Messages

201

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 USB version

« on: July 30, 2022, 02:23:39 AM »

Your local time is 5 hours behind uk.

I have one uc100 on about a 1 metre cable to the mill the other about 2 metres to the lathe.  Lathe has vfd drive, mill uses a kbe dc drive.  No problems with noise.

202

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 USB version

« on: July 29, 2022, 05:32:06 PM »

http://shop.cncdrive.com/  ??

It looks like you must be on US east coast?  I'm sure they have agents in the US even if they can't ship direct.

203

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 USB version

« on: July 29, 2022, 05:01:58 PM »

Happy to help. If you go this route make sure you get the genuine uc100 as there are clones that don't work very well with no support.  There is a good cncdrive support forum and I've found the company very responsive.
http://cncdrive.com/UC100.html

204

General Mach Discussion / Re: Fine Tuning the Spindle

« on: July 29, 2022, 03:50:10 PM »

Be cautious!  The KBIC is not grounded and it floats at about half mains voltage.  That's why the C11G pwm circuit is opto isolated and gets its supply from the KBIC.  So is the 12v PSU fully isolated from the mains?

205

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 USB version

« on: July 29, 2022, 02:22:59 PM »

Yes but you need a USB connected motion controller such as the UC100 from cncdrive.  This has a Mach3 plugin that allows Mach3 to drive it.  I have a lathe and mill both of which use the uc100.  Initially I used them with the same xp pc I used with the parallel port but now use a win10 mini machine.  I didn't even need to redo the ports&pins config!  The uc100 is built into the shell of a db25 connector and plugs directly into the breakout board. The usb cable plugs into a miniature socket on the back of the shell.

206

Mach3 and G-Rex / Re: MACH3 is unable to load G-code generated from Fusion 360

« on: July 28, 2022, 12:19:10 PM »

Change the file extension to .txt and try again?

207

General Mach Discussion / Re: Fine Tuning the Spindle

« on: July 27, 2022, 05:00:01 PM »

I'm not familiar with the ESS and I think you can read the documentation as well as I can.  But it seems to me that Mach controls spindle speed either by (a) step and direction which is not applicable; (b) as a PWM mark/space ratio; (c) (I think) via modbus (which isn't applicable).  So PWM is the only option, and presumably the PWM frequencies need to be the same across Mach and ESS.  Unless you want to run your spindle in reverse you could ignore Output 1 I think, just tick Disable Spindle Relays.  Is there a support forum for ESS?

208

General Mach Discussion / Re: Fine Tuning the Spindle

« on: July 27, 2022, 06:33:00 AM »

As far as I can see from the C11G documentation it expects to see a PWM waveform at 1000 Hz which it smooths to generate an isolated 0 - 10v for the speed control (see p7 half way down).  However the Mach documentation also points out that the speed resolution depends on the kernel speed selected.  If you select a kernel speed of 25kHz and a PWM frequency of 1 kHz as the C11G seems to want than you will only get 25 speeds (25000/1000).  That's assuming that the PWM frequency of 1000 Hz is possible at all.  Usually the PWM frequency is set to 20Hz or so, but then the C11G may not smooth the signal very well (the documentation is poor on this point).  I assume that you have ticked the PWM Control box in the spindle tab of Ports&Pins?

209

VB and the development of wizards / Re: position memorization

« on: July 25, 2022, 04:30:43 AM »

This is an ideal learning opportunity for you.  Most of the clues you need are there in the macro you already have.

210

General Mach Discussion / Re: Screw mapping curve0.dat file format

« on: July 21, 2022, 05:17:52 AM »

I had a sudden thought - another .dat file in mach3 is the tool table.  There are a couple of macros around to export and import the tool table, I have versions by Rimmel that work very well.  You might see if they could at least be modified to work with the screw map file?  I attach copies, for more info try searching for "tool table export" on here?