Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper motor live tooling???

« on: June 22, 2013, 02:50:53 PM »

Hi, I have tried swap axis and it sort of works. The spindle swaps with the a axis but thats about it, I get exactly 30rpm out of the stepper and can't seem to change it. The only thing I can think of is that it picks up the pwm base freq. as the steps per unit as my spindle uses pwm output from Mach. I have changed the motor tuning settings etc. but I still only get the 30rpm. Any suggestions?

Regards
Gordon

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper motor live tooling???

« on: June 11, 2013, 01:12:20 PM »

Thanks Hood
I will try a bench test

13

General Mach Discussion / Stepper motor live tooling???

« on: June 09, 2013, 05:12:15 PM »

Hi all
I've read many posts regarding stepper motor spindles etc. I have a question and don't know of swapaxis will work. I make small alu parts and have made a small live tool setup with a dual spindle ( one for drilling and one for tapping) to tap a M4 hole from the side. During the operation the main spindle on the lathe will stop, drill hole from the side with stepper live tool and then tap it with M4 tap using the second spindle on the live tool (1 stepper driving both spindles through a gear). Tooling will move away, start main spindle again and part off. Here is my problem, my lathe spindle is setup with pwm output from Mach to drive the vfd. How can I program the stepper as a spindle and not a axis for the drilling operation as for tapping I will run it as A axis?

Regards

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Will Mach3 let me pass the edge of a job past a fixed welding torch

« on: June 03, 2013, 05:34:00 PM »

Hi Ricky

I'm still not to sure what your setup looks like but from what I understand you're g-code is not going to work. When working with rotary axis in Mach, your toolpath won't look like the profile as suppose to 2 or 3 axis linear moves where the toolpath basically simulates the profile you want to cut, instead you will get a toolpath on the screen, then another after the A axis has rotated but on the same xy plane
 The toolpath window will not rotate the plane after each rotary movement. What will happen with your toolpath is that you will have the same xyz movements copied and pasted, it sounds a bit confusing I know. I need to draw this to give you exact movements, say you start x0 y0, then you will go to where you want to plunge. Z comes down then you do a cut like in your case -65 on x, now remember, with your turntable being square, after a 90 degree turn, where you have stopped at x-65 will now change to x0 y-65. This will not give you 100mm rad corners though but hopefulle you can see how much changes after the 90 degree turn. Give me a day or two then I will send you a sample g-code you can try.

Cheers

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Will Mach3 let me pass the edge of a job past a fixed welding torch

« on: May 30, 2013, 05:08:11 PM »

Hi Ricky
Sounds good. Will be able to give you some hints when I see the pics. Thats the wonders of cnc as well as Mach. Mach is flexible in so many ways, you can mix and match various tools axis etc. and make it do what you want it to do without too much effort.
I will be waiting for your pics.
Cheers
Gordon

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Will Mach3 let me pass the edge of a job past a fixed welding torch

« on: May 29, 2013, 09:06:56 AM »

Hi there

I think the main reason nobody has responded to your post yet is because the discription is all messy and can't figure out by what you mean . Maybe if you make some sort of a drawing by hand or Cad and attach it here, people can understand you and help you setup as there are quite a few clever guys around on this site.

Cheers

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Siemens Micromaster 440

« on: May 05, 2012, 04:05:25 PM »

Hi Matt
I run a siemens micromaster 420 on my lathe driving a std 4pole induction motor in delta connection. For speed controll from Mach, I have used the pwm output, it converts to analogue signal via my breakout board and connected the 0v and sig from the BOB to terminal 3 and 4 on the vfd (analog in). You have to configure the micromaster to be able to switch on and off via terminals instead of the operator panel on the vfd. On the micromaster 420 I had to set P700 to 2 as well as P1000 to 2 and the set P2000 to the max hz that you will be running the drive at as the factory setting is set at default 50 or 60 hz, depending on the setting on the switch on the vfd panel. If all goes well then you will see the freq flashing on the vfd screen if you program mach M3 S???. Now to switch vfd on and off I have used the 24v onboard the micromaster supplied by pin 8 and ran it through relay on BOB back to pin 5 on vfd (switch on vfd when relay is closed). To run spindle in opposite direction I had to link pin 6 on the terminals of the vfd to the wire running from pin 8 to pin 5 via another relay on the BOB and this switches the freq to negative and thus changed spindle direction. When you get this far it is fairly straight forward to config mach 3 to controll the actual speed of your spindle. Please note that my setup is for a 420 micromaster and the 440 has more terminals and therefore might differ from mine. The analog inputs etc.
Hope this help.

Cheers
Gordon

18

General Mach Discussion / closed loop or open loop spindle?

« on: May 03, 2012, 12:30:55 PM »

Hi all, just a quick question from a newby, is it possible to switch between closed loop and open loop via macro in mach turn? The closed loop is nice in the sense that it boosts the vfd more when machining larger diameters or drilling with larger drills, problem with closed loop is that you cannot override the spindle speed via pot, only on the screen with percentage spindle speed. So the main use will be to only recall the closed loop for a operation and then cancell after that particular operation is done unless if there is another way.

19

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: May 03, 2012, 02:41:50 AM »

Hi Dick, I introduce myself without introducing myself.  My name is Gordon under the name gpfly28. I appreciate the quick response as one would think that our posts will disappear into the vastness of the site, I'm really impressed that it did not.

Thanks again, will start posting soon.
Cheers
Gordon

20

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: May 02, 2012, 10:27:28 AM »

Hi there

I've been running Mach for about three years now and I never stop adding gadgets to my machines. After all this time I've only now added a vfd to my lathe and some other goodies. I must say even though I'm not a computer fundy, It's always a nice challenge to configure new hardware that you have added and get it to work and sometimes even better than what you have thought. Again thanks for the program to enable all our DIY and CNC junkies with our hobbies etc