Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using a 3 axis router as a lathe - oddball question

« on: April 24, 2009, 08:07:00 AM »

Well thats encouraging! So it probably wasn't a dementia inspired idea after all

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General Mach Discussion / Using a 3 axis router as a lathe - oddball question

« on: April 23, 2009, 07:59:56 PM »

A strange idea popped into my head as I was drifting off to sleep last night. I'd been thinking of making some dollhouse decorations for a 2 year old and wondering how I could turn miniature baluster without a lathe. A picture formed of my router holding a dowel in the 1/4" collet and a tool bolted to the table and the router was moving in two axis to cut the baluster - a vertical lathe where the work moves instead of the tool.

Has anyone ever tried this? I was trying to figure out how to set up my axis to accomplish this but nothing is sticking to my aged neurons. I can't imagine it would be all that difficult to accomplish. Of course, being supported only at one end means long workpieces are verboten but since I only have 5" travel on my Z that temptation is moot

Any ideas?

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Jerky motion on Gcode files

« on: November 07, 2007, 11:47:05 PM »

Check your cv control in config and the cv feedrate on the settings page. Turn them off and put a g64 in you init string and you should be back to your original operation

That's it!

Ran smooth as butter. Played around a bit and I think all thats required is just clicking off CV Feedrate on the settings tab. I left CV mode on, shut down Mach etc, loaded up the new (no G64) file that was jerky and it was jerky again. Looked at the settings tab and CV Feedrate was on. Clicked it off while machine was running and it instantly smoothed out.

With CV Feedrate off I chose "Save settings" from the config menu and found out that saving your settings turns CV Feedrate back on!

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Jerky motion on Gcode files

« on: November 07, 2007, 10:23:19 AM »

Ok, got that job off the table and loaded up an older file that I know for sure was nice and smooth. Result was jerky.

I double checked the CV setting in the general tab and its on. I checked the backlash comp setting and it is off. I toggled the CV setting, shut down mach and restarted, no change. Rebooted the machine and no change.

I have to conclude the 2.58's CV is broken. Odd thing is that I ran several jobs under 2.58 without seeing this and now it won't go away.

The only change to my system was installing VCarve Pro 4.506 and its update to 4.507

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Jerky motion on Gcode files

« on: November 07, 2007, 10:01:51 AM »

Actually, I've just run into this as well (upgraded Mach about a week ago). I made a new job with VCarve 4.5 and my machine near shakes itself to death on what used to be real smooth curves. CV was the first thing I checked but the button is still glowng green.

Once I get this job off the table I'll try an older file (VCarve 4.0) and see if there's any difference. I checked the GCode and there's nothing in there that didn't appear in older files. Cant really see how GCode would mess up CV either (though I'm no expert).

This is under Mach 2.58

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Delay at end of each drill op

« on: November 03, 2007, 06:40:52 PM »

It took longer than I thought to get to doing another board. Tried it this morning and setting the CW and CCW delay to 0 had no apparent effect. There is still about a 1 second delay between finishing one drill op and moving on to the next.  Could it simply be that it takes that much time to decifer the next drill op? I'm running a 3.2 gig P4 (single core) with two gigs of ram and just about everything shut off (over a gig of physical ram free before I start Mach).

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Delay at end of each drill op

« on: October 31, 2007, 10:22:10 AM »

Ah, I see it. Since I don't have spindle speed control I didn't pay attention!

I'll try it out tonight. Thanks much!

8

General Mach Discussion / Delay at end of each drill op

« on: October 30, 2007, 09:13:42 PM »

I'm not sure where the delay is coming from in the following code (just a newb). This drilling sequence gets to the hole and does the drilling just fine but once its back to the clearance position it just sits for about 1 second before moving to the next position.

preamble

G17 G20 G40 G54 G64 G90
<other mops>
Z0.0829 F47.244094
(Standard Drill )
T3 M6
(0.04)
X1.8925 Y2.5750 Z0.0200 F47.244094
G81 X1.8925 Y2.5750 Z-0.0745 R0.05 F30.0
G80
G01 Z0.0500 F30.0
G81 X1.9925 Y2.5750 Z-0.0745 R0.05 F30.0
G80
G01 Z0.0500 F30.0
G81 X2.0925 Y2.5750 Z-0.0745 R0.05 F30.0
G80
G01 Z0.0500 F30.0
G81 X2.1925 Y2.5750 Z-0.0745 R0.05 F30.0
G80

<etc>

I know the G01 is simply the move to the new position, G81 is the canned drill cycle and G80 cancels the drill cycle, but thats about as far as my knowledge takes me. What is causing the delay and how can I get rid of it?

Lol! Actually, I just noticed the feedrate.. Dunno how/why it went to so many decimal places. Have to check the visual mill settings.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting the right software

« on: October 29, 2007, 10:47:44 PM »

I know nothing about Artcam but I do use Vcarve pro. As mentioned above, getting from photo to 3D isn't just a mouseclick away but I have to imagine it is possible with some work.

VCarve itself wouldn't help you with photos but PhotoVcarve (same people) has a lot of stuff built in. You can check the demo at http://www.vectric.com They also have forums and lots of discussion about the products. The forum link is in the support link (lower left).

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Little video of etching PCB. Mach ain't just for heavy metal!

« on: October 29, 2007, 07:40:33 PM »

I used DipTrace ( www.diptrace.com ) for the schematic and board layout. I actually prefer a little know program called QCad ( www.winqcad.com ) but its DXF/PDF output isn't really suitable for mechanical etching. They look fine until you reduce the line size to to "1" and they you see that circles aren't even close to connected at the ends etc. That might have been corrected in the two years since I last bought an update.

Diptrace was cheaper than a QCad upgrade and its DXF output is almost perfect. The only problem being a few redundant line segments that I have to find and delete before Visual Mill will stop complaining about open curves. When I first tried there were quite a few redundant lines but one email and sample file to the author and most of those disappeared. I just have to stop procrastinating and send another sample with the remaining ones and that'll probably be eliminated in the next maintenance release.

Almost forgot; for some reason if I export the drill pattern seperately VisualMill will sometimes report that the file is empty. I just load into Rhino then save as 3dm (no other action) and that makes Visual Mill happy.