Messages

301

General Mach Discussion / 'Freeing' an axis temporarily?

« on: November 21, 2013, 08:45:06 AM »

Hood doesn't mean that a touch plate is necessary. I believe he is telling you there is no verification of stepper position after a reset and subsequent repowering. With each reset, many steps can be lost. If you do this for every tool change the positional loss could accumulate and make your part out of tolerance.

302

General Mach Discussion / configuring lpt1 and port and pin configuration

« on: November 21, 2013, 08:34:16 AM »

Joe, do you think in metric or imperial? Set it up the way you think or work.

303

General Mach Discussion / Probe Input

« on: November 14, 2013, 07:52:46 AM »

I believe the C48 from CNC4PC allows you to have a probe and a touch plate connected at the same time.
http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=29_84&products_id=416
I have no affiliation with Arturo except that I have been a satisfied customer (many times).

304

General Mach Discussion / Please help with lathe tool tables

« on: November 13, 2013, 05:04:53 PM »

IIRC my biggest problem was pressing some button on the offsets or tool table page that only was to be pressed for setting up the Master Tool every tool after that had a similar process but didn't need that button pressed.
  Just going back thru the pages I don't see the obvious button, only 1 is to be used to set the master.
  Rich we might be talking about Lupe soon ;-)

305

General Mach Discussion / Re: Please help with lathe tool tables

« on: November 13, 2013, 09:29:37 AM »

Hey Hood,
While watching your video I liked your touch off indicator. So having an extra center finder for the mill decided to try
it out for the lathe. The tape just keeps end of the finder centered and restricts movement. The accuracy for setting lathe tools was exceptional, and although I have a microscope on the carriage, touching off to the center finder is so much quicker.
Pic attached......

RICH

   I always thought this would be the best way to set up tools. Just seems easy.

   Btw the tool table and offsets configuration is difficult to say the least. I can remember a phone call from a member here who used the analogy, if Lupe was on the 50 yard line. The story never made sense but somehow I did learn to load my tool table to some degree, practice would of course would make me better at it.

   I did pick up one tidbit on this thread, to use a non tool as the reference/master. I had read this before but ignored it and used my longest tool as the reference. All of a sudden during reading this thread it dawned on me (just before reading Rich's remark about non tool for the master) what happens if I broke tool 1 or it had significant wear? Slow learner? Damn I hate that. I guess learning it at some time is better than never.

306

General Mach Discussion / Re: Newcomer question soft limits

« on: November 13, 2013, 09:07:54 AM »

   Do you have limit or homing switches? Or are you "reffing all" with the table in a certain position? If the latter, is your machine running positive in direction from the ref point on X & Y? (Except Z whereas negative is a cutting move)

307

General Mach Discussion / Manual Tool Change with TTS

« on: November 06, 2013, 07:44:47 AM »

I have never changed a macro in mine.

  The sequence goes like this. First tool is in spindle, hit cycle start. Mach finishes with this tool, turns off spindle, goes to a preselected tool change position and waits for my manual change. Hitting cycle start confirms that the requested tool is installed (tools must be set up in the tool table). Repeat for each tool needed.

   I believe I run the ATC post processor. Will have to check.

308

General Mach Discussion / Dwell is blinking

« on: November 05, 2013, 08:49:20 PM »

IIRC, in ports and pins, general page, should have a dwell time setting.

309

General Mach Discussion / Re: Project Orientation at 90 degrees in Mach 3

« on: October 27, 2013, 10:06:01 AM »

   IIRC, to find your latest xml file. Go to where Mach was installed, in my case the C drive.
Click on "my computer", double click C drive, double click Mach3, look under xmlbackups, if you are using a mill, look for the highest numbered Mach3Mill.xb file. This is the latest xml used and saved on your machine. Select that file and use send to.
It might need renaming as mentioned above. Hope that helps

310

General Mach Discussion / Re: Project Orientation at 90 degrees in Mach 3

« on: October 27, 2013, 09:56:00 AM »

The 5th thread in the general section refers to have to send attachments to this site. Here is a link http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,24585.0.html
I will have to look at where the xml is again to advise you on that one.