Topics

11

General Mach Discussion / Engraving

« on: February 01, 2007, 02:32:40 PM »

HI, I have the mach 3 program running on my router, I would like to do some engraving, I am able to open the font wizard and enter the words, I am a little confused with the settings and how do you get the text into mach 3 to execute?
Thanks
Terry

12

General Mach Discussion / So now what????

« on: January 01, 2007, 04:37:53 PM »

I finally have my desktop up and running, I have cut roadrunners into every available piece of wood I could find, I find it hard to believe everyone is going out and spending 6 or 7 hundred dollars and up for cadcam programs, I have spent countless hours surfing the sites and now am completely confused. Help.
Terry

13

General Mach Discussion / steps and lead screws

« on: December 30, 2006, 04:55:56 PM »

I have my desktop machine finally running, using the roadrunner as a sample to set things up, I seem to be losing steps, the design never comes out quite the same each time, I am using ordinary 3/8 x16 threaded rod for lead screws, would proper acme thread be an inprovement and if so what lead or tpi should I be looking at? I am running half step with 125oz 2amp motors.
Thanks for any help offered.
Terry

14

General Mach Discussion / what am I doing wrong

« on: December 25, 2006, 02:51:22 PM »

Each time I try to cut the roadrunner, I place the material on the bed, jog the cutter to about 1.5 inches from the top of the board and the same from the left edge, sitting in front of machine, top being the farthest away from me, I zero the axis, regenerate the tool path and run, it will cut the pattern too high on the board, when it gets to the roadrunner head, in my mind it would have to go into a minus position on the y axis because it has gone to the negative side of the y axis based on where I zeroed it.
What am I missing?
Thanks and Merry Xmas to all.
Terry

15

General Mach Discussion / spindle hookup

« on: December 22, 2006, 06:56:51 PM »

Does anyone have a schematic that a non electronic type can understand to hookup my spindle to mach 3 using the hobby cnc pro board, I managed to assemble the board, limit and home switches along with e-stop, the drawings on the hobby cnc file board do not make much sense to me.
Thanks
Terry

16

General Mach Discussion / Auto setting steps per unit

« on: December 21, 2006, 04:49:11 PM »

Hi, I am trying to do the automatic setting of steps per unit, I start with settings screen, click set steps per unit, click on axis to set, but when the box comes up requesting the amount to move, it will not take any entries, just stays at zero. What am I missing?
Thanks

Terry

17

General Mach Discussion / roadrunner

« on: December 20, 2006, 07:05:31 PM »

Hi, guys, just got my machine to run finally, tried cutting the roadrunner for test, machine quits part way through program, always at same spot, is this because I am using demo version or a problem? Also what is your opinion on using the optimization settings, I have some pretty long and ugly lines when I run the driver test?
Thanks for any direction you can give.
Nooby

18

General Mach Discussion / question on steps per unit

« on: December 19, 2006, 05:48:23 PM »

I am confused by the formula to come up with steps per unit in the motor config screen, can someone give me the value using 16tpi rods with 1.8 degree motors, 200 steps per rev.?
Thanks.

19

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / My setup

« on: December 18, 2006, 08:01:01 PM »

My first attempt.

20

General Mach Discussion / weird happenings

« on: December 18, 2006, 07:50:21 PM »

Hi, I have a hobby cnc pro rev 1 board running mach 3, I had everything running, limit and home switches working, shut down last nite, started up this am the z axis would not move only whirring sound, disconnected wires for z and wired them to x axis, worked fine, disconnected again and wired back into z, worked fine, hooked up original wires from x to x terminal, guess what, x axis now just whirrs but dos not turn. Any ideas besides garbage can?
Thanks
Terry