Messages

121

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bessie Rover 13 router retrofit with Yaskawa servo packs? Need help.

« on: May 24, 2010, 01:31:14 PM »

Manual won't come up for me - Can the drives be configurted for Step & Direction?

The newer Yaskawa Sigma series can be setup for Analog or Step&Direction. Omron sells a repackaged version of the Yaskawa drive that they call SmartStep that are stepper input only. I have also used Mitsubuishi drives that were step & Direction, but I preferred the Omron/Yaskawa drives. If you have the money one of these options might be easier to work with and you can get a local vendor to give you some assistance, depending on your level of electronics experience. It might cost a little more but you do buy access to their experience which might be what makes or breaks your project or your time frame for operation..

There are others out there - Automation Direct and others but I have zero experience with them.

122

dspMC/IP Motion Controller / Re: DSPMC controller and Orom Servo Driver/Motor interface

« on: May 13, 2010, 10:01:48 AM »

Those Omron Drives and motors are just rebranded Yaskawa parts.

The only other problem you might have is whether they are active High or Active Low signals. What I mean is - Active High is expecting you to supply 24V when you enable it. Active low means you will be pulling the signal to ground when you enable it.

You will also want to check and see how close to 10V your control signal ican get. I have had a CNC unit that only put out 9.5V so I had to adjust that setting in the drive to get max speed.

123

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using Mach3 with Reprap extruder

« on: May 13, 2010, 09:50:31 AM »

I think the best analog between your Reprap extruder and Mach 3 would be to use spindle control for the extruder. S98.2 m3 would replace the first E98.2. Use the spindle as the extruder control as the spindle output is not tied to any axis motion. In other words - you can at MDI type S98 M3 and the extruder would run, and just type M5 and the extruder would stop.  This would also let you use the spindle override feature to adjust the extruder feed rate if it is not putting out the correct amount of material and this would keep it independant of axis motion, or you could adjust axis feed override without altering the extruder rate. Either option would result in changes to how teh materiel is deposited.

I am assuming that the extruder runs independent of the other axis like the spindle does on a milling machine.

124

General Mach Discussion / Re: loss of control

« on: May 13, 2010, 09:32:22 AM »

After you configured it did you select Save Config at teh end of the config menu?

It can be a real pain at times, but if you completely screw up your config and don't select Save config it means that all you have to do is restart Mach3 to get back your machine.

There are a few other places where you have to do something similar, but it is really done that way so you have to deliberately save stuff that will alter your machines behaviour.

125

General Mach Discussion / Re: Router driving into wood and bed

« on: May 07, 2010, 06:03:03 PM »

A few questions -

Is there a g41 or G42  ahead of the line where this happens? I have had a couple times where I got strange results because of something not quite right when I used Cutter Left/Right. Not lately, not sure whether the problem is gone, or I am just writing better gcode...

Have you tried going to the toolpath screen and hitting Simul;ate Run - I have had a few times where this cleaned up the display and made things run better.

Is this on the first run of the day? If the machine was not in a good position when you started you might want to move it to a good area in the middle of travel and then exit and restart Mach3.

Can you post the code so we can see what it looks like?

Does the Z display show agree that the cutter is way below zero or is it at some bizarre position? Could be you are starting with bad values in one of the g54 through g59 settings. Check the offsets page and make sure there are no odd numbers there before you start. ( a set of MDI lines with G90 for the first one, and then G92 X0 Y0 Z0 can clean them up, just resets the current position to 0,0,0)

The reason I ask a bunch of questions is not that I am a Mach3 Guru, but because the biggest problem with diagnosing a problem is a lack of details so everyone makes a bunch of guesses and they may or may not provide any benefit.

126

General Mach Discussion / Re: paper guillotine back fence

« on: May 07, 2010, 05:49:55 PM »

Big question is what kind of drives are you using? Some drives have much of the needed power built in. You might be able to do all the control through a serial port.

 As far as program requirements - for controlling a 1 axis fence it would be fairly easy to write a program for an older DOS only machine that would position the fence, have presets , and be able to move to a user enterred position. Would even be possible to have it do a sequence of moves based on inputs (also through the printer port or keyboard)

Mach3 is a bit of overkill for the application, but it would not require much programming to use it, as long as you weren't trying to create too many special buttons and other functions that are not typical in a CNC machine.

127

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using Mach3 with Reprap extruder

« on: May 03, 2010, 10:02:37 PM »

Feedrates work a bit different in a normal CNC operation. - if there is no axis move then NOTHING will run. Your G01 F1500 will do nothing as there is no axis move. You will get the same results from the following move with F3000 as you would without the G1 F1500 line. the only way you can have any "motion" would be to treat the extruder as a "spindle" and set its speed and motion using the S1500 M3 command and the add an S3000 to another move. then to stop the extruder you would use M5. The other problem with your idea is that you would have to have a, Say a C-Axis tied to the extruder but it programming it would be a challenge as coordinated moves all axis start and finish at the same time.

128

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using Mach3 with Reprap extruder

« on: May 03, 2010, 12:16:34 PM »

What is it your are trying to do? Are you trying to control the Reprap with Mach3 or are you trying to make parts for the Reprap? From the research I have done into the Reprap you will be running a 3 axis machine with an extruder to lay down the material. 3 axis are X Y & Z. Does the extruder need a speed contol or on/off control? is the extruder the 4th axis? Might it be setup as the spindle axis and use speed commands to control extrusion rate?

If you want answers you need to describe your problem a bit more fully so those reading your post know what you are doing. otherwise we are apt to give you that answers we think you are asking for instead of answers that would be of some use to you. Not meaning to harsh, but we can't see what you are working with or imagining and thus it is hard to give good answers.

129

General Mach Discussion / Re: Radius to end of arc differs from raduius to start line ...

« on: April 24, 2010, 09:30:17 PM »

I started out in the machine shop many years ago running a LeBlond Tape Turn Regal. The GE 550T control handled errors in arcs by completing the arc and then moving to the end point. A few times i manually programmed and arc wrong and tried to make a fillet and then move through the part parallel to the spindle. Or radius the outside corner and turn the OD in 1 G02 move.

I will have to look into converting my VB code in my CAD program to produce incremental IJ.

In my experience it was some of the older controls that used incemental IJ, but the machines I have run all used IJ mode as set by G90 or G91.

130

General Mach Discussion / Re: Radius to end of arc differs from raduius to start line ...

« on: April 23, 2010, 11:47:23 AM »

And yet another reply... (is there a way I can edit a previous reply? I haven't seen it tif there is.)

I am working in Inches & Inches / minute, Were you thinking mm & mm/min?

Pete