Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / accuracy problems

« on: April 28, 2011, 03:28:00 PM »

Hi All, I have just done a retrofit on a Standard Mill (Chinese knockoff of a Bridgeport) and am having problems getting the cals right on the Y axis. I finally got it set by the change and check method to the point that a 100mm move is consistantly within .01mm. When I run some gcode the result is somewhat erratic. Circles are slightly flattened in the y axis. I have tuned the motor down to 1500mm/minute  and it is the same. The x and y axes are capable of moving at 4000mm/min and 2500mm/mi respectively and sound very steady. I found that the bob 5v was very noisy when I enabled the motors and fixed that up by fitting a larger capacitor. This stopped the erratic motor movement that I was having. The noise on the 5v is now about 3 millivolts. The backlash on both axes is 0.02mm Is there anything in setting mach3 up that I may have missed?
Regards
Les

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: calibrating

« on: February 14, 2011, 03:03:19 PM »

Many thanks Jeff, I will give it a try.
best regards
Les

13

General Mach Discussion / calibrating

« on: February 14, 2011, 02:50:49 PM »

Hello all, I am trying to calibrate my dividing head (rotary axis) and am having the following problem. I am using the set steps utility in the settings screen and when I set the amount of degrees I want the divhead to turn a weird thing happens. If I set 360 degrees no movement occurs. If I set 359 degrees it moves 1 degree in the opposite direction. The position is correct but the stupid thing took a shortcut! If I set 330 degrees it goes 30 degrees the other way. Am I doing something completely dumb or should I operate the thing via a mirror (lol) Any ideas?

Les

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Timing pulleys

« on: August 03, 2008, 04:47:36 PM »

Hi Overloaded, Many thanks for your info, it has sorted out my frustrations no end.
best regards
Les

15

General Mach Discussion / Timing pulleys

« on: August 03, 2008, 12:46:45 PM »

Hi Guys, can anyone help with info on timing pulley dimensions? I need to make some 3mm pitch pulleys and the maths is driving me nuts! If you multiply the number of teeth of your pulley by 3 (pitch) you get the circumference and from there you can calculate the diameter. So far so good. When you cut the pulley the pitch is too coarse. Not good! I have some commercially made pulleys and measured them and the diameter of a 13 tooth comes out at 11.6 mm and the calculated diam is about .8 mm bigger. This is unfortunately not a constant and will increase with larger pulleys.(i think!)
Any suggestions
Les

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: gcode

« on: May 07, 2008, 02:34:23 AM »

Hi Guys, further surfing on the net has found a free download which does the job perfectly. Search for PCB-GCODE and you will get to the site. it creates code for both sides of the board and a drill file.
many thanks
Les

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: gcode

« on: May 04, 2008, 04:22:34 AM »

Hi All, Thanks for the replies. I persevered with eagle and found that you can run a program called mill-outlines.ulp which does the job. It can then be saved as filename.plt. I still have to play about with it further to see what final results I get.
Many thanks
Les

18

General Mach Discussion / gcode

« on: May 03, 2008, 04:26:56 PM »

Hi all, I'm using Eagle pcb to design (guess what!) pcbs and would dearly like to know how to convert my hard work into a gcode file. Any help will be much appreciated.
Many thanks
Les

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need Answers!!!!

« on: November 22, 2007, 04:38:47 PM »

Hi Pumpa, from what you say I think that you have your caps in the wrong place. Your toroid output should first go to the rectifier and the caps are wired across the resulting dc voltage. Be careful that you get the polarity of the caps right or you will have a bad smell in your workshop and a lot of cap innards all over the place. I'm surprised that the caps never blew anyway because they really don't like ac power.

Good luck
Les

20

General Mach Discussion / error code

« on: November 21, 2007, 03:31:48 PM »

Hi everyone, I have just loaded ver 3.60 and was using the gear cutting wizard. The job was running fine but during the run a popup appeared ststing that an error ,art code 3336 had occurred and did I want to try and repair it. If yes is selected, nothing happens....the job keeps on running to the end. If no, then Mach is immediately terminated. Anybody seen this?

Best regards
Les