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General Mach Discussion / New Machine Build - Mach 3 Help Needed!
« on: June 15, 2009, 08:09:07 AM »
Hi all,
I'm just nearing completion of a bridgeport retrofit using mach 3, natrually I have read the manuals and watched the tutorial videos and I have got as far as cutting a few parts however there remains a few things which i'm unsure about so I'd be really greatful if someone could help me out.
First of all here is my current mach3 XML file: http://www.ukcnc.org/bpt.xml as I'm sure someone will ask for it at some point. I'm running Version R3.042.020
Now onto the questions:
#1 The other day I was using mach to mill some shapes from HDPE sheet. For one reason or another I chose to stop the cut cycle mid way by pressing the stop button. I then wanted to restart the program so I pressed rewind and then pressed goto zero so I could start again from the same place as before. However when I pressed goto zero it did not operate in the way I expected and all three axes moved at the same time (i.e before the z had time to rise above the material) and as a result it snapped my cutter.
#2 What I would like to know is if it is possible to change the operation of mach 3 so when pressing 'go to zero' it zeros the z axis before moving the x and y?
To reduce mechanical and electrical loads on my system, the acceleration ramps on my spindle inverter drive are set quite quite high - somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds. I have noticed that this causes problems when running g-code programs because Mach 3 starts cutting before my spindle has reached the set speed. How can I tell mach to delay for longer without individually modifying every g-code file ?
#3 Is it possible to get Mach to automatically return to it's G54 zero position at the end of a program without manually pressing goto zero?
#4 What do driver watchdog errors mean ? I seem to get a lot of these when running my spindle at full speed. Is it likley that noise from the VFD is causing these errors or is this just coincidence?
#5 Every time I load Mach3 I get a message saying "No Shuttle Detected of Type Selected" what does this mean and how can I get rid of it ?
#6 I have setup softlimits to protect both ends of each axis and on its own this works very well, making it impossible to jog into the limit switches or beyond accidently or otherwise. I thought it would be great to always have this feature enabled so I turned on softlimits and saved as default settings. Of course next time i loaded up mach 3 I get an error about softlimits exceeded and I have to turn off softlimits so I can 'ref all home'. Also because I don't want my soft limits to be right on my real limits - I figured it would be sensible to allow some space for stuff to slow down etc , after homing I have to jog all my axes slightly off zero before I can turn soft limits back on.
My question is if it is possible to automate this process in some way, so softlimits are always on but are ignored until the axes are referenced upon each load and after referencing moves each axis just past zero so as not to retrigger the soft limit warning ?
#7 Since calibrating my axes to get a more precise steps per unit value, the DRO's no longer read what they are told. For example if I type in G0 X10, my X DRO displays +9.9996 I realise that this is only a very tiny difference but I do find it irritating that it's not displaying the number I asked it to display. Is there a way to solve this without compromising accuracy of the machine?
#8 How do most people go about transfering G-code files into mach 3? I'm wondering what is the common thing to do here. With my current setup I have a dedicated cnc controler pc which basically just has windows and mach 3 installed and nothing else. I then have a separate pc with all my cad/cam software and everything else. Originally I thought it would be nice and simple and easy to copy files from one to another with USB memory sticks, however experience has now shown me that this is actually really inconvenient espcially if you are prototyping something / experimenting and want to make lots of changes to a file and test out the results.
I'm thinking some sort of LAN/WLAN setup might be the nicest option so then I could save my CAM ouput from one computer directly into the mach3 gcode folder on the other computer. So is this what the rest of you do ? I'm just wondering firstly if the networking protocols are likley to interfere with the running of mach and also how to deal with the thread of viruses/worms. I've read that one should avoid running antivirus or firewall software on their mach pc as it can interfere with the pulsing but then without any of that its kind of exposed to any threats that try to spread accross the network.
I think thats about all for now. Sorry for writing an essay here but I guess that is partly new user syndrome - needing to know an awful lot about everything all at once! I will be very greatful to anyone who can help me out.
