Messages

11

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Hot Foiling/Embossing blocks

« on: January 13, 2012, 05:54:29 AM »

Some pics of the machine

I mainly use Vision Numeric Type3 , but sometimes also Artcam.

12

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Hot Foiling/Embossing blocks

« on: January 12, 2012, 06:36:57 AM »

And a couple more

13

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Hot Foiling/Embossing blocks

« on: January 12, 2012, 06:35:33 AM »

So our main business is engraving hot foiling and embossing blocks, so figured I'll post some pics of things we have done on our machine in the past

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 24, 2011, 07:28:34 AM »

Yes it would appear I completely forgot about the "plugin" aspect of this scenario

So you basically end up with an "expensive motion control card" that's been stripped of most of it's functionality when run under Mach3.

Pretty much the same case w.r.t my Servo's drives.....they got excellent functionality, but useless under Mach3.

Back to the drawing board I guess.

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 24, 2011, 02:22:19 AM »

Here's a nice little image from the KFlop website.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 24, 2011, 02:01:22 AM »

Logical thinking tells me the following :

G-code gets sent from Mach3 to the Servo's by means of pulses, the servo's then sends these pulses to the motors..... since the servo's currently have no S Curve or anything else fancy, the motors move according to the pulses received by the servo's which was sent by Mach3.

So in essence when you add a Motion Controller like Galil/Kflop , the g-code (pulses) gets sent from Mach3 to the Servo's, the servo's pass the information on to Galil/Kflop, which then adds in their "special magic" and pulses through the commands to the motors.

Since this is all a open loop system Mach3 doesn't really match up what it had sent originally and just excepts the fact that everything is 100% (which it is if everything is setup properly,or within your "tolerance" set in Galil/KFlop)

That all being said, this still doesn't add S Curve functionality anywhere as Galil/Kflop doesn't have that feature. I know Galil can handle the info for S Curve, but that needs to come from the Servo's.

AFAIK in order to get S Curve to work on my Servo's I need to make use of a PLC unit....... this is where it gets confusing for me hehe.

I'll do some more testing this weekend jrobson as I haven't had time for it just yet..... will keep you posted

This is just all theory, but sounds logical to me.

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 23, 2011, 03:05:28 PM »

Care to elaborate a bit more on that previous statement jrobson?

I assume it would give better feedback, but smooth stepper already fulfill that role?

But then again the Galil does have feedforward as well as a trajectory planner, so motion should be smoother and less jerky.

Heck I don't know anymore as who knows what Mach3 decides to do with all of the information at the end of the day.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 23, 2011, 12:38:51 PM »

hehe figured that would be the case Hood, was just hoping for a small miracle

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 23, 2011, 12:23:46 PM »

Thanks for the info jrobson.

It would appear my max would be around 0.15g's as the jerk becomes too much and starts affecting the quality of engraving

I've looked around and it appears as if a lot of people are using the Galil Motion Controller with their Mach3 setups.

Since my Delta Servo drives has S curve functionality built into them, would it not be possible to use that by connecting it to a Galil Motion Controller? Or does Mach3 negate that by using it's own "motion" ?

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Problems - Rant!!

« on: June 23, 2011, 07:27:06 AM »

Agreed jrobson.

I've been moaning about a proper S Curve Motion Card to my manufacturer for ages already, trying to convince them that it's something we not only want, but REALLY NEED!

As for Mach3 and S Curve, does it really not support it, or does using a motion controller maybe bypass Mach3's commands?

Otherwise we'll have to go EMC2 as that supports S Curve afaik.....