Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 04, 2011, 09:00:42 PM »

I managed to get the mill oriented correctly tonight. In the input section. I had Home, ++ and -- all active for all 3 axis.

 as I only have switches on one end of the X & Y axis. I simply set the Home and X-- and Y++ inputs as active. this seems to have fixed the issue. when i would ref all home. i think it was getting confused. it seems to be working correctly now!

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM & Mach

« on: May 04, 2011, 06:17:01 PM »

ok well....plan b...this did not work. it doesn't matter what i set the spindle pulley settings to. the same thing happens. I turn the spindle on in mach. and nothing happens. but Mach says "PWM bumped to minimum settings" if i then press reset the spindle will run at whatever % i set the min setting at under spindle control.


So something is not working right. very frustrated.

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM & Mach

« on: May 03, 2011, 11:20:06 PM »

 after reading this:
http://www.buildlog.net/cnc_laser/mach_laser_power.html

 I think i see some of my problem. I had read this when i built my motor controlled and used the settings listed.

The big problem i see is how i have the pulleys set up. he has it set for 0min and 100max and for PWm this equates to off and 100% power!! that's what i have wrong. with the pulleys set to 5000 and 30,000 the PWM controller doesn't know what to do. which is why it always defaults to the min PWM i have set in the spindle set up! AH HA!

 I will give these settings a try!

14

General Mach Discussion / PWM & Mach

« on: May 03, 2011, 10:47:51 PM »

I am having a heck of a time getting Mach to output a PWM signal. Now I have managed to get this to work before...but that was on a different machine.

 I have designed an Opto isolated PWM motor controller. and I designed a PWM signal generator. these are connected together with a switch so that a user can select Manual control (from the PWM sig generator) or from PC control (from the printer port).

 With the Manual control signal generator everything works fine. I am using 400hz as my PWM signal. so everything works perfectly stand alone.

BUT... when i try and get the PC to output a PWM signal is where i run into problems. I have setup mach to output a PWM signal on say pin 6 and have set up 400hz as my base frequency and i have 20% set as the minimum PWM. I have the pulley ratio set to 1 as my spindle is direct drive. I have set 5000rpm as my min and 30,000 rpm as the max (changing these settings doesn't make any difference).

when I turn the spindle on in mach, nothing happens. but if i then press reset the spindle runs at the minimum speed i set up under the spindle control. IE if i set it for 20% that's what it runs at. pressing the speed up/down buttons just stops the spindle.

 So im not sure whats going on...

 When i was designing the ISO/motor controller I used a different PC and it worked GREAT! i could change speeds from within mach and everything! but i dont remember if i had something set up differently or whats going on...

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 03, 2011, 05:20:36 AM »

Ok good I have all axis moving the right ways then. I will copy the XML when i get to the shop tonight.


Thanks again
Zc

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 02, 2011, 10:39:08 PM »

Maybe I should move the Y-axis home switch to the front of the table...

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 02, 2011, 08:55:50 PM »

Hmmm This is still now working correctly. I reversed the motor connections to the Y-axis. now when the tool moves away from the from of the machine...away from me, the DRO increases. Ok so that's correct now. which way should the X-axis move then? if it moves right should it increase?


I entered a value in the home off value Y box. as you said equal to the table size.

 If i press ref all home, the Z- zeros at the top, the Y-moves back and zeros at the back, the X moves left and zeros there.

 If i then press regen tool path. it shows the design off the table, in fact in front of the table on the left.

 I played with it in all sorts of ways, but no matter what i do I cannot get the X part of the curser in the tool path window to ever go to the top left of the table view. it always is at the bottom left of the table and then moves off screen when the tool moves towards me...So I have something really goofed up.

 I wonder if part of the problem is that my home/limit switches are at the back and to the left. there are no switches in front or to the right.

 I am half inclined to just put it back the way it was and deal with it working upside down.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 02, 2011, 07:26:34 AM »

Yes you are correct in your assumptions of my axis orientations. thansk for looking at the vids.

 That's right i remember you saying that about the home off value. i did play with that a little bit yesterday. but i wasn't sure what i was doing (im not real sure what i am doing most days LOL). Ok i will play with that some more and get that figured out.

 THANK YOU for your help!


Dave

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mill orientation

« on: May 02, 2011, 07:16:12 AM »

Hmmmmm. if i reverse the Y, then the pattern is shown off the table in the view window...

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: 500 line test designs??

« on: May 01, 2011, 07:21:14 PM »

here is the heart design. it was a little small. i figured out how to change the scale after this run and re ran it. i should have taped that run but the file worked great!

 Thank you everyone for the help! i am feeling MUCH better about my progress with this machine now!