Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 23, 2013, 03:34:12 PM »

This is exactly what I use and your right, it is a nice function for repeatablity.

On another note, Does anyone know where to find the mach3 G76 codes. I used the threading wizard and it posts out the long hand. I would like to know what the different letters on the line apply to so I can manully edit them. I know most of them, but there are I few I do not recoqnize. Any table in mach3 to explain them?. In the meantime I will chech my Fanuc manual.

Marty

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 23, 2013, 01:45:23 PM »

On my mini mill, The switches repeat very well. I start it up and home the axis' and when i go to G54 zero from the machine zero i am always within .0005".

So I am thinking it will be the same with my lathe. I give it a go and see what happens. I know at work we use the hard stops all the time and the repeat perfectly. And, all they are is micro switches mounted to the bed and slides. I hope I get the same results, it will make setup of tools much easier.
I'll post my results when I do this.
Marty

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 23, 2013, 01:27:10 PM »

So what you are saying, if the machine is set up to bump the hard switches and set the X and Y to Zero, then all my offets (even tool 1) will show distances from the zero points to the touch off points. Not like now where Tool #1 is all zeros. This will be represendted in the X and Y boxes in the offset page correct. If this is true, why can't the samethng be done with tool #1 even with out the switches? Is there something that happens when you tell mach to use auto home? Is that treated differently? I tried setting my home positions the same as my machine positions and still needed to set tool#1 offsets to zero on the offset screen. I guess I will have to set up switches today and try it. Have a good weekend.
Marty

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 21, 2013, 01:34:45 PM »

Do the offsets on tool one reflect the distance from machine zero or are they still all zeros?

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 21, 2013, 10:09:10 AM »

Well Hood,

I got the lathe Running perfectly. I did change to ver 57. That helped the selection of the tool in the DRO issue like you said it would do. I was not doing the right procedure for setting up offsets. Once I followed your video, everything fell into place. I am able to make my parts with 5 tools including a thread operation for the last tool. Works Great!!!!!  Now, you mentioned that you would be setting up a vid on how to set offsets with hard stops as the machine zero.
That is my next task, to set up hard stops for Z and X. Let me know when you have made that vid tutorial. I would be very interested in setting my machine this way. It is exactly how we do it at work with the big uns.

Thanks for you advice.
Martyondrums

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 20, 2013, 11:31:13 AM »

I believe I am using 066. I will check tonight and download 057 today to reload it. I have mill on a differant computer so it won't interfere with the older version. I watched the video HoodScotland. Is this you? Anyway, maybe I an doing the touch offs wrong. I will try this method first to see if that is my problem. Thanks,
Martyondrums

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 20, 2013, 10:48:34 AM »

I believe that is what I was doing. I noticed that when I try to change tool numbers in the upper left DRO I sometimes had to click two or three times before it would except the number I was entering. And sometimes I had to exit out of the tool table page and go to manual page and then out and back into the tool table page before I could enter a number. All in all, after placing the diameter value and the Z value in the lower DRO's I would check the offset page by selecting edit and the offsets would still be zero. Could there be a glitch in my software copy? Maybe I should reisnstall it. What version is recommended?
Martyondrums

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?

« on: February 20, 2013, 10:07:30 AM »

I am setting Mach3turn for the fist time on my mini lathe. I can use one tool fine, but when I set the offsets with the tool table page, the only offset registering is the last one I do. Can someone advise me. I would like to set all my tools from machine zero. Do I have to enter in the offsets manually on the offset page. Mach3mill is so much easier with Z offsets and multiple tooling everything is set from Z machine zero for your reference heights. and you leave X and Y alone so you can program G54 and up. At work, my Fanuc controls on the lathes reference every tool from machine zero when you teach in X and Z.
Has anyone had success with Mach3turn and multiple tools. If so, how did you do it. Thanks for any help and advise.
Martyondrums

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 and 4th Axis

« on: April 04, 2012, 09:44:09 AM »

Greolt,

I am sorry if I confused you. The threads per inch were part of the calculations for the linear motion.

Now as for the rotary axis. I have a little 3 jaw chuck. that is driven by a pulley on the back side. The pulley is driven by the stepper motor that has a smaller pulley attached to its' shaft. They are connected by a timing belt. The large pulley has a 72 stamped on it, so I am assuming it is a 72:1 ratio. The stepper motor has to turn more revolutions to make the chuck turn 1 revolution. This is where I am having the issue determining what the step number is. I hope this makes this more clear for you.
I guess, like you say, I will have to play around with the numbers and measure the angle of rotation until I come up with what the stepper needs to turn. Thanks for all your help.

Martyondrums

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 and 4th Axis

« on: April 04, 2012, 01:43:30 AM »

Thanks, but Greolt correct me if I am wrong. I have nema 57 stepper (small motor) It is 1.8° and I used the following formular to tabulate the steps in the X Y and Z axis  1.8 deg/step; 200 step/rev; 16 Pulse/step; 3200 Pulse/rev; 1 Multiplier; 5.08 threads/in;
1 thread start; .19685 in/rev; Calculation = 16256 Steps/inch.  This worked perfect when making test cuts. Now I am stumped on what to use for steps/rev I have a timing belt from the stepper gear to the chuck drive with a 72 ratio. How does this all equate in?
I played around with numbers of 40 - 55 steps and the chuck moved very close when I MDI G0 A180 but I could not get it to move exact with any of these inputs. Am I missing the formula by a few points? What is the exact number to be used. Thanks for your help.

Martyondrums