Topics

11

General Mach Discussion / Physical buttons for plasma

« on: January 03, 2016, 06:00:20 PM »

I am about to build a plasma table, having never used a plasma before I was wondering what buttons I should have on my panel.

I will have Start, Stop, Feedhold and reference(Home) buttons and feed override pots  and axis select for MPG.
What other buttons would a plasma want?
Thinking one for finding the material surface, not sure if that is normal though?
Anything else?


Hood

12

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Avon knee mill with enclosure

« on: April 21, 2015, 03:36:41 AM »

Putting up this post for my friend from Glasgow.
He bought an Avon knee mill a while back and it has taken quite a while to get the retrofit done (weegies are slow ) but I am sure you will agree it has been worth it.
Below are 2 pics of the mill on his trailer just after getting it home.
The ways had been reground but the bearings in the X axis were not great so they were replaced and there is a small amount of backlash but he plans to get a new ball screw in the future.
more pics and descriptions to follow

13

CS-Lab / BobCAD and CSMIO Rigid Tapping

« on: January 04, 2015, 05:22:17 AM »

If anyone uses BobCAD and the IP-S or IP-A (with Enc module) and intends to do rigid tapping then I have altered my post processor to put out suitable code for the M84 macro.
I have it working but am still tweaking it to try and make things a bit better.
At the moment each hole that is to be tapped has to be a seperate operation, this is because the M84 macro does not recognise the canned cycle format for multiple holes. Or at least I don't think it does, I am not at a machine now so can't be 100% certain but I seem to remember I had to previously do seperate M84's for each hole.

Anyway what I hope to manage is to make it so BobCAD will output code individually for each hole by using only 1 tapping operation. Problem is I am not great at VB so I may not manage.

As previously said I have it working using multiple operations, so if anyone wants to alter their PP just shout and I can let you know the lines that need altered in your PP.

Hood

14

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / BobCAD/CAM

« on: January 30, 2014, 05:20:18 PM »

I have been using BobCAD for quite a while now and I am liking it a lot.
V26 made a huge leap forward for lathes especially although there were also a lot of additions for milling. Lathe still has a couple of niggles and hopefully they will be sorted soon but overall it is working very well.
 One thing I managed to do the last week was to make default profiles with all common operations, this will be especially handy for lathe work. I  can load a profile that has turning, both OD and ID, Grooving, parting, Threading OD and ID. I have all these operations disabled for posting as default. What I do is open the default profile then go to File menu and click Merge, that allows me to browse and open a 3D model (I prefer to use Cubify for my models as I am used to that style of working), once opened I can then select any of the operations and choose a Geometry from the part and then compute the toolpath. It makes things very quick as I have my most common tools and their feeds and speeds already set for each operation and if I need to change anything it is just a matter of going in and changing what I want. This saves a lot of time as I dont have to go through each step if it is not required.

 I have mainly been using BobCAD for lathe work but I have done some milling as well. I did some soft jaws for a Forkardt chuck I have, I used conventional  toolpaths at first but then decided to try the adaptive tool path and it worked very well. I was a bit of a coward as I should really have been feeding at 1000mm/min or so but I decided just to set it to 600mm/min but even that made each jaw only 14mins as compared to the previous 25mins of the conventional toolpath, also the adaptive type toolpath seems much friendlier on the tooling.

Below is a few  pics of the simulation of the soft jaws, showing the type of toolpath and also a pic of the default lathe profile so you can maybe get an idea of what I was meaning.
Hood

15

General Mach Discussion / Art at his best :)

« on: December 21, 2013, 07:40:56 AM »

Just thought I would post this here for the people that dont see the Yahoo group.
 Art was replying to someone who said
"All I want for christmas is a nice shiny Mach4 to play with. Thanks in advance. Enjoy the cookies and milk I left out for you."

And here is the reply
 
"Twas a week before XMas and all over the floor,
the machines were shut down, waiting for Mach4,
The pendents were polished , the spindles were oiled,
and Art sat about getting totally boiled.
 
When out in the shed there arose such a smell,
I sprang to the shop to see what the hell,
The grinch met me there , inside the door,
in his pocket was all the code for Mach4.
 
Not this XMas you wont he said with a sneer,
best you drown all your sorrows in hi content beer.
Ill give you advice and its perfectly free,
this XMas, for all, your still on Mach3.
 
