Messages

3331

General Mach Discussion / Re: What are the units of measure??

« on: February 10, 2013, 08:44:56 PM »

What are your native units set to, and is there a G20 or G21 in your code?

3332

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trigger macros broken?

« on: February 10, 2013, 09:16:17 AM »

3.43.022 has a bug in M6 macros that can cause Mach3 to lock up. It doesn't happen with the stock macros, though. But the M6 I use in my screenset to auto zero will lock it up every time. This  bug was fixed in 3.43.028, but 3.43.022 was still the lockdown version for well over a year until 3.43.062 I think.

3333

Mach3 under Vista / Re: No jog control during toolchange

« on: February 08, 2013, 07:54:08 AM »

What screen page are you on? You can only jog if the screen page has a jog on/off button, or if the jog flyout is open.

3334

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Height Setting Woes

« on: February 02, 2013, 07:38:46 AM »

Hmmm. I use 3.42.020 on my router.

But I do a lot of testing away from the machine using 3.43.062 with an emulated input, and haven't seen it not stop. But, I've probably never used feedhold before a probe move.

3335

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Height Setting Woes

« on: February 01, 2013, 10:27:33 PM »

I can tell you that I've never had this reported in the two years my screen's been available, and I have a LOT of users. I've never seen it happen. The fact that it  happens on both Big Tex's and mine would point to something else?

Any chance you're in incremental mode? There was a bug in an earlier version of my screenset that caused a problem if Mach3 was in incremental mode, but I only had one person ever report it. What version of my screenset do you have?

Also, any chance you've hit escape and killed a running macro at some point during the day? If this ever happens, I'd recommend closing and restarting Mach3 immediately, as I've seen issues with macros after ending one prematurely. But again, I've never seen a tool plunge into the plate.
And last, if you change tools  that many times, why aren't you using the automated method?

Tweakie, here's the code I think he's using:

sleep(1000) ' Pause for 1 second to give time to position probe plate

Code "F" & FirstProbeFeed ' Set feedrate to 10 ipm or 300mm/min

Code "(Probing for Z Zero.....)" ' Puts this message in the status bar

ZNew = (GetOEMDro(802) - FirstProbeDist ) ' Probe move to current Z - 6 inches
Code "G90 G31 Z" & Znew

While IsMoving() ' Wait for probe move to finish
Wend

ZNew = GetVar(2002) ' Read the touch point
Code "G0 Z" & ( ZNew + FirstRetractDist ) ' Move up .05 inch or 1mm in case of overshoot

While IsMoving()
Wend

Code "F" & SecondProbeFeed ' Set feedrate to 1 ipm or 25mm/min

ZNew = (GetOEMDro(802) - SecProbeDist ) ' Probe move to current Z - .25 inches
Code "G90 G31 Z" & Znew

While IsMoving()
Wend

ZNew = GetVar(2002) ' Read the touch point
Code "G0 Z" & ZNew ' Move back to hit point in case of overshoot

While IsMoving()
Wend

Call SetOEMDRO (802, TotalOffset) ' Set the Z axis DRO to plate thickness
sleep(500) ' Pause for DRO to update.

3336

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: AutoCad 2013 to MeshCAM to Mach3

« on: January 29, 2013, 01:10:23 PM »

Are you exporting an .stl? Is the model drawn full scale?
What units are you selecting in MeshCAM? WHat post are you using?
What are your native units in Mach3?

The only way it can be off is if it's drawn the wrong size. or if your mixing units somewhere.

3337

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing and Squaring a Gantry

« on: January 28, 2013, 10:21:00 PM »

The box should be checked if  you only have one home switch. It keeps the motors slaved throughout the homing procedure. When not checked, both motors home independently (at the same time) to their own switches, which is how the squaring is achieved.

3338

Tangent Corner / Re: Cabinet space reserved for disc drive

« on: January 27, 2013, 08:33:58 PM »

Do you mean the CD or DVD drive? I removed mine right after installing Windows.

3339

General Mach Discussion / Re: Understanding Tool offsets G41

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:08:38 PM »

P0.05 means you're using a tool with a diameter of 0.1
P is the tool radius.

There are three ways to specify the tool radius with cutter comp.
G41 Px.xx uses x.xx as the tool radius
G41 D2 will use the radius of tool #2 in the tool table
G41 by itself will use the radius in the tooltable of the current tool.

You need to show us your code to if you want to know why it doesn't work.

3340

General Mach Discussion / Re: motion controllers working with Mach3

« on: January 23, 2013, 08:57:26 PM »

Centipede too, from KSI Labs.