Messages

11

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: November 01, 2014, 01:57:29 AM »

Hello All

Changing parallel-port-legacy-plugin-for-mach4+(your pc id).txt to DarwinLic.dat worked for me also. Just need to figure how to make my step/direction spindle work now and I'm back to where I was before everything got broken.

Eric

12

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: October 31, 2014, 03:30:14 PM »

Hello Art

I was just at the machsupport website and saw that Mach 4 2069 has been realeased for download. Has the Dawin license bug been fixed in this new versoin? I don't want to waste my time installing it if it isn't. Wasted 3 hours of my time on 2059.


Eric

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Path Display Screen Reset Question

« on: October 30, 2014, 02:01:12 PM »

Regen. Toolpath button works too.

Eric

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Upgraded too Mach3 R3.043.066

« on: October 30, 2014, 01:55:46 PM »

Do you have IJ Mode set right in General Logic Configuration. I can't remember whether you need absolute or incremental.

Eric

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Circles not coming out round...

« on: October 29, 2014, 11:46:05 AM »

I wouldn't rule out backlash until you check it with an indicator. I had a jam nut come loose in a hard to see location and that blew my no backlash theory right out of the water.

Eric

16

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: October 28, 2014, 02:13:28 PM »

Mach 4 2059 still won't allow Darwin to be licensed. I even went as far as downloading a new license file from the license manager. It downloaded as a .txt file and I had to change it to a .dat file to get Mach 4 to see it. I can jog 3 axises but that's it. Homing wont't work. I can't turn on my forward and reverse spindle relays
with M3 and M4 in MDI. Spindle won't turn on.

I looked in the history file and saw.

Failed to license feature M4_DARWIN
(mcDarwin)Darwin License has failed.
Do MDI

Then I looked in Mach 4 Help/System Information and saw Feature M4_mcDARWIN Unlicensed

So the Darwin plugin bug still isn't fixed.

Eric

17

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: October 28, 2014, 02:07:06 PM »

Hello Tweakie

Well we waited 3 weeks for this fix I guess we can wait 3 more for the next fix.

Eric

18

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: October 28, 2014, 01:43:54 AM »

Mach 4 2059 still won't allow Darwin to be licensed. I even went as far as downloading a new license file from the license manager. It downloaded as a .txt file and I had to change it to a .dat file to get Mach 4 to see it. I can jog 3 axises but that's it. Homing wont't work. I can't turn on my forward and reverse spindle relays
with M3 and M4 in MDI. Spindle won't turn on.

I looked in the history file and saw.

Failed to license feature M4_DARWIN
(mcDarwin)Darwin License has failed.
Do MDI

Then I looked in Mach 4 Help/System Informaion and saw Feature M4_mcDARWIN Unlicensed

So the Darwin plugin bug still isn't fixed.

Eric

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Change w/ Height Offset

« on: October 24, 2014, 11:25:14 PM »

Yes that is correct you do have to do a G43 H* after a M6 T* if you are using more than one tool in your Gcode program and don't want to have to set your tool zero every time you do a tool change. If you are only using one tool then you don't need to use G43 H*.

Techinally you might be right about the G43 H1 and G43 H2 statement. It's just a good practice to get into when doing a tool change to do M6 T* and on the next line to do G43 H* when doing mutiple tool changes within a program.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Change w/ Height Offset

« on: October 24, 2014, 04:43:51 PM »

 I did some 3D milling a few months back and wanted to use 3 different tools for roughing, prefinishing, and finishing. I zeroed all tool to Part Z zero. I doubled checked everything and thought I was good to go and when I changed to T2 my cutter plunged 1/2 of an inch into the work piece and snapped my expensive carbide ball endmill and ruined the work piece.

I put T1 back in spindle and did just a rough eye ball and the endmill was at part Z zero. T2 was about 1/2 inch longer than T1 so then I checked the tool table and all 3 tools had different values for each tool.

So I did some research and posted a G43 question and was told that after each tool change  you must use a G43  and H word to get the right  zero offset from the tool table.

I then did some testing to prove this out. In  MDI I did a T1 M6 and then zeroed the tool to the top of a 1 2 3 block. Then I did a T2 M6 with a cutter that was longer than T1. Zeroed T2 to part Z zero. For each tool I wrote down the machine cord. for where the tools zeroed out and compared those values to the tool table and those values were the same.

In MDI I did a T1 M6 and put T1 back in the spindle and then jogged down in Z to just above 0 and the T1 wasn't even close to where it was supposed to be. Then I did a G43 in MDI and nothing changed tool still no where close to top of block. Then I did a G43 H1 and then jogged down in Z to 0 and T1 was at 0 where it was supposed to be.

From that test I learned that Mach 3 remembers the last tool zeroed. Doesn't matter if its T1 or T100. All the TLO's are saved in machine coordinates.  A G43 tells Mach 3 to use TLO but Mach 3 also needs to know what saved TLO from the tool table to use so that's why you have to use the an H word and then the correct number for the tool after the G43 command.

So going back to your question. You can do a T0 M6  and Mach 3 will show that it has chanced to T0 but there is no actual Tool  0 in the tool table. Yes Mach 3 continues using the last zero point for the last tool that was zeroed.  I either read or saw someone post online that it was important to have T1 referenced because all the tool offsets are tied to T1 don't know for sure. I would think that since all the TLO's are saved in machine coordinates it doesn't matter.  So tool table for T1 could be 0.0000 for the offset and T2 could be -6.6534 and everything would still be good. Only testing could prove this out.