Messages

211

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Sensor / Probe G31 assistance

« on: January 01, 2013, 04:18:20 PM »

Get rid of the period at the end of the first line, and add a double-quote
Get rid of the period at the end of the second line

Regards,
Ray L.

212

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: December 31, 2012, 05:01:09 PM »

Scott,

Thanks!

I just got done reviewing the whole of your ATC thread.  You had some serious trolling going on in there!  Yikes! 

Sorry to see how it all turned out.  I'm curious, if you don't mind my asking - Were you successful in selling your design?

Regards,
Ray L.

213

General Mach Discussion / Re: what pendant?

« on: December 31, 2012, 01:54:42 PM »

You can see my version here:

http://www.vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13053

Nice!

214

General Mach Discussion / Re: what pendant?

« on: December 31, 2012, 01:15:24 PM »

While I agree with Ray on the quality of a good MPG, I also love the Shuttle Pro 2 (not a fan of the express because of the size and button limitations).

It's nice because of the amount of buttons and dual wheels that make it attractive.

Just my 2 cents-
Dave

Dave,

My primary complaint with the Shuttle is the form-factor, which I found really inconvenient.  It is intended to sit on a desktop, so is difficult to hold securely in your hand - pretty much takes two hands to operate even most of the buttons.  As a result, I was constantly fumbling and dropping the thing.  And it's really not at all drop-friendly.  I lost count of how many times I had to crawl around under the machine to find those little clear key-caps after they popped off.  Nor is it at all coolant- or chip-friendly.  The MPG is also very low resolution, which seriously impacts functionality.  The difference when using a real 100CPR MPG is wonderful - far more of a difference than I would've expected.  I can do a rapid move of, say, exactly 137 steps in a split-second, without even looking at the DROs.

Believe it or not, I managed to put even more functionality into a VistaCNC pendant, using a simple macropump driver, than I had on the ShuttlePro I used initially.  Any my newer Vista Pendant does even more.  Neither has all the dedicated buttons of the ShuttlePro, though I found those to be sometimes problematic, as I would sometimes accidentally hit a button and do something unintentional.  Nothing worse than bumping your pendant, and having the machine take off unexpectedly!  I set mine up so every action requires either a double-click on a button, or holding the button while turning the MPG, so there's no chance of anything happening on the machine when you drop the pendant.  And it can all be done one-handed.

Regards,
Ray L.

215

General Mach Discussion / Re: what pendant?

« on: December 31, 2012, 12:43:14 PM »

Look at the VistaCNC pendants - nice functionality, reliable operation, reasonably priced, excellent support.

I *strongly* recommend something with a high-quality MPG.  Things like the ShuttlePro and XBox controllers are fine if you've never used anything else, but once you've used a REAL MPG, there is nothing better.

Regards,
Ray L.

216

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: December 31, 2012, 11:40:37 AM »

Like you Ray, I don't appreciate how they treat folks like you, and me for that matter.
Having said that, I don't blame them for locking out their profiles/screens from curious buyers due to support issues, but on the other other hand, I don't think
you or anyone else should be talked down to either. There where many, many witnesses to my building my prototype at the CNC zone, along with my ideas for improvements and ect.
Here is the REAL kicker, I was asked to keep the Production ATC under 3K they said no one would pay more than that, so I cut out alot of bells/whistles to keep labor/cost down.
Then Blammo, they come out with there 6K ATC (including the Draw bar device, since that is also part of the complete package)...... Funny how that works isn't it.

Sorry to hear about your experience with Tormach.  I remember reading parts of that thread ages ago, but didn't realize the whole story.  Just for the record, I've never had any dealing of any kind with Tormach, other than buying some of their TTS tools.

Didn't mean to hijack this thread, so Ray, back to your thread...

That's funny, because it's not *my* thread, it's Steves, and, if anything, I hi-jacked it from him!  :-)  Now we're having a "who can build the bet ATC the quickest" contest.  I think I've won the "quickest", but he will clearly win the "best" with his typically outstanding work.  Mine is more from the "quick and dirty, but gets the job done" school.

Regards,
Ray L.

217

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: December 31, 2012, 11:31:31 AM »

Tormach has made the (perfectly reasonable) decision to get their machines working as well as they can with a single, now very old, version of Mach3.  That way, they don't have to deal with the new bugs that get introduced with each new release.  They run a slightly modified version of Mach3 that has user access to many critical settings, like the motor tuning parameters, disabled so they don't have to support customers who go in and mess with the settings.  They will happily send you the information needed to setup an off-the-shelf copy of Mach3, but they, again perfectly reasonably, will NOT support you once you've done this.  Support costs a LOT of money, so I think their position is very reasonable.

Regards,
Ray L.

218

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: December 30, 2012, 09:44:55 AM »

You have the luxury of designing and building for your own use exclusively. I have to imagine the stupidest thing a person could possibly do and then try to prevent it. Her in the States, everything you buy has twelve pages of warnings and one page of actual operating instructions. First you have to say 'do not use this toaster in the shower' and 'do not eat the insulation' and 'do not put the large hot coffee between you legs and then drive out into traffic'. It is hard to explain to peopel on the other side of the pond how rediculous out legal system is here. 

Steve,

I'm on your side of the pond - Santa Cruz, CA.  The best warning I ever saw was for a Toshiba laptop.  They warned you not to drive nails through the battery pack!  The drawing accompanying the warning was priceless!  It was someone pounding what looked like a railroad spike through a battery pack.

BTW - *I* don't have to imagine "the stupidest thing a person could possibly do".  I'll usually manage to do it myself at some point....  :-)

Regards,
Ray L.

219

General Mach Discussion / Re: Vista CNC P1A-S disabled during tool changes

« on: December 30, 2012, 09:40:48 AM »

I'd suggest you e-mail VistaCNC.  Lee there is very helpful and responsive, and he can tell you exactly why it does that, and if it can be un-done.

Regards,
Ray L.

220

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: December 30, 2012, 09:31:07 AM »

Steve,

BTW - I'm also in discussions with a machine manufacturer, to potentially design a PDB/ATC system for several of their machines, loosely based on my current design.  There are, of course, a number of things I would do differently on the second go-round.

Regards,
Ray L.