Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / No movement after "crash"

« on: July 29, 2009, 06:51:33 AM »

Hi guys,
           just built a machine for a friend which is identical to my own machine. Installed it yesterday and when I left everything was working fine. However it seems that today his machine lost steps on the Y and X axis resulting in a crash. All axis can now be turned by hand freely when control box is off and lock when control box is turned on. Problem is I cannot move any of the three axis in jog or MDI an am at a loss as to why. Any suggestions or is it pointing to a new control box ??

2

General Mach Discussion / Losing the will to live :-(

« on: January 17, 2009, 11:53:00 AM »

I reported on here last week that I was having problems with my new machine which I tracked down as being associated with the control box. I duly informed the supplier and he sent me a new one. I fitted this and everything has been fine and the machine ran without any problems for two days during which it produced around 600 fishing float bodies of various shapes and sizes. However when I tried to use it today it started to play up again and quickly deteriorated to roughly the same state as last time it went down. I now have only one smooth axis  a noisy Y (losing steps) and the Z even tries to run backwards sometimes but even when going the correct way it is prone to just stop and lose loads of steps and makes a horrible noise. Is it common to have these sort of problems or am I just unlucky as it would seem that the control box has failed again. 

3

General Mach Discussion / Control box broken ??

« on: January 12, 2009, 06:17:57 PM »

I have had a new machine for a couple of weeks and although two of the stepper motors ran nicely the third has always made a grating sound like a very worn bearing might. I decided to look into this as the sound was getting worse and worse. I checked that the axis ball screw was free when the motor was removed and this was fine. I then connected the motor of the suspect axis (z) to the Y connection on the control box and it ran smoothly using the Y buttons on the keyboard. I then thought lets connect it to the X axis terminal and see if that will work. Well it did not and now only the Y axis terminal on the control box works at all but it does spin all of the motors smoothly. Does this sound as if the control box (2 weeks old) has gone faulty or is there a reset option inside the box for each axis in addition to the main one which does not change anything. Could it be the parallel port cable at fault or is there something else it could be. Before it failed completely any motor I connected to the Z terminal sounded very rough. I have tried shutting everything down and re starting but still only have the Y terminal working although the computer thinks that all three axis are movable.

4

General Mach Discussion / Tool information not displayed.

« on: December 21, 2008, 04:46:28 AM »

Can anyone suggest a reason why I cannot get the tool information panel to display the tool number and offset value. Should this panal be pink in colour with a licensed version of Mach3.

5

General Mach Discussion / Tool numbers and lengths

« on: December 19, 2008, 12:29:45 PM »

Hi all,
       I am building a machine that will have three cutting spindles mounted in order to use three tools in sequence without a tool changer. However even though I have got a Mach3 license I cannot seem to get the control to recognise that it is anything other than tool 0 it is using. When I click on help it says there is no help available and this is the same on help for work offsets. Is this something I am doing wrong or has my license failed to activate. I am programing as below -

T1
G54G90G00X30.Y0Z50.(FIRST SPINDLE)
G43Z20.H1
 
G00Z50.

T2
G00X50.Y0Z50.(SECOND SPINDLE)
G43Z10.H2

G00Z50.

T3
G00X-50.Y0Z50.(THIRD SPINDLE)
G43Z10.H3

G00Z100.
M30

6

General Mach Discussion / Program runs slow ???

« on: November 01, 2008, 01:19:44 PM »

Helllo I am new here and have just set up a PC to get used to Mach3 before connecting to a machine. I have loaded a program and in simulation mode it flys through it and gives me an estimated cycle of just over a minute. However if I run the program it takes for ever because the rapid and programed feeds are not running at the correct rates. Any clues as to what I am doing wrong?? -  Neil.

7

General Mach Discussion / Hello everyone

« on: November 01, 2008, 07:26:11 AM »

Hello all,
          Thank you for letting me join this knowledgeable site. I am a former cnc setter programmer who has also done fixture design as well as estimating and purchasing and I now make fishing floats for a living in the UK. I am building a machine that will grind the various shapes and sizes of float body from balsa dowel and also put the hole through the centre for the glass fibre stems. I can handle the machine building bit fine but am sure I will need help getting it to run from the Mach 3 software which will come with the router machine when I purchase it. At the moment I have got the spare PC to run it but need to build my balsa dowel holding  "4th axis" before I can finalise the required build dimensions of the modified router and place an order.

Regards - Neil.