Messages

151

General Mach Discussion / Re: DRO readigs don't match soft limits

« on: August 17, 2013, 09:02:57 AM »

You MUST home your machine for soft limits to work. You can home manually though, jog each axis to 0,0,0 then zero each axis in machine coordinates. Now turn on soft limits. Soft limits works off of the machine coordinate DROs, i.e. actual machine position. Don't concur this with your local coordinates, i.e. when you zero on the stock.

152

General Mach Discussion / Re: 2 machines?

« on: August 10, 2013, 08:13:14 AM »

425oz-in motors on a Sherline? Wow, that is serious overkill and detrimental to performance. With the stock Sherline lead screws, which are 20 turns per inch a stepper motor in the 150 oz-in to 200 oz-in range is a much better fit. The smaller motors lower rotating mass and lower inductance better match the large amount of mechanical reduction from the lead screw.

To you question abut running two different machines. Mach stores all the machine settings in 'profiles' you can set up a profile for your lathe and mill, and then use Mach Loader to start up Mach3 with the profile you want to use.

153

SmoothStepper USB / Re: ran into an issue today where the SS would lockup mach3

« on: August 08, 2013, 06:11:20 AM »

This was reported on the Warp9 forum as well. It seems that the newest drier has issues with some PCs. As I recall Greg had honed in on the problem, something to do with FTDI depreciating a driver function and has been rewriting the plug in to not use that function.

154

Promote and discuss your product / Announcing a big Gecko Sale

« on: August 04, 2013, 11:15:13 AM »

Announcing a great sale!

For the month of August we are offering $10 off of all Gecko stepper drives! To provide the power you need for those drive we are also happy to offer $10 off the MeanWell SP-320 and SE-600 power supplies. Use Coupon code: 'Gecko' on checkout.

http://www.soigeneris.com/meanwell_sp_320_power_supply-details.aspx

http://www.soigeneris.com/meanwell_se_600_48_power_supply-details.aspx

We are also happy to announce a new low price on our EZ-MPG control.

EZ-MPG: http://www.soigeneris.com/ez_mpg_m1-details.aspx

155

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 NOTE ORGAN MUSIC ROLL

« on: July 23, 2013, 05:26:19 PM »

You could do it so it moved in the Y axis to each note location but only plunged if that note should be played. If the note should be played the plunge depth is -1" (or whatever) and if it should not be played the plunge depth is 0". Move down incrementally to the next note position, decide how to plunge, repeat. When you get done with the 20th note position then feed in X (i.e. roll the paper an appropriate distance), move the Y axis to the note 1 location and start over.

156

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Smooth Stepper "External EStop Requested" after "Tool Path Display" Motion !

« on: July 19, 2013, 10:14:56 AM »

You need to provide more information. What version of Mach3 are you using, what version of the SS plugin? What sort of PC? What is the length of the program you are loading. Can you attach your XML file here so others can look for problems?

157

SmoothStepper USB / Re: anyone there?

« on: July 16, 2013, 09:27:46 AM »

I know I can get more than a hundred emails a day, sometimes it can take a while to get through all of them. I found one yesterday that had been moved into my spam folder so it took a few days before I found it. Not an excuse, just the realities of running a small business.

158

SmoothStepper USB / Re: anyone there?

« on: July 16, 2013, 09:00:32 AM »

Yes, I just placed an order with them last night. I also saw Greg made several postings on the Warp9 forums yesterday.

159

General Mach Discussion / Re: JOG works right but cuts backwards or vice versa

« on: July 14, 2013, 06:25:45 AM »

Always judge the direction of movement as though the bit were moving. For example on a milling machine the table moves in X&Y, not the bit, so when you press the right arrow key the table should move left (same as bit moving right.) The Z axis on a mill actually moves the bit so the 'Up' key actually moves the bit up.

160

General Mach Discussion / Re: The discouraging state of DIY CNC

« on: June 26, 2013, 08:39:04 AM »

It is also discouraging to try and make/market a good quality product and loose sales because the 'other guys' are $5 cheaper. Most new consumers will only look at price, if the experience of buying a POS product does not turn them off to the hobby then they will generally try to learn enough to ensure they buy a good quality product the next time.