Messages

831

General Mach Discussion / Re: speed control of stepper used as spindle motor

« on: April 23, 2010, 06:05:04 PM »

Too funny.

I see there is a little 'cross pollination' going on there. Now I knew the Brits were pervs, but a Scotsman??   

832

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Axis Setting rotary motion

« on: April 23, 2010, 06:00:23 PM »

Gotcha!

My impression was that you wanted to use the A axis as a rotary axis.

You certainly can just send the right amount of steps to accomplish the desired rotation and reset as you have discovered. I believe this method will continue to count up the 'machine coords', but I have run those out into the millions on the 'A" axis with no ill effect. so at 180 degrees at a pop you'll need to close and restart Mach by about the year 2050 . . . 

If all you need to do is that one movement, looks like it's Miller Time.

About the Les Paul, it is about a '73 model, purchased new by myself. Been played a lot, but all original and mint. Prolly should not mess with it and hurt the value. But I really love your stuff. If I had a newer Les Paul . . . . 

833

General Mach Discussion / Re: speed control of stepper used as spindle motor

« on: April 23, 2010, 05:40:30 PM »

Willco . . .

834

General Mach Discussion / Re: speed control of stepper used as spindle motor

« on: April 23, 2010, 05:37:34 PM »

Thank you Mr Hood!

I have been looking for it under the configure tab all this time. I was told it was part of the 'configuration' and obviously made a wrong assumption  

As my dear departed Mom used to say to use as kids: "If it had teeth, it would have bit you!"

Once again saved by the Hood!

You da man  

835

General Mach Discussion / Re: speed control of stepper used as spindle motor

« on: April 23, 2010, 05:21:18 PM »

Simpson, I have never used a rotational  4th axis on any of my machines but have you set a rotational radius on the settings page, actually think it should be dia if I remember other peoples posts on the subject.
Maybe this has nothing to do with your problems but I thought I would just mention it in case.
Hood

I don't see anything that is identified as a 'settings' page. Where would one find this?

836

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Axis Setting rotary motion

« on: April 23, 2010, 04:22:42 PM »

OMG! Beautiful! I want these for my Les Paul!!

I am intrigued by interesting challenges (plus I love anything with stings). Now that I know what you are trying to accomplish, I am ready to tell you that it is doable with Mach, no problemo. I know you are noodling around with this, but if you do not arrive at a satisfactory solution, and you are not in a terrible hurry, then e-mail me directly and I'll help you with the solution. If you find a solution, please post it back here.

This has my wheels turning. If you are not moving your tables during the operation, could you make temporary use of one of the other axis to operate the 4th axis  . . if you had a way to instantly, automatically, temporarily and transparently switch them back and forth? In any case, I'm pretty sure we can create a macro that will turn the axis 180 degrees with a single M code.

i.e.
G1 (blah blah blah make the part)
M5 (turn of spindle)

{vacuum, collect, advance stock, other cool stuff}

M981 (rotate axis 180 degrees)
M47 (do it all again)


Where can one see pictures or videos of this very interesting machine of yours?

837

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Whats the current developement state of the SS?

« on: April 23, 2010, 03:56:21 PM »

Bob: Thank you much for the thorough and well considered response. It is very helpful to me a this time. There seems to be opposing groups of haters and fanboys and it's sometimes difficult to get an objective opinion.

In the midst of my tantrum over the shipping cost, I have continued to research the Kflop. If my butt cools of enough, perhaps I will acquire one to evaluate. We shall see.

Producing the hardware does not seem to be the problem, so I question how helpful Gecko et. all would be as a solution. I will snoop around some more and see what may be out there. If I cannot find what I want, rest assured I will make it myself  . .  and you can quote me on that. There certainly would not be any competition in the marketplace. The question is, how big is the market. My research is showing that many (if not most) systems do not need such a . . . 'helper'  . . like smoothstepper. So long as Mach continues to provide the PP driver, external hardware in optional, and therefor unattractive to develop.  Catch-22. Add to that the very large percentage of hobby users and it becomes more understandable why there is not a line of developers knocking on the door. Just my rambling thoughts on the subject.

Rich: methinks the pile of pennies should be very high by now from the multitude of 2 cents worth that have been thrown in this particular wishing well. I have been hearing 'very near' future since I started on this forum, which has been a while now. The swapAxis board exists because it was faster and cheaper to fix the problem myself rather than wait forever  . . it take far too long buy a feature paying 2 cents at a time . . . 

838

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Axis Setting rotary motion

« on: April 23, 2010, 03:22:14 PM »

Jorg,

It happens that I am very interested in 4th axis application just now and I might assume that you are not using the Tormach 4th axis or you would not be having this integration issue.

What 4th axis are you using and what is the application if you don't mind elaborating.

I have been developing a 4th axis hybrid indexer/lathe head for a while now and it has matured over time into a final design. Last Summer it was in this iteration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2-Kdud7eiA

You can see the final Super Duty version here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC2urdg_bqg

There are some minor details left to address,  but it is essentially going to remain in this state.

839

General Mach Discussion / Re: speed control of stepper used as spindle motor

« on: April 23, 2010, 03:09:04 PM »

I will tell you a workaround I have used to make mach run the axis at the speed I want, if that might help you.

The problem: Mach seems to have a very different idea about what 'speed' is to a rotary and linear axis. For example, using a G1 with the A axis and the X axis moving at the same time is like molasses in winter. It is the A axis that it is running at a snails pace. Maxing the speed in motor tuning has little effect. If I use a G0, if flies.

There may be something that I am unaware of that need to be set correctly, but I have not looked into that as it has not been a priority . . . . so far. It may have to do with using the stock radius to calculate the linear equivalent surface speed, or something similar, but so far I have not found it in Mach, at least not in a form that makes and sense to me. I've asked the question a couple times long ago but so far, no clear direction 

Anyway, what I do if I MUST have simultaneous movement and I cannot live with my normal G0 speed, then I have to set the X axis max speed down in the motor tuning to what I would want a G1 to be and then use G0. The tuning limits the speed, but G0 runs the A axis at full speed. limited then by the X axis and all is well.

That's pretty convoluted to follow, but I think I explained it correctly so just read it a few times and hopefully it will make sense.

840

General Mach Discussion / Re: A Axis Setting rotary motion

« on: April 23, 2010, 12:30:10 PM »

Just as a thought,

I remember seeing that a lot of the configuration settings can be read and changed thru scripting. I don't know off the top of my head if that particular one is in the list, but it is worth looking into as an alternative. I did dink around with it a bit and it does work, but I don't reacall the details of it so you would need to do some homework on it and see it it fits with what you are trying to do.

Probably a scripted change would not effect your warranty of support if you are just changing parameters on the A axis . . . as a guess.