Messages

1

Tempest Trajectory Planner / Re: Tempest Planning - Preliminary information and testing

« on: September 24, 2009, 12:24:21 AM »

You mentioned kinematics!?  Does that have anything to do with full 4-5 axis support possibly in the future?!  BTW I really had a good laugh out of "Snap, Crackle, and Pop"...I went to engineering school and never even heard of those!!!

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Jogging doesn't show tool tip in Turn!?

« on: October 21, 2008, 02:44:49 PM »

That's not good at all   In Mill I usually jog around to reference points on the part for a sanity check before hitting the big green button.  In turn I can't even tell if I'm in the same block other than trusting my zeros are correct.  Maybe I'm just anal, but this seems like a pretty problem in usability.

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General Mach Discussion / Jogging doesn't show tool tip in Turn!?

« on: October 20, 2008, 09:26:49 PM »

Hey guys, not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but I can't see the tool tip in Turn.  When I run a program I get a nice green line showing the tip location, but while manually jogging I get no verification on the screen.  Is there a setting I need to change for this?  BTW I'm using a smoothstepper with the Mach3 dev version R3.041.  Anywho, other than that I'm blazing parts out left and right, woohoo

4

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Need some help with S&D lathe spindle...

« on: October 01, 2008, 02:40:51 AM »

OK guys, I got it working.  Upgraded to the beta version from 2.64 and it's working good.

5

SmoothStepper USB / Need some help with S&D lathe spindle...

« on: September 30, 2008, 11:26:38 PM »

Ok, where to start.  I'm running a servo spindle on my lathe.  The spindle runs fine if I set it to an axis, but when in spindle mode only the direction LED lights up.  I don't get any step pulses.  Also, for some reason in the motor tuning box, I can't change the steps/unit for the spindle (other axis are fine).  It's stuck at "10" which is causing me problems since I have about 40,000 steps per revolution.  This is the last big hangup on this lathe before I can start making some wonderful blue chips, anyone have any ideas??

6

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: New servo drive - Any comments

« on: September 14, 2008, 02:07:14 AM »

The main advantage of using high resolution encoders is not so you can command a 0.000001" move, it is so the servo drive has fine granularity in velocity term, allowing the motor to run smoother, quieter, and more accurately.  Just figure out how small you want your smallest move, usually 0.0001", then determine out how fast you will go at whatever step rate you can run at.  So Mach can run 0.0001" granularity with 25Khz at 150in/min which is good enough for any home machine.  100Khz will get you 600in/min.  So I do not think the smoothstepper is even close to necessary for a good and fast machine.  Just make sure you have a modern PC, and don't play videos while machining if you play with 100khz.  However, these days, most PC's do not have parrallel ports...so the smoothstepper may be in your future after all

My 2c

7

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Does the SS have PWM outputs?

« on: September 12, 2008, 02:03:44 PM »

I know EMC2 with one of the Mesa boards will do PWM out...but I think setup may be a little harder than Mach3.

It may be a LOT easier to buy some step/direction servo drives that will hook right up to Mach3.  I think that is by far the most painless way to get into CNC.  Steppers always seem to lose steps at the worst time...and the PWM servo drives will only work with custom software or EMC2.  Anyway...I think I'm drifting a bit

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Is there a difference between a pulse coder versus quadrature encoder?

« on: February 22, 2007, 07:37:05 PM »

So that means the signals are 5V A/-A, B/-B and index C/-C??  I also have a fanuc controller which may need replacing...not having to buy new encoders would be fantastic   Figuring out how to do spindle alignment for tool change may be a challenge though