Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing and plate alignment

« on: November 06, 2011, 04:02:30 PM »

No my webcam isn't mounted yet, I did plug in the family webcam, just to make sure I could get mach3 working ok on my workshop PC - it was fine, so I ordered a cheap & cheerful (manual focus) webcam off ebay that I can butcher! I'll make a mount for it when it arrives in a day or two & then I'll be ready...that's why I'm trying to do some spadework in the meantime...thanks for your help (off to read about offsets!)

(just one thing, does the rotation have to happen around my first point...in other words do I have to arrange it that my first index mark on the pcb is X0,Y0?)

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing and plate alignment

« on: November 06, 2011, 02:50:03 PM »

I'm not sure a wizard exists to do exactly what I want.

I want to use a webcam to jog/align my cutter over a known pcb coordinate/mark then let mach 3 know the coordinate  - obviously the camera is going to be offset from the cutter tip...so there's one offset that I need to cater for!

Next, I want to jog to another known cordinate - align the webcam over it, then enter these known coordinates ....and then Mach3 magically updates itself to reflect the fact that the pcb is not squarely mounted.

Now if I had a clue about how to approach this then I would...where's a good starter for learning how to do this? (would it be a macro - language?, a wizard...what would be the best approach here?)

I seek to do exactly via Mach3 what this guy is doing here....      

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJnenOsbCzU&feature=player_embedded (alas, the functionality is embedded in code within is own CNC application software)

I'm surpriseed there's not more call for this type of thing - lots of folks etch their pcbs, but still need a way of cutting them out - presently it's a major time sump registering/aligning the pcb with the CNC software (not a problem of course if the whole board is isolation milled, but I'm talking for boards with track widths beyond the capabilities of my modest machine hence chemically etching)

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing and plate alignment

« on: November 06, 2011, 06:20:55 AM »

Thanks...at the risk appearing a little slow, will this wizard even do what I wish to do, that is

1. Mount a pcb board with known markings (mount it any old way as the aligment is going to be done optically with a webcam)

2. Jog to each of the markings and tell Mach3 the marking coords

3 . Press run to start the cutting!

Wizards are great but where they fall down a little is the supporting info as to when/how to use them.

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing and plate alignment

« on: November 05, 2011, 08:22:45 PM »

Just to confirm the usage here....

I have to 'known' coordinates on my pcb (actually crosshairs etched onto a pcb)...to save fiddling about aligning manually to cut the pcb outline, I wanted to mount the board roughly & align these know points with a webcam.....

Can the rotation wizard be brought into play here - if so, is this how it works...  

Jog to my first etched pcb cross hair position & align - I know these exact coordinates - so do I now enter them in to the wizard's DROs then click 'get position'

Now do I jog to the second ectched pcb crosshair & align - again I know these coordinates ...this is where I'm a little unclear of the workings of this wizard...do I again enter these second cordinates into the wizard's DRO then click get position?

Or should I be approaching some other way?

25

Video P*r*o*b*i*n*g / Using a webcam to set known XY coordinates on a 'marked' etched PCB

« on: November 04, 2011, 04:49:59 PM »

At the minute I'm etching PCBs (have plenty of xy accuracy on my CNC machine, but keeping the copper board completely flat remains troublesome - and becuase I want to go very small I'm having to ecth still!), but becuase of the complicated shapes of my PCB, I'm still using my CNC to cut the outline .......I saw this video & it does exactly what I need....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJnenOsbCzU&feature=player_embedded

at the minute I'm drilling out some known registration points on my extched pcb then using small pegs to align them into hole my cnc machine has cut....it works, but it adds a fair bit of time overhead. I like that video method becuase you pretty much clamp your pcb any which way roughly, use the webcam to locate three known points ...then bang you're off cutting - very quick.

Can this be done in MAch3 and what would the approach be (a wizard, script, plugin etc)

rgds,
Pesky.

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: M6Start.m1s & M6End.m1s - how do I modify? (to so something very simple!)

« on: March 02, 2010, 05:04:38 AM »

Many thanks guys.

Gerrythat works a treat - very simple too!

Hood - not tried yours yet (your post came in too late for me to try last night!) - it looks a lot more complicated ...is there any extra win in there vs the simple entry that Gerry posted up? (I can't tell!)


Just a passing thought - until I get depth rings on *all* my cutters, I can't really use this procedure - is there a way of getting the tool to raise 50mm  (triggered by a tool change) and then drop say 30mm after I've finished changing to the tool? (this would at least save me a lot of jogging, the 30mm drop allows me then find Z0 manually after a tool change)

Thanks once again guys.

27

General Mach Discussion / M6Start.m1s & M6End.m1s - how do I modify? (to so something very simple!)

« on: March 01, 2010, 06:20:17 PM »

Maybe I work differently to everone else, as I'm not finding a whole lot about what I'd like to do?!!

All I want is for every time a tool change is triggered, for the Z plane to move up 50mm.

I then stop the spindle manually
Change the tool manually
start the spindle manually
The press cycle start

At this point I would like the spindle to movedown 50mm again & carry on where it left off from a Z axis location perspective.

(I'm going to set up all my cutter with rings to ensure the distance to the tip is the same for all of them)

Many thanks for any help you can give.

Now I know the Macros M6Start.m1s & M6End.m1s will need some editing - but what to put in there to ahve that very simple up/down 50mm move happen?

28

Mach Screens / The Coil winder sceenset (wow)

« on: July 01, 2009, 04:29:08 PM »

Since the associated original thread hasn't been appended to for over a yar & a half, the forum prompted me to start a new topic.

I've just spent the guts of 2-3 minths messing about with my own coil winder program (it works but it's clunky, uses a program hard coded into a PIC, the user interface is a text line in a VT window & it's not very user firendly - in short it sucks).

Well, I've just spent a hour or so trying to get to grips with the coil winder sceen on here...I'm *really* impressed it looks fantastic & would appear to have been well thought out.

The thing is, it's kind of an incomplete project...but still has a lot of functionailty that seems to work

The immediate issues, that 'hit me, that I'm puzzled about...

1. There's an offset of 1.17mm - so let's say my coil width is 10mm...the DRO starts ar 1.17mm traverses to 11.17mm before reversing down towards 1.17mm again.


***Revisit 'Edit': still not sure what the original author put that in for...I don't know how to take it out, so have all but tuned it out by making it a 0.1mm offset.


Now I'm just wondering why?!!! (presumably the author needed it for his/her own situation?


Next, whilst the traversal DRO seems to read out fine, the 'spool count'  doesn't budge from '0' ?


***Revisit 'Edit' ok, got this working. I've now used the Y DRO redout (as opposed to the A DRO)...don't know why, but the A DRO doesn't work...I've tweaked the VB program accordingly. (you'd just need to know to use the Y axis for the main motor & the X axis for the traversal motor.)

So now, I've got the coil winder screen pretty much with all the bits that an operator would need, ie these bits...

width of spool
wire gauge
Number of turns.

Once entered, the program calculates the number of windings that can traverse sideways across the spool before changing direction etc & you can see the Axis movement on the DRO

So, all in all I'm pretty happy!

The Max RPM still doesn't work (I've sort kludged it by using the Use 'number input' as the direct feed rate)
Nor does the accelerate/decelerate aspects.