Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: quilting or embroidery machine

« on: August 22, 2012, 11:18:59 AM »

Wow, I think I really started something here!  I have been doing some really deep thinking (I know, gets you into trouble every time), and I have come to the conclusion that a redesign of my quilter screen is in order, with larger buttons and a larger pattern screen, that's the easy part.  The hard part is the thread break indicator!  I have an idea for that as well.  I was watching some quilting videos made by commercial companies, and I found that most of the thread break detectors are using the thread tension spring to detect the slack in the thread when it breaks.  It will automatically move to the upper position when the thread breaks.  if that spring were magnetized, one could use a hall-effect sensor to detect the magnetized spring as it comes in front of the H-E sensor.  This way the only extra equipment needed would be the hall effect sensor and the wire to hook it up.  Possibly an arduino board could be used as an amplifier to bring the voltage output from the HE Sensor to 5 volts from the Arduino board into the input of the controller board, which would in turn trip the e-stop or stop hold/pause.  Think about this and let me know what you think.


Larry

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: quilting or embroidery machine

« on: August 21, 2012, 12:41:11 PM »

Hi All,

You guys have posted some good brain teasers based on my questions, so I am going to throw another one out and see what comes back.  Does Mach3 have the ability to back up on a pattern and start from a point before and interrupt?  Say for example I want to back along the present pattern being worked on, after I have a thread breakage, and I want to restart the sewing in order to continue the pattern.  This is a good feature that I believe could be incorporated into Mach3.  I would depend upon your input to design this feature.  What do you think?

Larry

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: quilting or embroidery machine

« on: August 20, 2012, 03:09:26 PM »

Tweakie,

A question for you based on the answer you gave above about using OEM code 1005.  How would you setup to detect the break of the optical switch?  Using say rockcliff 4 port board.  would you connect it to the inputs of the board?  and maybe set the mach3 settings to the specific ports on the board?  Got any ideas?  This could be a good thing for the quilters out there that are using their own designs.  I for one would love to have such a feature on my quilter.  I was also thinking that the pause should also activate the E-switch function for safety sake.

Larry

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: quilting or embroidery machine

« on: August 12, 2012, 04:04:57 PM »

Hi Larry L

I guess this is the broken thread problem; after the thread breaks there is a delay before the machine stops, leaving an unstitched section. Once the machine is rethreaded you want to back up along the stitch path manually, without sewing and the needle up until you reach the place where the machine stopped sewing then a little further back, an inch or so to lock off the loose end. The program can then complete automatically.

Commercial machines have a reverse button for this....

There is a reposition button in addition to the reverse button.

You may also have to move the machine head to an accessibile position, some quilting machine frames are very large Say 4 x 5 metres making it impossible to thread the machine if the sewing head is in the middle of the quilt. Commercial machines allow you to move the head to the side with X,Y buttons while remembering the last position where the stitching stopped.

The sequence in this situation is move to the side, rethread, reposition, then back up to the last stitched line and a little more to lock it off.

Can it be done easily with Mach 3?

Cheers
John

Hi John,

Thanks for responding to my inquiry.  I believe you are right about the repositioning of the sewing head.  It is necessary to move the head when rethreading.  However, the problem is that at this time Mach3 doesn't have a feature/button/function to allow this.  The real problem is that continuation of the stitching from the point of breakage or a bit back from that point is not  a normal function of the program at this time.  That is why I asked the question.  If some one can give me information on how to re-start the stitching as if it had never started, then I will be able to program that into the software or pattern.  Mach3 is a very capable piece of software that I have been using for about two years now, and I am extremely pleased with it's function.  I can't see changing to any other software.  The ability to change functions and to control the software any way you want to is absolutely amazing.  Art did a good thing writing the software.


Larry

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: quilting or embroidery machine

« on: August 12, 2012, 08:51:08 AM »

Hi all, I am back! And with another brain teaser of a question.  Can anyone tell me how I would reverse a pattern at the end of it's run so that the travel is in the opposite direction, and also, how would one set up Mach3 to restart at a given location to finish a pattern that has been interrupted?

Larry

16

Works in progress / Re: Design a screen that will calculate the number of times a pattern will repeat

« on: May 28, 2012, 10:26:29 AM »

Thanks John and BR549,  I can use info like this to set up the screens.  I think I'll use a little bit from each of your responses and use the idea of two buttons and two DROs to grab the measurements, then use the math that BR549 suggested to calculate the number of repeats that will be needed in one line, a line being a row of patterns.

Thanks guys, really helpful.


Larry

17

Works in progress / Re: Design a screen that will calculate the number of times a pattern will repeat

« on: April 10, 2012, 02:51:07 AM »

Thanks GER21,

I'll give it a try and see what happens.

Many Thanks,


Larry

18

Works in progress / Design a screen that will calculate the number of times a pattern will repeat

« on: April 09, 2012, 10:27:15 AM »

Ok, here goes!  I am the designer of a CNC Quilting machine for my wife, the client.  The client wants a new ability added to the Mach3 quilting program that I designed.  She would like to have the ability to set the sewing head at a specific location, and then move it to another location, let's say going from the left edge of the quilt to the right edge of the quilt, and push a button that will log the distance travelled, and based on that measurement, calculate how many times a given pattern will repeat in the space measured.  I am certain that it can be done, but being the dummy that I am, and definitely not a math wiz, I am pulling out my hair.

Does anyone have any ideas?


Larry

19

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Is it possible to call an external gcode file from within a gcode file?

« on: November 20, 2011, 08:26:19 AM »

Great, Thanks

Larry

20

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Is it possible to call an external gcode file from within a gcode file?

« on: November 17, 2011, 01:09:32 PM »

I am trying learn if it is possible to call an external Gcode file from within a Gcode file that is running.  What I am trying to do is be able to make a macro from a pattern repeating file that will call up the external pattern and repeat it the number of times entered into Gcode.

Regards,

Larry