Messages

371

General Mach Discussion / Re: Delay between positioning during G81 drilling

« on: March 04, 2022, 11:04:25 AM »

Yes, so the delay must be as a result of the way G81 is implemented in the G code interpreter/motion controller rather than intrinsic to F360.

372

General Mach Discussion / Re: Delay between positioning during G81 drilling

« on: March 04, 2022, 08:46:40 AM »

It looks from the video that the delay is after the drill has withdrawn and the machine waits thinking before moving to the next position.  Have you tried doing just a G0 move to each hole position and do a single drill move at each position, just a G1<z depth> F<feedrate>?

373

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 04, 2022, 05:07:13 AM »

You don't NEED to buy a new licence, the one you have will work just fine if you download the last version of M3 062.034 as I said early on in this thread.  On the other hand M4 is supported which is a bonus and probably better for the future.

374

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 03, 2022, 05:02:17 PM »

I run a 4th, rotary, axis with the uc100 on my mill. Limit switches aren't an issue on that.

375

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 03, 2022, 05:40:59 AM »

So in the end if you want fast pulsing and loads of I/O then the ESS is great.  All I'm saying is that the UC100 was a fast and easy upgrade and outperforms the PP, and supports all the I/O that I use on my lathe and mill.  I have used it with both Win XP on my old PC and now on Win 10, no issues with installing the plugin.

Your mileage may vary.

On the spindle question, my mill uses a Baldor motor similar to the Taig with a KBE speed control; lathe has a 3/4 hp 3-phase with VFD.  No evidence of any interference from either with the USB connection - on the lathe there's about 1.5m cable, on the mill a metre.

376

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 03, 2022, 03:48:58 AM »

Ethernet has nothing to do with usb!  It's an alternative for connecting the pc to the motion controller.  The ESS has the same function as the UC100 that I mentioned except it has an ethernet cable rather than USB.  It's also about twice the price.  Whether you need the additional performance is doubtful in a hobby machine, as I mentioned I've found the uc100 works fine.  Whichever you choose you also need a BoB between the motion controller and the drives.  The uc100 is more compact than the ess which is about the size of a typical BoB.

377

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 01, 2022, 12:47:55 PM »

Hello Nicolas, CNCDrive is a Hungarian company but any queries will probably be answered by Balazs Klincsik who has excellent English and he was very helpful.  Their site has a "distributors" page http://cncdrive.com/distributors.html and there are a few in North America.  I actually bought the products from their UK distro, CNC4you - https://www.cnc4you.co.uk/Motion-Control/UC100-USB-Motion-Controller - and they use them in their own machines so I guess could support them as well.  Hopefully you'll get support from the US ones as well.  There's also a good user forum on the CNCDrive site.

378

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 01, 2022, 07:14:09 AM »

Basically a very small Dell Win10 machine.  It's the size of a small stack of CD cases...  Has 4 USB ports, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.  Obviously needs a monitor, which I had anyway, and I've treated it to a cheap Logitech wireless keyboard.  I also use a an XBox controller for jogging around.

379

General Mach Discussion / Re: Start Building a new CNC

« on: March 01, 2022, 05:44:22 AM »

Mach 3 support stopped in 2012 so it hasn't changed much!  The latest version is 3.043.062 and you can download it free from the Newfangled Solutions site.   Mach 3 is no longer supported except through this help forum but still works just fine.  Though actually I'm not sure about on Windows 8 - you'll need to check.  I started using it on an XP desktop (parallel port) but have just moved to a Win10 mini with external USB motion controllers with no issues.  Your existing license will also work.

The Gecko expects a parallel port driver on a 25 way D connector.  In my case both my machines have breakout boards with this connector, and I use UC100 USB motion controllers from CNCDrive and these work brilliantly.  They are built into a D-type shell with the 25-way on one side and USB on the other and are no bigger than a standard plug, except you don't need the horrible thick cable.  Some people have had issues with USB if there's a lot of electrical noise from the machine drive but with your titchy drive motor this shouldn't be a problem.  There are a lot of UC100 clones around, make sure you get a genuine one.  CNCDrive have the required drivers and plugin available from their site, you just install the plugin in the appropriate folder, select the UC100 on startup, and you should be away.

The Gecko looks a very nice unit, but quite high quality drivers are available much cheaper these days even for 4 of them, also good BoBs are quite cheap.

I had a very similar aim as you, to save a lot of space as I upgraded from my old PC, and it has been very successful (so far!).

380

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Windows 11

« on: March 01, 2022, 05:21:07 AM »

The encoders are presumably part of the servos and will feedback position to the associated motor driver.  Mach3 has no knowledge of encoders as such, it just assumes that the machine is driven by stepper motors, even if those "steppers" are actually servos.  If it sees a command to move a certain distance, say 1mm, it just uses its knowledge of how many steps are needed for the axis in question to move 1mm.  This is set by the "steps per unit" parameter in the config motor tuning menu box.  If you know the resolution of the encoders/servos, the ratio of any gearing between the motor and the screw, and the screw pitch, this can be calculated.  But there is also a convenient wizard somewhere which can measure and configure it for you. 

In case you don't have it download a copy of the Mach 3 manual from the Newfangled Solutions website - this covers all of this stuff.

If you are still in touch with the guy who sold you the machine, ask him if he still has a copy of the xml config file (see the manual to read about this) that he was using.  This file contains all the setup information, ports/pins/steps etc, and is backed up every time Mach3 runs.  If you can get a copy of this you should be able to just copy it into the correct folder and it will configure the machine for you.