Regards,
Dom
I'm just nearing completion of a bridgeport retrofit using mach 3, natrually I have read the manuals and watched the tutorial videos and I have got as far as cutting a few parts however there remains a few things which i'm unsure about so I'd be really greatful if someone could help me out.
First of all here is my current mach3 XML file: http://www.ukcnc.org/bpt.xml as I'm sure someone will ask for it at some point. I'm running Version R3.042.020
Now onto the questions:
#1 The other day I was using mach to mill some shapes from HDPE sheet. For one reason or another I chose to stop the cut cycle mid way by pressing the stop button. I then wanted to restart the program so I pressed rewind and then pressed goto zero so I could start again from the same place as before. However when I pressed goto zero it did not operate in the way I expected and all three axes moved at the same time (i.e before the z had time to rise above the material) and as a result it snapped my cutter.
#2 What I would like to know is if it is possible to change the operation of mach 3 so when pressing 'go to zero' it zeros the z axis before moving the x and y?
To reduce mechanical and electrical loads on my system, the acceleration ramps on my spindle inverter drive are set quite quite high - somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds. I have noticed that this causes problems when running g-code programs because Mach 3 starts cutting before my spindle has reached the set speed. How can I tell mach to delay for longer without individually modifying every g-code file ?
#3 Is it possible to get Mach to automatically return to it's G54 zero position at the end of a program without manually pressing goto zero?
#4 What do driver watchdog errors mean ? I seem to get a lot of these when running my spindle at full speed. Is it likley that noise from the VFD is causing these errors or is this just coincidence?
#5 Every time I load Mach3 I get a message saying "No Shuttle Detected of Type Selected" what does this mean and how can I get rid of it ?
#6 I have setup softlimits to protect both ends of each axis and on its own this works very well, making it impossible to jog into the limit switches or beyond accidently or otherwise. I thought it would be great to always have this feature enabled so I turned on softlimits and saved as default settings. Of course next time i loaded up mach 3 I get an error about softlimits exceeded and I have to turn off softlimits so I can 'ref all home'. Also because I don't want my soft limits to be right on my real limits - I figured it would be sensible to allow some space for stuff to slow down etc , after homing I have to jog all my axes slightly off zero before I can turn soft limits back on.
My question is if it is possible to automate this process in some way, so softlimits are always on but are ignored until the axes are referenced upon each load and after referencing moves each axis just past zero so as not to retrigger the soft limit warning ?
#7 Since calibrating my axes to get a more precise steps per unit value, the DRO's no longer read what they are told. For example if I type in G0 X10, my X DRO displays +9.9996 I realise that this is only a very tiny difference but I do find it irritating that it's not displaying the number I asked it to display. Is there a way to solve this without compromising accuracy of the machine?
#8 How do most people go about transfering G-code files into mach 3? I'm wondering what is the common thing to do here. With my current setup I have a dedicated cnc controler pc which basically just has windows and mach 3 installed and nothing else. I then have a separate pc with all my cad/cam software and everything else. Originally I thought it would be nice and simple and easy to copy files from one to another with USB memory sticks, however experience has now shown me that this is actually really inconvenient espcially if you are prototyping something / experimenting and want to make lots of changes to a file and test out the results.
I'm thinking some sort of LAN/WLAN setup might be the nicest option so then I could save my CAM ouput from one computer directly into the mach3 gcode folder on the other computer. So is this what the rest of you do ? I'm just wondering firstly if the networking protocols are likley to interfere with the running of mach and also how to deal with the thread of viruses/worms. I've read that one should avoid running antivirus or firewall software on their mach pc as it can interfere with the pulsing but then without any of that its kind of exposed to any threats that try to spread accross the network.
I think thats about all for now. Sorry for writing an essay here but I guess that is partly new user syndrome - needing to know an awful lot about everything all at once! I will be very greatful to anyone who can help me out.
Regards,
Dom