Messages

331

General Mach Discussion / Re: Manual Referencing

« on: February 12, 2016, 08:39:36 PM »

Not flaky, just not nearly accurate enough for that purpose.  Does your machine have dials on each axis? If it does home it then look at the dials and write down the values on a post-it.  To get the machine back exactly on location after a fail of some sort just put it back to the dial settings hit zero, and you'll be right there to within a couple of tenths if your eye is finely calibrated to interpolate between lines!

332

General Mach Discussion / Re: Chinese 6040 machine trouble cutting anything

« on: February 12, 2016, 08:32:45 PM »

I suggest you start at a much less complex level  You are trying to do a circular pocket and using cutter compensation too (G43).  You need to verify your machine moves properly in the first place.  Position the tool someplace near the middle of the x y and z travels.  Use the zero button next to each DRO.  The machine should now use that as the reference. Go to the MDI screen.  Enter G0 X1, and hit enter. The machine should move the tool to the right 1 mm whether it is in incremental mode or absolute.  If you then try G0 X2 and it moves 2 more millimeters to show 3mm it is incremental mode, it added to the previous location. If it moves 1mm and shows 2mm it is abolute mode measured from the zero postition you set.  Try moving the Y and Z in the same way.  If it all works, and it the right direction and the correct distance then Mach 3 is likely set up okay.

Then try a program to cut around a rectangle, don't bother with tool compensation or any of that yet.  The moves if cutting material should leave a part undersized by the tool diameter.  If you use a Cam program you usually don't bother with tool diameter compensation (G42, G43) because the Cam program simply uses the tool diameter and calculates the correct offset.  It looks like you have vectrix outputting tool compensation and I would turn that off as it has lots of gotchas for the beginner.

Good luck

333

General Mach Discussion / Re: Reset A axis DRO from G-Code program

« on: February 07, 2016, 09:18:57 PM »

TP,
I didn't know about synching the axis that way.  The only thing is it seems you have to unwind the A axis after each pass?  I was thinking just use full 360 turns and then G92 A0 as you suggest. Seems like I could rapid back much faster that way.  Bad idea?

334

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ballistic ATC

« on: February 07, 2016, 01:06:00 PM »

Are you going to use Tormach TTS tooling?  I have that on my mill with manual tool change and it works very well.

335

General Mach Discussion / Reset A axis DRO from G-Code program

« on: February 07, 2016, 01:02:01 PM »

Is there a way to reset the A axis (angular) back to zero in a G-code program?  Specifically I want to thread by rotating A axis a specific number of turns, while moving the X axis. Then I want to return X axis at rapid while simply setting A axis to zero for next pass, instead of reversing it back to zero.

Thanks,

336

General Mach Discussion / Re: Sign Making with Different Thicknesses of Materials

« on: January 29, 2016, 06:12:31 PM »

I'd use a laser distance sensor to probe the top of the board. Not cheap (maybe $600) but accurate and completely automated. Probe every board and every part every time, no crashes no bad parts.

337

General Mach Discussion / Re: Machine coordinates in wrong units

« on: January 25, 2016, 04:39:24 PM »

Why would this cause a crash? Most CNC machine tools are metric screws as is mine. The steps per rev is an exact steps per mm of travel. Its just math after that and computers are pretty good at that!

338

General Mach Discussion / Re: Machine coordinates in wrong units

« on: January 25, 2016, 11:04:58 AM »

If the machine has metric components like ball screws then I would set it up as metric and work in inches if you like.

339

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: PMDX expansion I/O survey

« on: January 23, 2016, 05:35:54 PM »

My personal feeling coming from the PLC world is solid state outputs to 24vdc sinking or sourcing as I always try to protect the computer I/O from the real world with easily replaced plugin relays.  In my world lightning is a fact of life and and isolation is really important.  I'd much rather blow a discrete module in or out than a whole I/O board or the CPU. I like the I/O to do billions of cycles and then select the discrete solid state I/O or relays to match the actual load driven. Of course discrete costs more, but less than being down when bad stuff happens.

340

General Mach Discussion / Re: Machine coordinates in wrong units

« on: January 23, 2016, 05:27:04 PM »

G20 inches, G21 mm, look in your G-code.