Messages

331

General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft limits broke in Turn?

« on: February 09, 2013, 05:39:06 PM »

Yep, I'm a Luddite idjit.  I just read the changelog and softlimits weren't fixed 'til last year sometime.  .022 is 2009 I think.  I'm off now to try a less ancient version.  If ya'll see a huge explosion in west Tenneessee on the 10:00 news, raise a glass in my memory willya?

332

General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft limits broke in Turn?

« on: February 09, 2013, 05:26:15 PM »

Thanks, I'm using .022 for the moment because I've been shy about updating and unknown things suddenly going tits up.  I guess it's time I should try a later version and see what happens.  Is it difficult to revert back to an older version if things go bonkers?

333

General Mach Discussion / Soft limits broke in Turn?

« on: February 09, 2013, 04:43:49 PM »

I have Homing working well on my ORAC now and was attempting (unsuccessfully) to set up soft limits today.

Searches show a range of posts from "soft limits don't work at all in Turn" to "X works but not Z" to "Z works but not X" to "it's on the list to be fixed" to "it works great."

I seem to have trouble setting up anything new so it may just be me but am I wasting my time trying to make it worK?

334

General Mach Discussion / Re: Pulsing too fast

« on: February 08, 2013, 06:36:27 PM »

If memory serves, a normal driver test displays "Pulsing too fast" for 6 seconds or so before it takes over??  You're not getting impatient and exiting the test before it runs are you?  I know, dumb suggestion but I thought something was wrong when I saw the message the 1st few times I ran it and I exited too early.

Just a suggestion....

335

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: South Bend Fourteen Lathe conversion

« on: January 31, 2013, 10:46:54 AM »

Nice!  Looks like a solid piece of iron to work with.  That long slide'll be nice if you go for gang tooling.  Keep the posts & pics coming!

I like the custom infinitely-adjustable handle on the front.

336

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle RPM feedback, not low enough.

« on: January 27, 2013, 08:32:04 PM »

No prob Rich, it feels pretty good for a change to successfully get a project working that I set out to complete.  Pretty simple stuff to ya'll but dangit, I can find more ways to screw up things!!  I'm sure next weekend I'll be back to business as usual.

337

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle RPM feedback, not low enough.

« on: January 27, 2013, 07:32:07 PM »

Hey Katoh, I was playing around with my little MicroMill today and hooked up a C3 index card.  It works great all the way down to 36 rpm.  Below that & my KB speed control gets jerky.  36 rpm is VERY slow by the way!  The top speed is a bit under 3100 but I'll get it up a bit higher later when I take the back cover off the enclosure and dial up the top speed pot on the KB.  They have quite a bit of adjustment range and I don't think I'll hurt the motor running the spindle at 4000 or so since my cycles will be short.

I checked the accuracy by warming up the spindle/motor/control for 10 min or so and carefully adjusted the pot (the mill has a manual speed control pot) to 60 rpm.  I  clicked on my stop watch and counted the hole in the disc going by a mark 60 times and clicked off the stopwatch....just about dead nuts 60 seconds showing.  Haven't checked the top speed with my digital tach yet but I'll bet it's right on.

At 35-40 rpm the LED on the diag screen pulses every 2nd or 3rd rev even though the C3 LED is dead solid so what Hood said about Mach/screen refresh is definitely true (as if there was a doubt if Master Hood pronounced it to be so.)

I cut down a CD to 3 1/2" and drilled a #12 hole about 3/16" in from the edge of the disc to the center of the hole and painted the disc black.  I couldn't tell any difference between 0 and 1 on the debounce setting.  I'm using the parallel port on an old Dell P4 800mhz and a cheap, non opto-isolated B.O.B.  My ORAC lathe has a CNC4PC C11 B.O.B. with a C3 index card and it works great down to a crawl as well.  I have tested the top speed on it with the tach and it's within 10 - 20 rpm at 2000.

338

General Mach Discussion / Re: W2000 & Mach?

« on: January 23, 2013, 08:52:32 AM »

Hopefully it will work for you seeing as you are as tight as a ducks ****

Hey, I resemble that remark!  SWMBO says I'm so tight I take my glasses off when I'm not lookin' at anything.

My answer is to her is always "I have to be the way you spend money!"

339

General Mach Discussion / Re: W2000 & Mach?

« on: January 22, 2013, 01:48:54 PM »

Brought the thing to work with me today and one of the guys got the Ati video card working in about 2 minutes   I then re-ran the driver test and the same spikes are there so I guess it's just a Dell mobo thing.  I'm still going to test it actually running the mill later on.  I think it'll do fine for my needs.

I posted 'cuz I hate to leave a question unanswered.  Ya' just never know when some other tight bastich comes along trying to get an old steam-powered PC working and stumbles onto this thread.

340

General Mach Discussion / Re: W2000 & Mach?

« on: January 21, 2013, 02:38:02 PM »

OK thanks, I'll monitor it more closely and see what happens.

I might borrow the shop "Chassis Ears" & clip the pickups to the stepper motors and run some code.  It's a 4-channel amplified audio rig with headphones we use to pinpoint wierd mechanical noises in cars we work on and should make it easy to hear any funny stuff going on.

I could also rig a DTI to the axes and run some repeating codes to see if it returns to the same spot each time.  Don't wanna wear out the teeny little leadscrews & nuts though.  They have a very finite lifespan: