Messages

181

General Mach Discussion / Re: z after running file

« on: September 30, 2007, 08:51:52 PM »

Yo Fellas,  Excuse me if this sounds obvious but, have you checked the "Safe Z setup" in the config menu?  You can make your safe Z reference to machine coords OR work coords.  If you are referenced to work coords and your work offsets change from job to job then so will your safe z.  Hopefully that made sense, if not, it will when you look at the safe z setup screen.

HTH,

Sid

182

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Long Sad Story

« on: September 30, 2007, 12:21:27 AM »

Without watching what/how you did what you did it's heard to say.  Here is a Lbolt.tap file that I created using trace art and L-cam.  Granted the end result isn't fantastic but, frankly the .jpg you posted was a pretty dirty image file so I can't say I'm that surprised. If you look closely at your .jpg and the tool path in Mach I think it's pretty close.

Sid

183

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Long Sad Story

« on: September 29, 2007, 04:15:45 PM »

Well, it's not really THAT Long or THAT sad      but seriously... I had some of the same issues. 

I know a little bit about Autocad but not really enough to design from scratch.  Plus most of the things I wanted to cut were designed in Raster generating programs (i.e. Illustrator, Canvas, Photoshop, etc.)

I did find a cool converter program called ACME Trace art (dwgtool.com).  It's a pretty simple program that will trace a raster (.tif, .jpg, .bmp, etc) image and convert it into .dxf. 

It's simple to learn.  It took me about 45 minutes to learn how to tweak the tracing parameters. If your drawings in Illustrator are Black lines on white background then it will be a "Slam Dunk" for you to trace and convert. 

Once converted in .dxf format, you can open in Lazy cam can read it, generate the G-code and then throw it overto Mach 3.  It works pretty good BUT, I have found that about 50% of the time trace art doesn't get all the details when tracing photos or I will have to do some size scaling (not really hard to do in L-CAM) or other little "tweaks" in L-CAM to make it work.

HTH!

Sid

184

General Mach Discussion / Re: Unspecified failure message

« on: June 18, 2007, 10:11:45 PM »

Have you tried using M3 instead of M03?  Just a thought?

HTH,
Sid

185

General Mach Discussion / Re: Charge Pumps

« on: June 18, 2007, 10:06:55 PM »

Bill,

I'm not at my shop right now so it's hard for me to test those settings but, I have a couple of thoughts... the first thing you mention is that you just rebuilt to increase table size.... what is happening with your linear motion devices (Bearings, wheels, etc.)  Is there perhaps something binding somewhere?  Seems like you should have have enough voltage to run things without missing but just for giggles why not try changing your steps per min to see if that stops the missing step problem?

HTH,
Sid

186

General Mach Discussion / Re: Charge Pumps

« on: June 17, 2007, 05:19:56 PM »

Willie,

How about some more info from regarding the missing step problem.  What are you cutting?  Router?  Plasma?  Lathe?  What about Specs on your DC power supply?  Maybe with some more info we can help more?

Regards,
Sid
 

187

General Mach Discussion / Re: mill doesn't return to programmed position

« on: May 13, 2007, 11:43:49 PM »

What you describe is "textbook" a backlash.  What makes you think that using backlash compensation will not fix your problem?  Have you tried?

Regards,
Sid

188

General Mach Discussion / Re: Feed rate override

« on: May 12, 2007, 10:17:15 PM »

Way back I had the same feeling regarding being able to increase the F.R.  But some of the other dudes here kinda turned me around and said, you should really not get in the habit of increasing your feed rate but DECREASING to fit the job.

In other words, your motors are tuned too low.  Increase your max velocity and start runing all your jobs at 50%.  That way when you need to go faster you will never chance missing steps and always have headroom to go MUCH faster with never needing to go much past 100%.  Make sense???

HTH,
Sid

189

General Mach Discussion / Re: Retiring.

« on: April 25, 2007, 01:31:24 AM »

I agree with everyone and add my appreciation to all of your efforts.  Thank you! 

Regards,
Sid

190

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help Please with lazy Cam/auto Cad

« on: February 09, 2007, 08:37:26 AM »

LCAM won't see any blocks.  Explode everything in ACAD and resave the dxf and reimport into LCAM.

HTH,
Sid