Though soon he'll be done, I hear in the hall,
Late winter I think, not the spring or the fall.
Getting it done is important its so very true,
Getting it right is more of the proverbial stew.
 
 The cookies were good, the milk not so much,
 give me some Baileys, the better the rush,
 when I wax poetic you know I am bored,
 Ok..Ok.. Im going..Before I get gored..
 
 Merry XMas...
 
Thanks,
Art
www.gearotic.com"

16

General Mach Discussion / Some Mach4 info

« on: November 14, 2013, 11:10:11 AM »

Just thought I would post a few links to Videos Brian has done showing some of the workings/features of  Mach4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egSSJ6_JwOA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WuiVAMUC1k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH944Qq86kc

Hood

17

CS-Lab / Computurn lathe getting an update hopefully

« on: November 02, 2013, 03:41:54 PM »

I am planning on updating the controller on the Computurn lathe to a CSMIO/IP-A at some point.
It uses the ESS at the moment and although it works well for the most part there are a few niggles that are unlikely to be fixed and also I would like to have the advantages that come with DROs being updated directly from encoder positions, the CSMIO/IP-A can do that

The only reason I have not updated before now is I do a lot of threading on the lathe. The CSMIO’s thread exceptionally well but the pull out at the end of the thread is delayed and you get an annular groove. This is not acceptable on most of the parts I do
 It seems it is a Mach issue rather than a CSMIO issue and it will supposedly be fixed in Mach4, just Mach4 Turn will be a while  after Mach4 Mill is out
If Mach4 does not solve the issue I am fairly confident that CS-Lab will implement the threading directly into the controller, as they have done with rigid tapping and it works very well indeed.

Anyway I have been doing some drawings of the cabinet and wiring. At the moment my cabinet is full and I have to have my spindle drive and turret drive outside the main cabinet however with the new setup I will be able to get them into the main cabinet which is a good thing.

I plan to have a button that starts the computer on my control panel, this will start up the computers power supply (via the motherboard connection) and I will use one of the molex connectors to power the coil of a small relay. That relay will operate the coil of the main contactor which will then power the 24v system and hardware such as the CSMIO, PLC, servo drives  logic circuit  etc.
I will then have a Start/Stop button via a safety module, like on my Chiron (see pic) which will bring in the contactors to power the servo drives main circuits and also things like coolant pumps, lights etc.

I will have a second PNOZ module that will get its power from the first one. This will be used for my E-Stop string.

Below are a couple of pics and a couple of pdf’s of my proposed wiring, any comments, good or bad,  welcome
Hood 

18

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Just got BOBCAD and here are my initial thoughts.

« on: July 30, 2013, 07:45:11 PM »

I have recently got BobCAD Mill and Lathe and have been testing things out.
It is quite a learning curve, but that is true of all software when you are new to it.
 So far I have only tried Lathe but it is working well. There are a few issues, some of which I have sorted and some of which I haven’t.

The things I have sorted out are the post processor was posting quite a bit of junk and Mach would just error when loading the code.
Things that were wrong were I and K round the wrong way, so some arcs produced full circles instead of small arcs.
G97’s being called without a spindle speed,
G76 threading code had two X and Z calls  in it.
CSS surface speeds being called when they  shouldn’t have been.
CSS speeds were based on the rpm that had been entered so were way too fast anyway.
Tool list call in the wrong section so it made the first tool selected wrong.
No G95 being called
No G91.1 being called
Few others that I forget


Ok so got that sorted and it was posting good code with the exception that because I was in Dia mode the X Toolchange positions entered in BobCAD were being doubled. I have not managed to sort this yet  and not sure if I can. It can be solved by entering the toolchange value, in BobCAD, at half the dia you want but  would be much better if BobCAD didn’t double it in the first place.


Another issue I have is the machine setup in BobCAD will not stick to metric mode, I change from inch, click save then next time I go back in it is back to inch. This does not really seem to affect things too much, if indeed at all,  as you also  set the defaults in the CAD/CAM itself and the metric/inch will stay at whichever you choose there.

