Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Software to convert Dxf to Gcode, aka CAM. Recommendations wanted

« on: January 09, 2009, 12:38:11 AM »

Hi all I'm sure you get this question every other time you exhale, but I tried a quick search and nothing came up.

What software do you recommend in the way of converting Dxfs to Gcode, I'm looking for 2.5d and simple... cheap is good too,
later on I'm sure i"ll buy something expensive and really 3d, but for now i want to spend my money on hardware not software.

I'm mostly going to do wood routing for now, At the moment i have a tiny Dremeltool driven setup for practice and I'm in
the "waiting for my darn thrust washers" phase on my larger one that's going to hold a bosch 1617 router.
 
I know Sheet cam is out there on the $200 range,

What's out there that's free, and what in the $200 and below range?

Thanks,

Eric-

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: New to Site with Machine Questions

« on: January 09, 2009, 12:33:00 AM »

Chuck,

If you need to change the extension ( ie to *.txt) you need to do two things.

Windows defaults to hide those extensions from you, making it VERY annoying to try to change the.

so step one is, get windows to show you the file extensions (the part after the dot)

here are instructions I found after a quick Google.

http://www.fileinfo.net/help/windows-show-extensions.html

Once you have done that all the files will get the dot and the rest showing up.

Then Copy your file so you have a backup, right click on the backup, from the menu that pops up, select rename.

The cursor will show up on the name and you can edit it to be what you want.
When you are done click away or hit enter.
If you change the extension it'll warn you it might make it unusable, hit ok,
and you should be done. Don't remove the dot, and if you keep the part after the
dot to 3 characters you'll be happier.

Hope that helps.

Eric-

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 07, 2009, 08:24:38 PM »

Thanks for the Help Chip, it's whirring and making noise now, that's a huge step forward!

One more quick question, whats the best way to figure out how big the roadrunner gcode is supposed to be,

I thought i did the math correctly, 200 steps/ rotation, 20 tpi all thread, = 4000 steps per inch,

but the road runner was coming out _really_ tiny.... I figured out that the units were in MM not inches, and switched it
and now I'm guessing the roadrunner would be about an inch or 2 big if i set the z zero point where it actually would cut.

Is that about right?

Thanks,

Eric-

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 06, 2009, 08:42:02 PM »

I downloaded a new version of mach three it looks like the installer I had on the
cd from the manufacturer of my board was a mach 3 r1, so I've got mach 3 r3 series running now (the latest)
that that was probably part of my problems right there.

Will my r1 xml file work with r3 or do I need to set it up again?


Under the new install:

I've run driver test.exe 4 times, 2 system hangs, 2 successful test, but with a few seconds of amazing wave forms followed by
 _terrible_ wave forms. Like walls of black... bad.

Can anyone point me to the optimization.text they spoke of on the tutorial video? Aparently I've got some ugly processes running

As to my test harness app, the guy who sold me the board included a VB app he wrote that
communicates to the Board over the parallel port and it's working fine. I get full movement on all 3 axis
with it on the same port ox378

I guess I'll try the special driver on this install too.

I tried to PM you, but i don't have icq and that's the only way i saw to pm you. I'm on windows messenger as caladin <at> io <dot> com, if that's any help

Thanks,

Eric-

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 06, 2009, 07:13:42 PM »

I have not printed on the machine recently, but the test harness I was using to build and align the
cnc router was communicating with the board just fine over the parallel port. I get movement on all 3 axis both + and -

With it on port 378 I get movement just fine. It's mach 3 that's not doing anything.

I reinstalled the special driver and that's the one that 's got no line and nothing on the two
controls I mentioned earlier.

I looks like Mach 3 was developed with Visual studio c++ and MFC, i guess i could load up the ide/debugger on that machine if
that would help and i could get a debug version... We'd at least get to look at the exceptions and such.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 06, 2009, 12:17:51 AM »

Thanks for the help!

Addressing questions as i go through them,

1. Yes I rebooted after installing Mach 3. and twice since then (when it hung my machine running Drivertest.exe)

2. X,Y,Z are enabled on the config->ports and pins-> Motor output screen, pins are setup matching docs from card manufacturer (he even sent me a pic of his mach 3 screen so i could double check)

3. Port 1 is enabled, and set to ox378, the same setting as my printer driver, and the same setting as the test harness which does move the steppers

4. System is an xp box, amd xp 1500+ 512mb ram, Dx 9.0c, Nvida GeForce 4 ti 4200 graphics, gobs of HD space, fairly recently Reimaged from scratch, basically it was used for my son to play WOW, and surf the web before being re-tasked to Mach 3. it's always been a little flakey, hanging once a day or so when in hard use, built it myself (last time I did that I spent month dickering with it and it never did work 100% right, sigh built 3-4 machines before that that worked great.)

5. Per pic I checked to see that Mach 3 driver is installed and shows to be working correctly. Ports are still 378, only shows on iop range not two like inyour pic, and does not show any other lines other than the io range 0378-037f

Still no Jogging on the jog screen for via arrow keys, drivertest.exe still shows no lines at all
Pulse per secs in 25khz mode window blank, cpu speed 1363, apc timing constant blank... sits like that.. then I get "mach1 test complete"

Thanks,

Eric-

17

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 05, 2009, 08:58:28 PM »

Hi,

First up, I'm a total CNC Noob, so don't be afraid to ask id-10-t questions, I'm moderately pc competent as a windows programmer.
Here is my issue.

I was following the "download install and setup" video on the artsoft site.

I got as far as the driverTest.exe step (not very far alas)

First time I ran it, i got a line with a single big jag, and then the box hung.

I wasn't sure if you were supposed to use special driver for any crashes or just blue screens, but I went ahead and tried it.

Now everything on driver test seems to work, it starts give preparation successful, says system under mach3 control, then sits, eventually i get a popup saying the test was successful ("Mach 1 test complete."), but I never see any line whatsoever, not at all.

I can only assume this is a bad thing. Is it?

I've been testing the system with a vb app written by the guy I bought the controller board and the steppers from(stepperworld.com) and it
works pretty well (except for some momentary binding of the drive screws that I assume must be because I'm using all thread from HD, which isn't perfectly smooth?)

Any help is appreciated greatly.

I followed the rest of the tutorial and everything seems to work, but no motion when i hit the jog buttons and no movement on the axis position window at the center top of mach 3 when i try to run gcode (which is not surprising)

Thanks,

Eric-

P.S. I wonder if the hang was my box not the software (it's a little flakey, but it's what i have), is there an way to "un" special driver? I don't need a bat just instructions.
P.P.S. Nope, I read the bat file, undid the changes and it hung again, after 2 refreshes. so the original driver does seem to crash my box. Going to re-special driver again