Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Re: digitizing probe

« on: July 20, 2010, 01:53:33 PM »

I bought one of the ones in the link below and it worked well for me, it appears to me to be more accurate than the one you mentioned.  There is also a long thread about it in the "bargain basement" section in the forum here.

http://www.wildhorse-innovations.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=80

Paul T.

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: THIS IS DEDICATED TO "HOOD"

« on: April 28, 2010, 11:35:06 AM »

Hood, you're a good dude, thanks for your efforts helping Mach users.

Paul T.

43

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cincinnati Sabre 750 retrofit to Mach 3?

« on: March 20, 2010, 12:56:57 PM »

The approach I've seen used adapting Mach to a machine with a tool changer and complex spindle control is to use a separate PLC controller to control the tool changer and the spindle, and have Mach just send commands to the PLC.

These guys sell reasonably priced PLC's:

http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Home/Home;jsessionid=5e30595775d256d52290722859345d5b7367

I'd also take a look at the Modbus based I/O expander available from Peter Homann, it may have enough capability to control the tool changer:

http://www.homanndesigns.com/Products.html

Good luck-

Paul T.

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: Advice sought on a version upgrade of Mach3

« on: February 24, 2010, 11:00:16 AM »

I would definitely run it with the current version for a while to get familiar with it before jumping to the latest version.

Getting Mach setup correctly on a mill can be a little tricky, and since someone has been through that already I'd take advantage of that and get used to how the machine works with the current version. As suggested, backup the current version before installing the new one, and if you have an extra PC lying around, I'd keep the 2.45 running on the old one and bring up the latest Mach on the 2nd PC to make it easy to swap back and forth during the setup process.

Good luck-

Paul T.

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: Version .036 and .037 changes

« on: February 16, 2010, 02:35:21 PM »

Wow, somebody finally agrees with me.

I've been pleading for the creation and continued update and maintainence of a set of "test suites" for Mach for years, that exhaustively test every feature and function it has, (and even offered to write some of them) but there hasn't been any internal or external support for the concept.

I still strongly believe it should be done, and these tests should be run and checked everytime a new release is created.

Paul T.

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: Negatating variables in G-code.

« on: January 30, 2010, 06:02:51 PM »

Flyer, I'm assuming you mean that you would like L0 as a subroutine argument to mean that the subroutine does not get executed-

If so, this interpretation was implemented in Mach a year ago or so. Its very useful as it allows conditional execution, which otherwise can't be implemented in Mach as it doesn't support If Then statements.

Paul T.

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: Negatating variables in G-code.

« on: January 30, 2010, 01:07:29 PM »

Wow, there's a G code standard that states that expressiions like #1 = [-#2] aren't legal?

I've reported that as bug in Mach several times over the past couple of years and I thought it just never made it high enough up on the priority to get fixed, I didn't know there was actually a spec somewhere saying it shouldn't be legal.

Having to do #1=[0 - #2] sure makes macros look ugly, I'd be really surprised of most of the modern CNC controllers (Fanuc, Haas, Fadal, Siemens, etc.) still adhered to that part of the spec.

Paul T.

48

General Mach Discussion / Re: Subroutines

« on: December 06, 2009, 05:52:56 PM »

Below is an example of simple subroutine based parameterized Mach compatible macro I use.

(Filename: DrillSimple.tap)
(Drills a continuous hole at the current X, Y location to the specified depth)
(Z must be set at zero on top of workpiece)
(If desired depth can be compensated for tip length)

G20 (Units: Inches)
G40 G90 G94

(Set Editable Parameters)
#1=1.0      (Set Depth)
#2=2500      (Set RPM)
#3=3.0       (Set Feed Rate)
#4=0.1      (Set Rapid Height)

#5=0.0      (Set to 1.0 to add tip length comp, 0.0 not to)
#6=0.250   (Drill diameter, required for tip length comp)

(Internal Parameters)
#10=[[#1/-1] - #5 * #6 * 0.3]     (Drilling Depth)

S#2 F#3
G0 Z#4      (Raise to Rapid Height)
M3       (Spindle On)

(Make any required X,Y move)
(G0 X1 Y1)
M98 P1024 L1 (Call Simple Drill subroutine)

M5 M9      (Spindle, Coolant Off)
M30       (Program End)

O1024 (Subroutine to Simple Drill)
G90      (Set Absolute)
G0 Z0.02   (Rapid to just above workpiece)
M8       (Coolant On)
G1 Z#10      (Drill)
G0 Z#4      (Raise to Rapid Height)
M9      (Coolant off)
M99       (Subroutine Return)

49

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems with G52 or fixture offsets, narrowed it down to this code.

« on: October 08, 2009, 01:44:25 PM »

Radioactive, I don't know anything about this specific fixture offset problem, but there are unfortunately other problems with fixture offsets in Mach3.

If you do a feed hold and then start in G code with fixture offsets you're asking for a big crash (and this got me pretty bad), Mach will often apply the wrong fixture offset when the Start is hit.

A workaround for this problem is to put a dwell operation right before the fixture change, ie:

G4 P1 (Fixes Mach3 Feedhold problem)
G59 P#101 (Change to Specified fixture offset)

I don't know if this workaround will help with your problem, but its worth a try, let us know if it helps.

I really hope this gets fixed in the new release, as far as I'm concerned this is "Class A" critical bug that shouldn't be present in a Mach release version, a machine or a finger can really get hurt with problems like this.

Paul T.

50

General Mach Discussion / Re: How often do you upgrade your version of Mach?

« on: September 17, 2009, 03:44:50 PM »

Bill, having used Mach for several years, I find the best approach is to only upgrade when either there is a new feature you absolutely need to have or there has been a bug fix that is important to you.

Unfortunately given the tight programming resources, Mach isn't tested that thoughrowly (sp) when new releases are created, so sometimes a new release will come along with an unexpected bug or 2.

I would look at the release notes link next to the download link though to see if between .020 and .029 there were any bug fixes you needed. I'm currently at 0.026 because I needed a subroutine bug that was fixed.

Good luck-

Paul T.