Messages

3681

General Mach Discussion / Re: Plasma Consumable Tracking

« on: November 03, 2012, 11:45:35 PM »

Do you ever need to do G68 coord rotation.  That is where you can ROTATE MACh3 coord base to make it fit the material . NOW IF you use the G28.1 method of TOM then it will not work BUT if you use the G31 method of TOM it works fine.

How we use this is with jobs that require you to cut say 5 pieces of  the same artsy work AND you need to use up some drops. I cut the first piece and use it as a pattern to find another spot on the sheet that may be used. I lay the pattern on the material and rotate it until it fits and draw a line on the RH side extents of the part this show how much it needs to rotate.  The Script allows you to set teh 0,0 point and then move to a point on the drawn line. It then calculates what ANGLE that LINE is and applies it to the corrd rotation angle. Then if you need to verify it  run the part preveiw routine to verify that it will cut .

It works good on LARGE sheets on the table that cannot be rotated very far if any.

YEP the barcode is NOT for everyone .Here it works good because I can give them a stack of cuts to make and all they have to do is scan in the barcode to load the program. It save them having to find the program to load.  AND a lot of times teh filenames are very similar and easy to use the wrong filename.

NOW WHAT do you need to make you life easier??? MACH# wise that is.

(;-) TP

3682

General Mach Discussion / Re: Plasma Consumable Tracking

« on: November 03, 2012, 11:03:50 PM »

THere IS a piece of OLD software for transfering pages from screenset to screenset for MACH3 it was written years ago AND works very well. I'll dig it out it could become VERY usefull these days.

(;-) TP

3683

General Mach Discussion / Re: Plasma Consumable Tracking

« on: November 03, 2012, 11:00:20 PM »

You are DA MAN, (;-)

What else do you need ?

InSheetCam we have the Barcoding of the Filename to the report section working GOOD. When you post your part file you also create a report to print. When you are ready to cut  that file we use a barcode reader to read the filename into MACH3.

Not really for everyone but it saves time and typing or MISTYPING here (;-).

How about a quicky FILE reader PAGE for mach3. You can load and veiw files then decide to keep or MOVE or delete the file from the mach3 Gcode dir.

(;-) TP

3684

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Visualmill demo locking up ?

« on: November 03, 2012, 10:23:13 PM »

You do realize that this is a MACH3 forum NOT a visualmill forum ?

Just a thought, (;-) TP

3685

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Digitizer output comand?

« on: November 03, 2012, 10:21:23 PM »

Those processes are for using the G31 probe routine and they record the Trip position of the probe tip. IF you are going to use a probe to gather the data then when you open the file MACH3 writes to that file automatically on each probe trip Until you close the file.

IF you are going to gather data any other way you will have to write your OWN script(plugin or CB macro) to record the data to a file.

Hope that helps, TP

3686

SmoothStepper USB / Re: SmoothStepper firmware for LinuxCNC?

« on: November 03, 2012, 08:23:52 PM »

The SS was DESIGNED and coded to respond to MACH3 motion language. To use it with LinxCNC you would either have to write a plugin for LinuxCNC to inturput the EMC2 motion language and send it to the SS to run OR create new code for the SS that understands the EMC2 motion language. AND you would LOOSE some of the cool features that EMC2 offers as a reatime controller.

There are already COntrollers for LinuxCNC that work similar to the SS.

But as Gerry mentioned the LinuxCNC developement group is NOT a very open minded bunch overall and tend to do things THEIR way or NO WAY regardless of what is an industry standard for most things.

I USE both, along with about a 1/2 dozen more (;-) TP

3687

General Mach Discussion / Re: Post processor files type in vectric products

« on: November 03, 2012, 08:14:12 PM »

As long as the file is an ascii based file and the filename fits the windows filename spec the ext can be just about anything.

TestFile.txt
Testfile.NC
Testfile.NCC
Testfile.NGC
TestFile.BFH

(;-) TP

3688

General Mach Discussion / Re: Post processor files type in vectric products

« on: November 03, 2012, 07:59:47 PM »

Mach is NOT locked into 1 preferred file type. It can process MANY types . The type is really ONLY the ext name.

JUST A THOUGHT, (;-) tp

3689

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and Tapmatic Tapping Head

« on: November 03, 2012, 07:57:15 PM »

NOT a problem I HAVE used the clutches a time or two (;-). But you have to be careful of the settings as IF it slips too much then you end up at the top of the retract BEFORE the tap clears the hole and when you move off it snaps the tap.

Proper tap for the application also plays a big role. Spiral fluted, spiral point botton tap, rollform tap. ? thru hole blind hole ,shouldered hole, recessed hole.

Chips can be a BIG problem with small taps.

(;-) TP

3690

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and Tapmatic Tapping Head

« on: November 03, 2012, 07:25:51 PM »

OK HOW it it snapping taps overfeed under feed overretract moving OFF center before it is done ? are you using a tapping cycle or remming cycle or hand coding it. Are you getting a pause from mach during the cycle? Are you bottoming the tap ?

Drill size to small ?

Wrong H factor for hole size ?

Not using proper tapping fluid for application?

Can you describe what takes place that snaps the tap?

(;-) TP