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Messages - Roberto

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1
General Mach Discussion / Re: ATC with Mach3
« on: May 07, 2017, 12:54:48 PM »
Never mind!  I figured out what I was doing wrong.  When entering a tool number you must put in the tool number and the offset for the tool .  For example T0101 means tool 1 and the offset for tool one,
T0303 means tool number 3 and the offset for tool number3.  I was going astray by putting in T0101 and then T0301,  so I was switching to tool 3 but was using the offset for tool 1.  I mistakenly  thought all the offsets were in reference to tool 1 so I was using 1 for all the offset numbers.  Dumb and dumber!!

2
General Mach Discussion / Re: screen size
« on: May 06, 2017, 11:56:32 PM »
I don't understand your comment??

3
General Mach Discussion / Re: screen size
« on: May 06, 2017, 05:41:44 PM »
Wow! I do owe you thanks a million.  This has been driving me crazy for 2 days.  I had gone to the config and checked the enlarge screen button before, but I didn't think to hit the maximize button on the right corner and then restart.  I knew it had to be something simple but never figured out the right combination of things to do.

Maybe you can help me with one other mind boggling problem  I just got a new Syil America AEX 250which is a very nice lathe and has automatic tool change.  But I have a problem.  Lets say I calibrate tools 1 and 2 and get the offsets.  If I put in m6 tool change to tool 2 T0200 the tool changer works and rotates to tool 2, but the coordinates on the screen are not correct.  If I then manually enter tool2 the coordinates change to the correct values.  I tried many times and still have not had any solution.  It seems as though Mach3 knows to change the tool but not to change to the correct offset.  If you can help me with this I will be eternally grateful. I live in San Diego and would like to buy you a beer if you are ever in this area.

Bob Piserchio

4
General Mach Discussion / screen size
« on: May 06, 2017, 01:33:03 PM »
I have a new cnc lathe and mach3 was loaded on it.  The mach3  screen was full size of the monitor screen which was great.  But I did something and now the mach 3 screen is about 2/3 the monitor screen size.  I don't know what I did, but whatever I can not get the mach3 to go to full screen size .  Anyone have an answer to get it back to full screen size??

5
General Mach Discussion / ATC with Mach3
« on: May 03, 2017, 01:15:32 PM »
I have a problem with automatic tool change.  If I change lets say to tool 2 the screen shows tool 2, but it has the wrong x,z values. But if I then go to tool number on the screen and hit tool 2 and enter it, it changes to the right x,z values.  So on running a program with tool changes, the tool change occurs and it shows the correct number on the screen, but it is not the correct x,z values,  Mach 3 does not seem to recognize the tool change unless I manually reenter the tool number, which makes it impossible to run a program with tool changes.

Any help out there??

6
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC lathe
« on: June 15, 2007, 01:19:21 PM »
Dan,  I am very pleased with the lathe.  I had one very minor problem, the controller would not turn on consistantly. I have to wiggle the switch to turn it on. After a little playing around I found that it was the power on switch.  I called Richard at Syilamerica and he has a new switch on the way. I have been doing a lot of playing around to learn the best way to do things as this is my first CNC lathe.  I did a lot of checking on the accuracy and playing with the tuning of the motors, but Richard called the company that makes the ball screws and found out the exact TPI of the screw.  ( We weren't sure before.)  So then we could calculate the number of steps in the tuning.  And lo and behold it was exactly the same number I came to by doing a lot of trial and error measurements.  That was very comforting.  I have turned out a few parts and I am really pleased with the very smooth finish on them.  I checked them and found the dimensions were all to within .0005 inches or as close as I could measure them.  When I made these parts by hand, it took about 15 minutes to do one operation.  The CNC does it in 3min 19 sec.  I could push it a little faster but there is no need to do so.

I still do not understand exactly how to set up the tool offsets.  I try to follow the instructions as best I can, but it is still not correct.  I am leaving for a 2 1/2 week trip to the Ukraine on Sunday and so do not have time to try until I get back.  I will contact you then and see if you can help me out.

Thanks,  Bob

7
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC lathe
« on: May 19, 2007, 10:32:32 PM »
Dave, it is not the program as I have run it several times before.  I also have two other programs that used to work and now do the same thing.  I know about clicking on the display and zooming in.  When I do this the horizonal line (which represents the cylinder to be turned) goes from a line to a cylinder of about 1/16 in diameter!  I tried another tack.  I had originally programed these programs on a laptop, so I copied the program on a USB memory stick and the put it into the lathe computer and loaded the program from it.  At first it showed the same horizontal line, but when I hit the regenerate toolpath button, voila, the screen showed the tool path full size.  Why?  I don't know.  I had tried the regenerate button on the program loaded from the lathe computer and nothing happened.

