Messages

61

FAQs / Re: posting problem

« on: April 13, 2018, 01:23:49 PM »

Your Cam program post is outputing the arc radius center in the wrong format. The center can be incremental from the start of the arc or it can be in absolute coordinates from the origin you have set.

62

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Help with some basic controls for homing

« on: March 28, 2018, 08:20:23 PM »

My machine has one set of limits that drop all power to the drives when hit. They are also the home switches as you can hold in the reset button while homing so the drives don’t drop out.

63

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 drip feed

« on: March 28, 2018, 07:25:58 AM »

Drip feed was a way to get around the small expensive memory limitations of CNC controllers in the past. Memory capabilities of Mach 4 are huge. Are you doing something that is even bigger or just trying to be compatible with an existing drip feed system?

64

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Carved a Colt 1911

« on: March 21, 2018, 09:24:17 PM »

I took a look at the manual and it doesn’t appear V-Carve does Rest machining. The roughing process removes all the material from where you tell it the surface of the material is, leaving some for finishing. Then your first finish pass cuts to the final part size with that size tool. A second smaller finish tool cuts the entire surface again, or maybe just an area you define.  

That isn’t rest machining.  Consider if your part had a round deep hole that the rougher would not fit into. If your second tool fits it will likely break because in trying to reach the bottom of the hole it will plunge all the way in. You’d have to tell the program to rough only that hole using the smaller tool before finishing with the smaller tool. Rest machining essentially figures out the surface left by the rougher and then calculates where more roughing is needed with the smaller tool.

I use CamBam and was hoping maybe another inexpensive program had rest machining.

65

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Carved a Colt 1911

« on: March 21, 2018, 10:14:22 AM »

That must have been a huge file, and taken a long time to do! Does V-Carve have the ability to do Rest machining, which is identifying what was reached by a bigger tool and machining only that area?

66

General Mach Discussion / Re: Weaving Macro for cnc Welding

« on: March 20, 2018, 08:45:42 PM »

How are you programming the weld toolpath? Is the toolpath just two axis? I could do something like that using cad and cam to write a gcode file with the weave in it.

67

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Carved a Colt 1911

« on: March 18, 2018, 09:18:36 PM »

Very nicely done! Details on the tools used, and how you programmed it?

68

General Mach Discussion / Re: Run from here does not work correct

« on: March 15, 2018, 08:52:27 AM »

In order to Run From Here correctly Mach must know exactly what every mode is active, what the feed rate is etc. It can only get that by looking at every preceeding line.

69

General Mach Discussion / Re: Super slow incremental jogging

« on: March 12, 2018, 08:36:33 AM »

Incremental jog uses the feedrate. Use MDI to enter F10 or other rate first.

70

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: whats best and easiest CAM software 4 mach3 mini mill

« on: March 02, 2018, 09:24:22 PM »

If the part you are trying to make has say a spherical concave surface then it is likely it will need to be modeled in 3D first then CAM creates the toolpath. Fusion 360 can do both but you are in for a pretty steep learning curve. CAM and 3d modeling though are what has made CNC practical for one off parts, so the effort is worth it.