Messages

151

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Night Lite

« on: February 25, 2015, 06:05:05 PM »

Very nice!  Can you pass on some info as to how you did that?  What type of plastic, spindle speed, how do you get the polished edges, light source, etc....please.

I have an old CNC router but shudder to think what a mess I'd make with its 23K rpm trim router.

152

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 09:09:16 PM »

Always better to be able to remove some. Once cut you can't add material to the piece.

- Decrease the X offset if the cut diameter is larger than wanted.
- Thread tool insert allowance is 0.0035 ....they all vary a llittle and none of the sharp pointed ones have a "0"   radius, SO,  set the tool off the stock by allowance or use wear offset to adjust. AND remember it's radii values.

Thar be some pearls methinks!

153

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 07:28:09 PM »

Hmmm, gotta study that...sounds like a good plan!

154

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 06:18:32 PM »

Yup, I hear ya.  I call it the "dynamic cutting point."  On the 1st try, the size of part my machine produces varies a few thou over/under what I've asked it to make.  The more time I spend using it, the closer it gets on the 1st try but it many times has me scratching my head.  After firing a few bracketing shots and getting a direct hit though, it does pretty well at making subsequent parts.  S.O.P. for a hobby machine I suppose, but I keep trying to tweak things & make it do better.

155

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 05:40:15 PM »

Interesting stuff; thanks for the input.  The only reason I worried about it at all is I've had some parts come out really close to what I programmed and others not so much.  Most likely due to problems in the machine, tooling issues or my screw-ups.  I should do a better job of keeping up with the good'uns & the bad'uns & try to figure what caused each.

If what you do is fooling around Hood, I shudder to think what I'm doing.

156

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 03:00:12 PM »

OK thanks my friend; I feel much better.  One less thing to stress over.

157

General Mach Discussion / Lathe Tool Table tip radius/direction question.

« on: February 22, 2015, 01:07:21 PM »

I use Dolphin CAM to generate the code for my lathe and have all my tools with their tip radii & direction setups saved in Dolphin.  I have the tool X & Z offsets saved in the Mach Tool table but noticed today that I don't have their tip radii & directions saved.

Will the Dolphin generated toolpaths (with tapers or radii in the work) all be incorrect because of that?  If not, surely any Mach Wizard generated code with tapers or radii will be wrong, yes?  Will I need 2 tool tables?

Just when I think I'm getting this stuff clear in my head, I realize how very little I know.  Fortunately, it hasn't made much difference in the low precision work I've turned out so far but I need to get this issue correctly sorted.

Also. is the Direction box in the standard Turn Tool Table screen input expressed in degrees from 0?

158

General Mach Discussion / Re: Adding PCI Parallel Port

« on: February 21, 2015, 03:28:59 PM »

Lots of info here: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,11300.0.html

HTH

159

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: ORAC Spindle Swarf Blaster®

« on: February 17, 2015, 11:11:40 AM »

Thanks!  It's working very well.  Since the original post, I made an adapter to hook up a hose to the end of the adapter when it's not in the spindle so I can use the pedal for blowing chips off collets, tool holders, etc.

I have no videos to show unfortunately.  My video Kung Fu is severely lacking which is sad as I still have all my amateur video gear from the 80's.  A big ol' Panasonic prosumer 3 chip camera with a huge hunk of glass on the front, portable S-VHS deck, couple Anton Bauer 5 AH NiCd packs, Panasonic prosumer editing deck & controller, Amiga 2000HD with genlock, etc, etc  but it's all in boxes and probably wouldn't work even if I had the equipment needed to digitize & upload the now way out of date & low res images.  I'm hoping someday there'll be a revival in video gear kinda like tube amps & vinyl records so I'll be able to unload all this "vintage" equipment for a huge profit.

Methinks it's time to look around & find myself a cheap but reliable HD camera & learn some new software.

160

General Mach Discussion / Re: spindle problem

« on: February 07, 2015, 10:09:36 AM »

Do you have any spindle spin up/down delays set in the Ports & Pins/Spindle Setup screen?  Ive noticed that my spindle turns very slowly for a few seconds after turning it on & right back off due to a 5 second delay I setup in mine.  Just a thought.