Messages

741

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hour Meter DRO

« on: May 04, 2012, 04:34:30 AM »

I'm using largely wizard-generated code at the moment.  Noticed this behaviour when surfacing a block using the "surface in Y" (I think) wizard - don't think there were any subroutines in the generated Gcode.  Vogavt, do you see the same number as me, 1 hr 12 min?

742

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hour Meter DRO

« on: April 30, 2012, 11:38:31 AM »

Actually the manual says...

"The elapsed time for the current job is displayed in
hours, minutes and seconds."

But my query as to why it stops at 1hr 12 min stands!

743

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: XBox360 Controller Plugin New User Info

« on: April 27, 2012, 06:00:43 AM »

Hi Lee, just to say that I have just installed the latest lockdown Mach version and the XBOX plugin and it now works perfectly.

Thanks,

John.

744

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hour Meter DRO

« on: April 25, 2012, 07:53:13 AM »

Further to this query, I noticed last week when running a long milling job that the elapsed time DRO stopped, at 1 hr 12 min IIRC.  Is this normal please?

Not that it matters very much!

John.

745

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: XBox360 Controller Plugin New User Info

« on: April 20, 2012, 10:24:51 AM »

Yes, it's weird - the RH joystick works fine with Turn but totally unresponsive on Mill.  I have been meaning to reinstall the latest version of Mach anyway so will give it a try.  Glad my feature suggestion was useful!

John.

746

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: XBox360 Controller Plugin New User Info

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:53:34 PM »

Thanks Lee for the quick response.  When I first tried the controller with Z on the RH LR stick the speed was fine, when I assigned Z to UD on the same stick it was slow, OK again when reassigned to LR.  So after your post I tried the calibration routine and it looked fine, no difference between LR and UD directions on RH stick.  But I must have changed something because now the UD direction does nothing at all!  So looks like I'll have to continue with Z assigned to LR on the RH stick.

I've also fired up Mach3Turn with the controller, again it's great.

A nice feature if you do another release would be to assign a button to "tab" so the jog screen flies out.

Cheers,

John.

747

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: XBox360 Controller Plugin New User Info

« on: April 19, 2012, 10:50:58 AM »

Bought a controller yesterday and just installed it today.  A couple of points...

If you buy a controller new it comes with an install disc, which I installed - seemed to avoid all the pain of downloading stuff from microsoft etc.  (My PC had the right version of DirectX.)

Once I discovered how to use the buttons on the controller and "receiver" to connect, everything sprang into life.

Now, a question if I may.  The LH joystick works fine for X and Y on my mill.  To start with the RH stick L<->R axis was assigned to Z which I find slightly counter intuitive, so I reassigned RH U<->D, but though this worked it was very slow and there is no apparent way to change it.  Is this a feature of the controller or can it be reconfigured please?

However I think this is a good gadget and great plug-in, much superior to the Shuttle Express I was using before.  And no cable!

Thanks, John.

748

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe feed errors due to timing pulley runout

« on: March 26, 2012, 11:48:37 AM »

I got the lathe new and it hasn't had much wear.  It was cutting undersize, not oversize, so zero cuts wouldn't help?  But thanks for the suggestion, another thing to look at if still dodgy.

749

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe feed errors due to timing pulley runout

« on: March 23, 2012, 10:59:30 AM »

Just an update here.  I have now rebuilt the cross slide drive with direct coupling of the motor to the leadscrew and things look much better, so I hope I'm back in business.  Thanks for all the input.

John.

750

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using Mach3 with a Denford mirac PC lathe

« on: March 20, 2012, 09:27:17 AM »

Try this site: http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewforum.php?f=40

To use Mach3 you would have to get to the actual stepper drivers in the Denford electronics, which might be possible, I think people have done it - but see the Denford forum.  I have converted a Denford Novamill which I bought without electronics to use Mach3, building up a set of drivers and breakout board.  Works very well.  Denfords are excellent machines.

John.