Messages

4081

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Circle gcode only an arc

« on: August 12, 2011, 05:36:40 PM »

Looks like you have a demo of Mach3, which limits you to 50 lines of code from LazyCAM.

4082

General Mach Discussion / Re: Slaved Axis Direction

« on: August 12, 2011, 11:49:03 AM »

my original drivers were causing grief with motors stalling at full speed

How did you determine what "full speed" was?

To safely run a stepper machine, you should be running at about 75-80% of the point where stalling occurs. Running faster is asking for trouble, as the point where stalling occurs can vary with changes in lubrication, temperature, and other factors.

4083

General Mach Discussion / Re: Slaved Axis Direction

« on: August 12, 2011, 08:54:02 AM »

 

.........and I have connected the insides together with a shaft, the idea behind that is that if one starts to labour a bit the other one will help keep it running, kinda like hooking up two locomotives in tandem. Maybe a bit of overkill, but it works.

It's probable more likely to stall with the motors connected, as they'll always be fighting each other slightly, as Tweakie said.

4084

Works in progress / Re: Mach3 2010

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:54:00 AM »

You're an early riser Gerry.

Already at work.

For the life of me I can't find the 3.42.040 version to download!

FTP site:
ftp://anonymous:guest@machsupport.com/

EDIT: The forum is adding http to the link above. Remove everything before ftp and it will work.

I'm also getting this when doing an m6:

tool change z position error!!!!!!
Tool change z position
can NOT be above z=0
system going in to E-stop

         (ok)



any thoughts?

Read the manual.

You MUST home (REF) the Z axis at the top of Z axis travel, and that must be set to Z=0 in machine coordinates.
This error is saying that the Z toolchange position is set higher than Z=0, which can't be reached.

4085

Works in progress / Re: Mach3 2010

« on: August 10, 2011, 07:04:00 AM »

No, I have not had a single report of the probing not stopping the tool. I would guess that it's an electrical issue?
can you try using 3.42.040? If it does the same thing with that version, then I'd say for sure it's an electrical issue.

I have had two users report random, strange issues with the newest release.

One was the probing wizard would crash if opened more than once. Using 3.42.040 fixed this.

The other user reports that the macro seems to get lost during tool changes, if too much time passes while it's waiting.

Unless you need something in the latest versions, I really recommend using 3.42.040, as it just seems to be more stable. (I'm sure some will disagree.)

As for the probe length. You'll need to modify the M6End and M881 macros. Near the top of each, there is a section that defines the travel and feedrate for both inches and mm's. It should be easy to spot and change. Let me know if you need more help.

4086

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: LazyCam Professional 3.0 Crashing - a lot

« on: August 09, 2011, 06:19:07 PM »

gldraw sounds video card related. Try updating our video drivers. If the PC has onboard video, adding a videocard may help.

4087

General Mach Discussion / Re: sin/cos velocity profile control

« on: August 09, 2011, 06:01:50 PM »

The test version of the Tempest Planner does as well. I've found it to work extremely well for 2D cutting, but it's rather limited, with no pausing or FRO.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/board,83.0.html

4088

General Mach Discussion / Re: what software has this interface?

« on: August 08, 2011, 10:11:07 AM »

Looks like Rhino.

4089

General Mach Discussion / Re: keyboard shortcuts

« on: August 07, 2011, 12:18:44 PM »

Escape is not reset, the key below it is. "~"

The arrow keys should jog the machine by default. However, if you have a pendant, you are probably in MPG mode. You'll need to switch to a jog mode for the keys to work.
You can change the jog keys using Config> Hotkeys.

4090

General Mach Discussion / Re: Most Recommended USB Controller

« on: August 07, 2011, 10:24:32 AM »

Here's another non-Mach3 USB option.

http://www.edingcnc.com/