I took bad with the speed of toolpath generation, it was very slow compared to any other CAM I have used. I enquired about this and was informed it was because I was using CAM toolpath compensation and it was doing a lot of collision checking. I switched off CAM compensation and switched on Machine Compensation and it was very fast. This however was not ideal for me as I prefer CAM compensation so I thought I was just going to have to live with it. But from talking to Burrman and a mmoe and others on the BobCAD site on the CNCZone it was discovered that if I changed the CAM tolerance from its default 0.00254mm to 0.005mm then it would cut the time for a simple part (face, rough, finish, thread and cut off) from 2mins 10 seconds to 18 seconds.
 There is however an issue with this as well as even though I have the default and part options set to these values they will not update the current settings. This means that every time you open BobCAD you have to set the current settings again as it has gone back to the default 0.00254mm (or if in inch mode 0.0001”)  Its not a huge problem as you soon get into the habit of changing it when you start BobCAD but it is a nuisance and hopefully something that will get sorted (along with the previously mentioned  tool change dia issue) .

So that’s the niggles, as said, some have been sorted, some not . So what do I think about the way it works?
Well I must say I do like the options for choosing things such as entry moves and rapid exits moves and also the toolpaths generated are nice and seem better optimised than the current CAM I am using for my Lathe.
The workflow also seems nice and logical and once you get used to it, it is as quick as any Lathe CAM I have used.

Overall I like it and as it has much better import/export options than my other CAM I think I will be using it for my Lathe work from now on.

Next will be to start having a look at the milling side but I am sure that will also be quite a steep learning curve so it may take a while before I post my thoughts on it.

Hood

19

CS-Lab / Rigid tapping with IP-A

« on: May 17, 2013, 09:49:44 AM »

CS-Lab have just implemented rigid tapping in the IP-A and IP-S controllers when used in conjunction with the Encoder module.
Here is a video of the first tests, it is mild steel and I am tapping at a conservative 300rpm and reversing at 600rpm, all seems to be working perfectly

http://youtu.be/GNL2XdsJz2E

Hood

20

CS-Lab / First impressions of CSMIO/IP-A (analogue output version)

« on: April 03, 2013, 06:17:58 PM »

This is my first impressions of the analogue version of the CSMIO/IP. I have previously used the Step/Dir version and loved it but for me the analogue version is even nicer. I am fitting it to a Chiron FZ12S  and although I have not fully finished the retrofit I have seen enough to know it is working extremely well and beyond what I had hoped for.

In addition to all the things I like about the Step/Dir version the  analogue version has the Index homing feature and it  is very nice and works exactly as it should. The Step/dir version can also do it but it needs more setup and possibly additional hardware (depends on servo drives being used) The analogue CSMIO doesn’t require anything extra and all you have to do is enter the Home switch input and encoder count for that axis. When you home it moves to the switch at the speed you have set in Homing and Limits, it then backs off the switch at a much lower rate and then once the switch is again closed it seeks the index pulse of the encoder and sets machine cords.

Another great thing about the analogue version is the encoders are obviously constantly monitored (to close the loop) but they are also used to update the DROs in Mach, so once homed at start up Mach always knows exactly where the axis is, even after an E-Stop or if you disable the drives and move the axis manually.

The auto tuning also seems to work very well for me, so good in fact that I have not even bothered trying to tweak with manual tuning. Initially I was just using the default encoder simulation from my servo drives (4096ppr) but now I have increased that in the drives to 15,000ppr and things are even nicer.
 The reason I increased the encoder resolution was I was wondering if it would help give me smoother MPG motion. I had noticed that in later versions of the plugin the motion has not been quite so smooth on the lathe that I have the CSMIO/IP-S on, it used to be silky smooth but now it is slightly rough. It is still way ahead of multistep motion of the parallel port or smoothstepper but was just annoying me that it had been as smooth as silk previously.
 On the Chiron however is was much rougher and was actually getting to the point where it was too rough to be useable. The reason it was worse on the Chiron, I think,  is the combination of fast rapids\ fast acceleration\heavy machine. I contacted CS-Lab regarding later plugins having rougher MPG motion and it seems some users were having issues with the axes running on slightly after stopping turning the MPG so they altered things.. This happens in Mach also if you have slow acceleration so I suspect the people with that issue had slow accelerations.
 Anyway increasing the encoder counts seems to have helped as things are almost as smooth as the previous versions were on the lathe  and now I feel the MPG is very useable. The reason I think it has made a difference is the CSMIO is able to respond quicker due to the higher encoder count, but that’s just my thinking, it may be some other reason.
 So all in all I am extremely happy with the analogue version and I can see me updating my other machines in the future with the CSMIO/IP-A rather than the CSMIO/IP-S.

Hood