Topics

11

General Mach Discussion / Slaved axis steps per unit

« on: November 08, 2010, 02:17:13 AM »

Hi,

Im just wondering if i can tune the steps per unit 4 2 axes separately and then slave them with mach allowing me to have a different gearing from the motor to the axis on either side of my x axis but still slave them together??

Its a servo system if that makes any difference.

Thanks

Matt

12

General Mach Discussion / Mach and multiple screens

« on: April 12, 2010, 02:09:05 AM »

Hi all,

I was just wondering if i was to get a second monitor for my pc would it be possible to display the program run screen on one and the toolpath on the other so i can have a large toolpath display and still have control of the machine?? Im thinking touchscreen for the one that would do the controlling and just a monitor for the other one?? Any thoughts?

Matt

13

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 and Burny 3

« on: March 06, 2010, 02:06:36 PM »

Hi,

Ive just been offered the box that goes under a burny 3 controller with the servo drive cards in and all the buttons on the front, i presume it has input and ouput cards as well, my question is can mach interface with this using step / direction or does it work on a bus or some needlessly complicated system like that? It would be ideal if i could connect to it since i dont really want the burny 3 but the servo drives would be nice.

Thanks for any help

Matt

14

General Mach Discussion / Encoders, steppers and mach

« on: March 03, 2010, 08:46:44 AM »

Hi,

Im currently upgrading my gantry with an old esab bridge, this uses frction drive which im  a bit worried about but assured it will be fine, the servo system that would have been on this table would have had encoders turned by a gear rack on the rails, so if there was wheel slip i think it should have compensated for it?? So with my stepper system can i do this? am i right in saying mach would support encoders and would correct the position of the gantry according to the encoders rather than by the number of steps???

Not really on mach but the other question i have is about the steppers themselves, they are rated to take 90vdc, am i right in saying when you rectify an ac voltage it is reduced? Also can i over supply my steppers with voltage by a little and still not kill them? Im just wondering if i can rectify the 110vac in the shop and run the motors from it to save having a transformer?

Any help would be great

matt

15

General Mach Discussion / Homing, machine co ordinates and touch off

« on: January 30, 2010, 03:14:44 PM »

Hi,

Ive been looking further into my touch off problem on my plasma, it appears that when my z axis home switch is tripped the machine co ordinates on all axes are zeroed. I understand the z machine cordinates should be zeroed but why the x y and a axes? Is there a setting that would change this? Ive ruled out mechanical problems by disconnecting all the home switches except the z.

Any ideas??

Matt

16

General Mach Discussion / mach 3 plasma troubles

« on: January 29, 2010, 03:01:32 PM »

Hi,

Im currently upgrading my cnc plasma cutter to try to make it better. Ive added a G100 instead of the old breakout board, ive bought a new machine torch and upgraded to sheetcam TNG.

Ive got as far as trying to cut a part and have two problems, im using a touch off switch on the z axis and when the torch comes down and touches the switch and resets the z height to zero for some reason mach is adding or subtracting seemingly random numbers from both the x and y position at the same time, so the machine then thinks it is in the wrong place so cuts to the side of the shape and then cuts the shape. Any ideas? The G code is exactly the sae as i used to use in the old version, it has nothing in it about the x or y axis?

I am also finding my torch on off is unreliable, when i click the button on the screen in mach its perfect but when a program runs it will only work if i ahve recently cycled it on and off manually, if i havent the light comes on in mach but the relay doesnt close?

If it makes any difference i am running under vista and as i mentioned with a g100

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Matt

17

Promote and discuss your product / Cheap Plasma Digital THC

« on: March 05, 2009, 03:54:00 PM »

Hi all,

Im  looking to gauge interest on a product which i could develop a little further and bring to market but dont want to spend a load of time on it if no one is interested.

Basically the product is a $100 digital torch height control providing all the functionality of other systems, preset profiles for different materials, on screen display of torch volts, on screen adjustment of target volts etc etc.

The product would connect to any plasma cutter, probabaly those with hf start also

it could be connected through either a couple of pins on you standard parrallel port or via the modbus

im not gonna tell you it will be perfect or claim to hold it accurate to 0.25volt because it wont and i dont think it needs to but it will keep a good enough distance between the torch and the work to work on warped paltes, i think it is accurate to about 5 volts, jim colt mentioned somewhere this is good enough for air plasma and it cheap so you cant expect it to be perfect

So what do you think? would you be interested?

18

PoKeys / i think i killed it!

« on: January 25, 2009, 03:49:39 PM »

hi,

i was doing my usual bit of sunday afternoon tinkering today and i think i may have killed my 55t, i think i have applied to high a voltage to one of the analogue inputs.

the computer instantly lost recognition of the device and neither mach or the pokeys program will recognise it, the two leds on the board still come on when it is plugged in but as  i say nothing recognises it, guess i have fried the cpu? does this sound familiar to anyone?

if it is that what should i do about and indeed can i  or the manufacturer fix it or do i just have to scrap it?

any help would be appreciated

thanks
matt

19

Brains Development / can i make an axis move?

« on: December 27, 2008, 01:07:54 PM »

hi all,

ive been looking at the list of options for lobe termination to try to find an option that will move an axis and i cant find it, it may be obvious so i thought i would ask the people who know, if it cant be done could i do it with a macro pump or vb script, forgive me im not too familiar with them since ihave concentrated on brains up to now.

Thanks in advance

matt

20

PoKeys / Max voltage on analogue input

« on: December 26, 2008, 05:17:53 PM »

Hi,

ive been messing about with my new pokeys 55t and have set up the analogue inputs, in the instructions on how to do so (from a thread here i beleive) it suggests that the 3.3v pin on the board is used to supply power to your pot, however  recall seeing in the destruction manual that each pin has a max of 5v i think. So i was just wondering what the max i could supply to an anolgue input was since  dont want to connect it to 5v and kill it since im well pleased with it?
Probably showing my ignorance but whilst im asking how is the best way to isolate an anologue input, i cant opto isolate it since its analogue i guess so what can i do to try to stop any noise or cock ups hurting the board, ne ideas?

thanks a lot