I guess I will just trash the programs on the lathe computer and reinstall them from the laptop.  I plan to always write the programs on the laptop so I have a fall back in case this happens again.  I am sure though that there must be a way to change the scale on the screen, but I can't find it.

8
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC lathe
« on: May 19, 2007, 04:30:41 PM »
Dave or someone, I do need some help.  I edited a program that I wrote and when I went back to auto, the display showed just a horizontal line.  After playing a little and enlarging I could see a tiny place with some red that I guess are the lines for the cuts made in the program.  It is so small it can berarly be seen. It looks like the scale on the screen is about 1/50 of the size it should be.  I can't find a way to get the size of the object large enough to see the individual cuts so I can watch he program run to see if it is working ok.   Any help would be appreciated.

9
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC lathe
« on: May 18, 2007, 04:13:16 PM »
OK, Dave, thanks for the offer.  I will take you up on  it in a couple of days.  I just got a series 0 KDK tool post and 5 holders on ebay.  This morning I had to modify the top slide to take it, but everything worked out OK.   The nice thing about it is that the tool holders will fit the 100 KDK which I have on my big lathe, so I can just switch tool holders from one lathe to the other and just have to adjust the heigth.

Bob

10
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC lathe
« on: May 18, 2007, 01:34:33 AM »

Well, I have had the lathe a week and after getting it set up in my garage, I finally have been able to play with it.  It is very solid, weighs about 450 pounds.  It took myself and four friends to lift it on the bench.  But having that weight it is very rigid for a benchtop.  I got the very first lathe they shipped out and as such they have not had a chance to write a manual for the CNC part.  There is a manual for the standard lathe.   But, Richard Lowe has been extremely helpful and I have made a number of calls and he has helped me out a lot.  To answer the comments of DAlgie,  the ball screws are completely covered with metal covers.  I think they had them uncovered just to show for the pictures.  The x axis stepper does stick out a little but it is not as much as it seems in the pictures.  It causes no problems.  The appearance of the lathe looks every bit as good as the pictures and seems to be very well made.
One of the things I learned from Richard was that you have to be sure to take off all the packing grease off the ball screws before operating.

Again, Richard sent me a profile for this lathe that he wrote to install in Mach 3. i did a few small cuts on Aluminum and was very impressed with the  smoothness of the surface.  It has a 1.3 hp motor and so has plenty of power.  I tried a .100" cut and it handled it with ease.  I haven't tried, but Richard says he has taken .050" cuts in steel, with no problems.  I then wrote a small program to cut a hemispherical surface of 1.25 " diameter.  It worked well and gave a beautifully smooth  hemisphere.  When I went to run it again I found a little glitch.  On making the fast traverse the Z stepper motor stalled.  On checking with Richard he helped me to adjust the velocity and acceleration of the Z axis.  It was set a little too high and also he thought I should adjust the Gibs as the Chinese tend to have them pretty tight for shipping.  After playing with this a while I found good values for velocity and acceleration that worked well.  Then I started checking for accuracy of cuts and found they were off a little.  So another call to Richard and he told me I have to tune the stepper motors.  ( I am new to this game and didn't realize this).  So he helped me.  There is a formula in the Mach turn manual that tells you how to calculate the values for z and x.  So we calculated and tuned the motors.  This gave more accuracy, but not good enough.  So you can check the values by putting on a good dial indicator and then do it by trial and error.  After Playing around with this awhile I again came up with good values that gave good accuracy. (Generally within .0005 to .001 inches in both the x and z movements over  a 1 inch travel.)  I think the reason that the calculated value  was not as good as it should have been is that we were not sure of the exact value of the pitch of the ball screws.

So I wrote another more complicated program that bores into a 1.1  Inch piece of Al and has a 20 degree taper inside that goes in from x=.902 for about .   .350 and then makes several steps going to smaller and smaller diameters.  It came out really nice.  The surface on the very inner steps was a little rough because I was using a small diameter boring bar and took a little too big of cuts to do the finish.

So, overall I am very pleased with the lathe so far. I found out that this price of $3499 was an introductory price for this first shipment and after that the price will go to $4495. As I use it some more I wrill write in and let you know how it goes.

As an aside I got a call today from a company I had checked in with several months ago on getting a Dynamite lathe.  He said it was only $45,000!  When I told him I got a new CNC lathe for $3499, he didn't believe me.  Of course mine is not nearly as sophisticated as the Dynamite, but I think it will do erverything I want to do.

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