment?  The angle isn't acute by any means and there's little to no need to acel or decel in this situation.  Now if I have a lot of small curves and segments back to back, I can definitely see the need for ramping the speed up and down as it goes through them, but not to hesitate at each line ever unless you have chosen to run in Exact Stop mode.

I have also noticed that V-carving is affected by corner rounding and running a v-carve file in exact stop mode is something that is impossible.

I don't know how I can describe the situation any better and I truly hope that we aren't talking about the same thing, just in different words, because if we are, for a great share of my work on my machine, Mach will become unusable. 

Regards,

106

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Need help with new macro or wizard

« on: December 10, 2006, 03:30:58 PM »

Once a wizard is finished, what's the accepted method for distribution?  Just a zip file here for anyone who wants to give it a try or something else?

Just wanted to know before I zip one up here.

Thanks,

107

General Mach Discussion / Re: New CV features

« on: December 09, 2006, 01:18:19 PM »

Ok you two, now you're just messin' with my head!    I see you turned that less than into a greater than for Stop CV On Angles!  The operator or less than sign wasn't the problem, it's the way that the numbers are being handled.  A 90 degree angle is less than a 91 degree angle so if I have a setting of Stop CV On Angles < (less than) 91, it should stop.  If I have a setting of less than 89, it shouldn't.  By changing the sign to > (greater than) you're saying to stop on angles greater than say 90 on up to what, 360...?  It needs to be the way it was (less than) and the handling of the values should be reversed. 

That aside, with my sample file below, with any setting for angle, the machine basically acts as if it's in exact stop mode.  Depending on the angle setting, it may or may not stop CV on the 90 degree angle, but it always hesitates at the transition of the G01's and G02/3's.  Also, with Stop CV On Angles unchecked and CV Distance Tolerance checked with a value of 0.1, as you raise the feed speed, it starts to hesitate in the same manner.  This will happen on files other than just my sample.

Regards,

108

General Mach Discussion / Re: CONTOUR PROBLEM! Machine takes shortcuts on corners !

« on: December 08, 2006, 10:25:52 AM »

Hey Baran,

I feel your pain! Corner rounding while in CV mode even with a low "CV Distance Tolerance" set in general config has been a big problem for me too.

By the looks of your contour, I would agree that exact stop mode would be what you want to run in though.  Place a G61 at the beginning of your file or if you have a button on your screen to turn it off, use that.   Place a G64 at the end of the file to turn it back on again just in case you run something else later that you don't want exact stop.

109

Mach Screens / Re: Can't see background jpg

« on: December 07, 2006, 06:55:18 PM »

Thanks,

It wasn't the "IMG" button, I've hit that a number of times.  Putting the image files in both the main bitmap folder and the bitmap folder for the particular wizard works.

That's kind of strange that they have to be in both places, but it works. 

110

Mach Screens / Can't see background jpg

« on: December 07, 2006, 01:04:41 PM »

While designing a wizard, I can't see the background image.  It makes it hard to place objects on screen.  The image clear button has no effect.
I noticed that upon opening the screen sets of some other wizard that theirs don't show up either.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks