Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / External noise causeing mach 3 to estop

« on: June 10, 2023, 01:49:55 PM »

Hello all,

I have a new issue and id like to hear your thoughts. Every time I press the motor stop button on my mill it causes mach3 to go into estop mode. there is no connection what so ever between the mill spindle and mach3, in fact, if I use my shop vac and then turn it off while in the middle of a cut, it will throw mach3 into estop mode! Apparrently the new motion card is getting spikes every time a power switch is turned off! Has anyone tried using a usb isolator to prevent this from happeneing?

2

General Mach Discussion / Can someone give me a hand?

« on: May 29, 2023, 05:27:07 PM »

Can someone run my simple gcode to see if they can get a 1 inch round pocket within +/- 0.002"?
I can't get anything better than 0.980"

I used the mach3-inch post processor to generate this gcode.

Tool used was a flat endmill 0.25"

If someone can try this out on some scrap and let me know the results that would be very helpful and great. Thanks.

Code: [Select]

G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90
G20
(2 1/2 Axis Pocketing)
M6 T1
M03 S2400
G00 Z0.1250
X-0.0089 Y-0.0607
G01 Z0.0500  F25.0
Z0.0250  F10.0
X-0.0239 Y-0.0577 Z0.0223  F2.7
X-0.0442 Y-0.0442 Z0.0180
X-0.0577 Y-0.0239 Z0.0137
X-0.0625 Y0.0000 Z0.0094
X-0.0577 Y0.0239 Z0.0051
X-0.0442 Y0.0442 Z0.0008
X-0.0239 Y0.0577 Z-0.0035
X0.0000 Y0.0625 Z-0.0078
X0.0239 Y0.0577 Z-0.0121
X0.0442 Y0.0442 Z-0.0164
X0.0577 Y0.0239 Z-0.0207
X0.0625 Y0.0000 Z-0.0250
G17
G02X-0.0625I-0.0625J0.0000 F15.0
X0.0625I0.0625J0.0000
G01 X0.1250
G03X-0.1250I-0.1250J0.0000
X0.1250I0.1250J0.0000
G01 X0.1875
G02X-0.1875I-0.1875J0.0000
X0.1875I0.1875J0.0000
G01 X0.2500
G03X-0.2500I-0.2500J0.0000
X0.2500I0.2500J0.0000
G01 X0.3125
G02X-0.3125I-0.3125J0.0000
X0.3125I0.3125J0.0000
G01 X0.3750
G03X-0.3750I-0.3750J0.0000
X0.3750I0.3750J0.0000
G01 X0.3529 Y-0.0383 Z0.0192  F2.7
Z0.0442  F25.0
G00 Z0.1250
M5 M9
M30

3

General Mach Discussion / motors are calibrated yet mach3 not cutting 1" x 1" pocket

« on: May 27, 2023, 09:44:51 AM »

I have PM25mv with Arizona cnc conversion kit
im using windows 10
i7 laptop
mach3 demo latest version
stepperonline 566 ozin closed loop stepper 4.0 driver for x and y
stepperonline 1699 ozin closed loop stepper 4.0 driver for the z
amazon no name brand usb controller

Hello guys, I need all the help I can get.

My issue:

I calibrated the x and y to travel 5" and its spot on in both directions for both x and y. When I cut a round pocket it is Undersized by 0.120" I tried calibrating the motors to give me 1" accurate holes, but when I retest the motor calibration and instruct it to move 5", it travels to far, like 5.25" bad controller board? a setting? the Z axis is the only one that is accurate.

4

General Mach Discussion / Motion controllers - Take me to school

« on: August 29, 2017, 02:33:05 PM »

Hello Guys,

I have been doing a lot of research on closed loop steppers / hybrid servos and I am confused as to how all this interfaces with Mach3. It looks to me that each stepper servo has an encoder and a separate motion controller card example: 3 motors, 3 cards. Now does there need to be a separate driver board to interface the 3 cards to to a pc where as the driver board is the middle man? Does a parallel port still need to be used? USB? If you are using external controllers/drivers, are you now free to use any 64 bit operating system?

I am currently using a Sherline mill, Sherline steppers, Sherline 3-Axis stepper controller using the LPT printer port. I have been considering upgrading to the closed loop system.

5

General Mach Discussion / My drill wont drill!

« on: May 29, 2011, 05:19:44 PM »

Hey guys, I'm having a problem with drilling operations. The drill will go to the proper x,y locations but it wont plunge, it just stays in the clearance plane and goes from location to location. I have included the g-code its a simple small bracket that has four holes set to drill .1" deep the material is .09" thick.

The code is generated from visual mill 6.0 and my machine is a Sherline 5400 inch. It will mill without any problems, for some reason the drill operations don’t want to plunge.


N1 G00 G49 G40.1 G17 G80 G50 G90
N2 G20
N3 (Standard Drill )
N4 M6 T2
N5 M03 S1500
N6 G00 G43 H1 Z1
N7 G01 X0.3954 Y0.5986 Z0.1000 F3000.0
N8 G00
N9 G81 X0.3954 Y0.5986 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N10G80
N11 G00 Z0.1000
N12 G81 X0.7234 Y0.9266 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N13G80
N14 G00 Z0.1000
N15 G81 X0.7234 Y0.2706 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N16G80
N17 G00 Z0.1000
N18 G81 X1.0514 Y0.5986 Z-0.19 R0.01 L0.0
N19G80
N20 G00 Z0.1000
N21 M5 M9
N22 M30

Thanks for any help at all.

6

General Mach Discussion / DXF Symbol for drill? Anyone... Anyone???

« on: March 28, 2011, 09:16:52 PM »

Hello Guys,

Been breaking my self in to this new hobby, literally! I broke another endmill. I need to think twice and cut once. Anyway, does anyone know if you can use a drawing symbol that mach3 would interpret as a drill point?

Thanks,

Mike

7

General Mach Discussion / Why is the tool length important to mach3?

« on: March 25, 2011, 08:55:29 AM »

Why is the tool length important to mach3? When you jog down to the work piece and Zero the Z axis it knows were the tip of the tool is. The only thing I can think of is that when you are using multiple tools, you don't have to re-zero after each change. Am I right?

8

General Mach Discussion / Am I loosing steps?

« on: March 13, 2011, 10:26:47 PM »

Hey guys,

I have a sherline 5400 inch mill with sherline stepper motors and driver. The pc I am using is an IBM ThinkPad T43 with 2ghz processor and 512mb ram running Windows XP with no extras. I did a complete format of the hard drive and installed a watered down version of XP. I did install the following drivers: Audio, Touch pad, wi-fi, and Oprera web browser so that I can check the forums, check documentation or anything else I may need. I went into the bios and turned off power management and processor throttling which fixed my jogging problem. After starting mach3 the motors would jog fast then slow down before editing the bios.

I do have a question with the stepper motors: x,y and z seem to thump once or twice when jogged the full lenght of travel but I don't notice any difference in accuracy. how much is one lossed step equal to in distance? when I grip the motors when jogging, you can feel as well as hear a bump/thump. what is it? is that what happens when a step is lost?

I am still learning. Thanks in advance.

9

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 manual says there is a DXF import feature but?????

« on: March 10, 2011, 09:07:58 AM »

Hello guys,

I have the lockdown version of Mach3 and I don't see anywhere where you can import DXF files like the manual describes. Was this feature removed? if so, why?

10

General Mach Discussion / Sherline mill 5400 - Motors not moving the didstance Mach3 DRO shows

« on: March 05, 2011, 08:58:22 AM »

Hello guys,

Last night I installed my CNC upgrade for my 5400 Sherline mill. After spending a few hours figuring out how to get the motors to run because I didn’t know what I was doing, I spent another several hours tiring to get the homing and soft limits to work properly, my fault there too. I got everything working good except one more thing. Why when I have 5" travel in the Y-axis does the DRO show double digit numbers? right now I have a value of 35.00 for the Y-axis even though that’s not the full length of travel, but for purpose of understanding I set it to 35.00, when I thought it should be 5.00". Its like the motors are moving 0.1" instead of 1.0".

Do I need to calibrate the motors or to tell mach3 what an inch is?