Messages

61

General Mach Discussion / Re: Dolphin lathe/Mach3 arcs/G2/G3 code problems

« on: May 17, 2016, 04:45:27 PM »

Thanks, mine is a front toolpost and yes, it is v10 Dolphin.  Now that you mention it, I remember you mentioning something about arcs & rear toolposts.  Something else to try!  I forget; is it rub your stomach and pat your head or BANG your head 1st & PUNCH your stomach to make Dolphin work?

If that doesn't work I guess I'll tell my CAD program to break the arcs down into much finer segments & mebbe the finished part will look OK to the the nekkid eye.  After all, long strings of code don't cost any more $$.   Hafta watch my budget these days!

62

General Mach Discussion / Dolphin lathe/Mach3 arcs/G2/G3 code problems

« on: May 17, 2016, 03:07:33 PM »

OK, drove m’self  bonkers (really short drive) yesterday trying to get Dolphin lathe CAM to spit out code that Mach doesn’t choke on.  I’m hoping Hood or someone that uses Dolphin can recall what causes this.

The part was very simple, just a light bulb shaped widget with 3 arcs and a straight line.  The simulation ran well in Dolphin but when posted Mach won’t run it & gives a radius start/end error message no matter which “Reversed Arcs In Front Post” or “IJ Mode” or G90.1 or G91.1 or whichever special post processors sent to me by Andre last time this came up that I tried.  The only way I could make the part was to explode the arcs into teeny little line segments in CAD before importing & posting from Dolphin.  I’ve used the wizards in Mach which successfully spit out and ran G2/G3 arc codes but they don’t work when posted from Dolphin.  I made the parts OK but you can see the faceting caused by the line segments.  It was OK with my customer but may not be next time I run across it.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Here’s the .dxf to look at if it helps at all.  Forgot to bring the code as posted by Dolphin & am at work.  If someone wants to look at the code I’ll post it up later tonight.

63

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

« on: May 13, 2016, 09:22:33 AM »

Awesome post Rich!  I'm always in a panic trying to fix a chipped or broken tool on a weekend doing emergency work for a neighbor's company and I really need to build some of the grinding attachments you've shown.

Thanks very much for taking the time to put that together!

64

General Mach Discussion / Re: New guy to cnc world

« on: May 04, 2016, 01:19:06 PM »

Did you go to Config>Select Native Units & click "Inches"?  Just sayin', it's been forgotten before.  Don't ask me how I know.

65

General Mach Discussion / Re: CSS - in meteres or milimeters

« on: April 27, 2016, 01:27:48 PM »

Hi Fred, you ought to try just G96 & see if it fixes your swarf control problem.  Mach3 works very well at smoothly increasing the spindle speed as the diameter of the work decreases.  If the necessary constant feed rate causes a problem at some point during the cycle, just add in a line of code that increases the feed rate a little before the swarf gets out of control & try it on the next part.  Maybe it'll  take a few iterations to make it work but it sure beats starting all over with mach4.

Oops, that's what Mr. MC just said, sorry.

66

General Mach Discussion / Re: CSS - in meteres or milimeters

« on: April 26, 2016, 11:19:25 AM »

Can't intelligently comment on your math but can definitely say that G95 won't work properly with G96.  G96 works well with constant FPM though, for what that's worth.

67

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Lagun KneeMill Mach4 Pokeys Retrofit

« on: April 16, 2016, 11:11:55 AM »

I really like your posts TD.  Way above my level of CNC tinkering!  I enjoy the conversion project threads & seeing how it's done.  I went onto your website & spent some time there.  Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Having said all that, could I ask one small favor?  Could you resize your pics?  Either that or can someone please clue me in as to how I might view these pics without painfully scrolling them around on a 1024x768 screen?

68

General Mach Discussion / Re: Improved Home Switching Idea?

« on: April 03, 2016, 08:51:57 AM »

Sorry, double post

69

General Mach Discussion / Re: Improved Home Switching Idea?

« on: April 03, 2016, 08:51:20 AM »

If we assume a machine with all limit switches on one input and a separate input for each home switch and wire it up with any old decent Normally Closed micro-switch at end of travel we get home positions but with accuracy and repeatability which is often dismissed by owners of pro systems and rarely proves good enough to pick up halfway through a finishing operation.

But what if we add a cam somewhere on each stepper shaft or ball-screw which operates a second switch wired in parallel to the end of travel limit switch for that axis?
The cam switch will operate once per turn but the home circuit will only open with both switches open, tune the cam switch to open/close a fraction of a turn after the linearly actuated switch is open and the accuracy and repeatability should be significantly better than is achievable with just linear switching.

Sound feasible?

 - Nick

My lathe has no limit switches (silly me) but I use a standard microswitch in conjunction with an opto sensor on a slotted disc on the other end of the double shaft stepper on the X-axis. The microswitch is wired in series with the opto signal output that feeds into the BOB. It is adjusted so that the N.O. switch closes just before the axis reaches zero & the next "on" opto signal then gets through to the BOB/Mach.  It homes VERY accurately & repeatably.  Cobbled it up for a trial back in 2012 & been loving it ever since.

70

General Mach Discussion / Re: Suitable computer

« on: March 28, 2016, 05:33:24 PM »

I'm no Mach expert by any stretch Jim so take my advice with caution.  I feel sure that machine should run Mach fine assuming it's healthy.  I've run it on quite a few old machines and as long as they had XP and a PP I never had a problem.  I even ran my little mill for a while on a P4 1.2G with Win 2000 & frankly couldn't tell the difference.

However, I did not have any of them hooked up on the internet or local network and killed everything I could except for Mach.

Good luck!