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Messages - Sargon

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1
General Mach Discussion / Re: Tools?
« on: December 24, 2011, 06:27:28 AM »
The best way that we've found in our shop is just perusing the catalogues. There are tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of tools out there - an all encompassing go-to resource wouldn't be possible. I suppose there are guides out there (I don't know of any specifically), but we've found that nothing replaces good old fashioned homework. In our case we machine primarily plastic, so it's a bit of a specialty, but we've found incredibly drastic improvements in results by finding the right tool for the job, and I don't think we could have found some of the tools that we use every day if we didn't do our own homework.

By all means, if you can find a guide to help get you started, use it. I just wanted to encourage you and others reading this to dig into the various tool catalogues and take a look for yourselves, as every project tends to have it's own needs. Some of the best tools we use are quite new, and likely wouldn't be in any guide. As you gain experience you will get a better idea of what may work, and by looking through the catalogues you may see a tool that you will need in the future - a "eureka" moment - sometimes you won't see the application for a lot of the tools until the application is right in front of you - "that's what that tool is for".

When you find a tool that looks promising, hop on the net and type in the description - many times you will find better details on the applications this way.

If you do find a great guide, be sure to share it here - I for one would definitely be interested. The more I can learn about tooling the better machining jobs I can accomplish.

Good luck, happy chip-making, and Merry Christmas to All!

2
General Mach Discussion / Re: "save as" with a wizard?
« on: December 23, 2011, 08:01:32 AM »
You can save the GCode to a file by editing it and using "Save As..."


3
Mach3 under Vista / Re: Getting up and running in Vista
« on: December 22, 2011, 01:44:08 PM »
Im beginning to believe that artsoft and mach3 is just flat out a horrible program. ive ran the program withoput gliches for 5 years on windows 98 without any problems. until my computers hardrive crashed and i had to buy a new version and a new compouter. ive done everything possible to try to runb on windows7 and it wouldnt. so i tried windows vista and it still wont run my plas-table. why would they put under system requirments the it was compatible with both if it truly wasnt? it makes no sinse to me at all and ive virtually done everything that everybody in these forums suggests to no avail. very frusturating in the fact that im losing about $1500-2000 a day without my table running. if you guys cant figure out how to make programs compatible with multi-computers, you may want to re-asses your enging deoartment! very disgruntled and unsatisfied!

If you have spent any amount of time on these forums you would know that Mach3 works the best on XP. If you are losing $1500-$2000/day, why  are you screwing around with Vista and Win7? Just shell out a measly $150 for XP, reformat, install it, and boom, in 1 afternoon you are up and running! For that fact, you can spend $150 - $200 max and get a complete HP or IBM machine with XP that's more than capable of running Mach3. It should be on a dedicated system anyway.

This was also your first post - so have you even asked anyone what might be wrong? You used it for 5 years presumably happily (this is your first post after all) and now you want to come here and bash it because you can't figure it out? It's also been posted here many times that some systems just won't work with Mach3, even on XP because of how the manufacturer has designed the PC - all PCs are not equal - they are IBM clones and every manufacturer does things slightly differently. HP and IBM are your best bet - but if you've spent time in the forums you should know that already.

I just don't understand people sometimes.... If you want help, ask. Not too many people here are going to help with this kind of negativity. I understand your frustrated, but that doesn't justify it.

If you do have a question, please restate it.

4
I get the same error running in XP Mode on Windows 7, but it does work on just Windows 7 after removing the "... = settings()" function calls and the "If Button = -1 then" lines.... Error is then on line 26, but it's referring to the same thing. Funy that on Win7 it works OK though.

Nothing, AFAIK, needs to be installed to make this work - the function should be supplied by Enable...

I'm sick today, but if I get some time where I'm feeling OK I will go ever the code and look for errors. I just can't concentrate right now...

5
General Mach Discussion / Re: trying to improve motor speed
« on: December 21, 2011, 07:12:12 PM »
Don't just leave without your winnings! Ian bet you the motors were round, but you indicated that yours look like the top picture - square canister. Call the bet!

lol

In any case, good luck with the rebuild, and don't forget to have fun with it. Do some poking around online at machines that others have built and posted info/specs if you need ideas. Learning about and building the machines can easily be more enjoyable than running them!

Enjoy!

6
The question pertained to resizing a multidimensional array. Initializing it wouldn't help accomplish this.

7
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying - all my machines have homing switches, so I guess I was making an assumption.

8
Ref all home requires homing/limit switches to be installed. The axis will move until it finds the switch, so I believe the behaviour that you are seeing is normal. Of course, hitting the Stop button should cancel the homing operation.

To disable so it isn't accidentally triggered, you can use the "Edit Button Script" function under the Operator menu, then click the ref all home button. Add the command "End" without the quotes to the beginning of the script. When you have installed the switches you can then just remove this line using the same process and homing should work.

9
It is likely due to the part origin not being aligned to the origin in the CAD program. Try shifting the part to 0,0 in the cad and regenerate your nc file in LazyCAM. That's my best guess without being provided the dxf.

10
General Mach Discussion / Re: Single Line Fonts (Stick Fonts).
« on: December 17, 2011, 07:38:54 AM »
Thanks for sharing!

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