Messages

3371

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 10:10:35 PM »

Hi,
Mastercam and Mach3 are different to each other and at no time do they interact.

Mastercam is essentially a CAM program to which has been added a CAD drafting/drawing module. Thus you can draw your part and then have
the CAM part of the program generate the required toolpaths. The raw toolpaths are modified/massaged to be compatible with your machine
and control software, the massaging is called the 'post', short for post processor.

There is a Mastercam post for Mach3 (and Mach4), but it is nearly identical to a 3 axis Fanuc post. I have used the Mach3 post AND the Fanuc post
and not really found any difference between them.

The bottom line here is that its not any incompatability between Mach and Mastercam but that you are using two programs and you are not really
familiar with either of them. Its a steep learning curve, get used to it....CNC is steep learning curve.

Craig

3372

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 09:18:24 PM »

Hi,

I’ve tried setting mach3 native units to mm before posting the g code already.

DO NOT FIDDLE WITH NATIVE UNITS. Mach3 has native units, you can choose either mm or inches. Those will be the units that you tune the motors,
define soft limits  and so on. Once they are set DO NOT CHANGE THEM. They are set for the life of the machine. If you have fiddled with them you
may have to go back and redo you tuning and so on to ensure that all your settings are consistent with your chosen native units.

When I first started with Mach I made the same mistake.

If you have Gcode composed of mm movements code G21, inch movements code G20.

Craig

3373

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 08:48:35 PM »

Hi,
I've been looking at your Mastercam pic a little more closely. Normally the gnomic (the red/green/blue axis orientation symbol) is displayed
at or close to the work zero of Gcode. As displayed it is a considerable distance from your stock boundaries.

Go back to your Mastecam file and place the cursor on the corner of your stock and note the WCS coordinates. They should be 0,0,0.
Your description and the pic you have attached suggest to me that the corner of the stock is not 0,0,0 as it should be.

Craig

3374

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 08:41:43 PM »

Hi,
yes I can see the stock outlines. What are the overall dimensions of the stock?

How do they relate to the dimensions of your machine boundaries.

unfortunately simply translating the work +x,+y did not work, as the code is still telling my tool (table) to move outside of its defined area.

Translating the workpiece has that disadvantage, usually the first  move of any Gcode job is 'go to the origin' and you have carefully shifted the origin
so that the part is centered on your table thus putting the origin outside of those boundaries. You may be able to manually edit the Gcode to delete
that first 'go to the origin' move. That will require that you have passing familiarity with Gcode. It is a necessary skill of CNCing.

Craig

3375

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 08:10:47 PM »

Hi,
you need to compose the CAD drawing and therefore the Gcode that results from the CAM program derived from that
drawing to be the corner of the stock.

I can only presume that the example you have posted is that the stock is larger than your table dimensions?

Craig

3376

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 reset dosent' work

« on: December 14, 2018, 06:14:56 PM »

Hi,
you absolutely need the ESS to communicate with the PC. Thereafter it is appropriate to fiddle/tune/initialize both
Mach3 settings but also the ESS plugin. As it stands without communication between the ESS and the PC any efforts to make
settings in either Mach3 or the plugin are wasted.

May I suggest taking up the matter on the Warp9 forum....there is much more focused advice on causing the ESS to work with
Mach3.

Craig

3377

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help please! Work is way outside of table.

« on: December 14, 2018, 06:09:32 PM »

Hi,
what that means is that the Gcode produced by Mastercam has a work zero at some remove from the part.

When you reference and then zero Mach you have indentifed the work zero position. The Gcode however calls for
machining moves at the same remove as the Mastercam work zero and some distance outside of the machine boundaries.

There are two possibilities to fix it:
1) Manually adjust the G54 work offset such that the toolpath of the part lands within the boundaries of the machine. This is doable
    but is confusing and I would consider it as a one off solution.
2) Go back to Mastercam and translate the part toopath closer to the work zero location, commonly the corner of the stock. Now when you
    engage Mach you can touch off to the corner of the stock....hit <zero all> to set Machs work zero to be coincident with Mastercams
    work zero. This is a much more satisfying approach to your problem and is the norm in industrial practice.

Craig

3378

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Adding a excel link to mach4

« on: December 14, 2018, 03:15:35 AM »

Hi,
Mach4 has a documents folder and it has a number of different documents in there including .txt files, .pdf files and .chm files.
I would guess that if you put a .xls file in there it would open.

Craig

3379

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Adding a excel link to mach4

« on: December 14, 2018, 02:41:23 AM »

Hi,
Mach3 or Mach4 are CNC programs, particularly they are Gcode interpreters.

Excell is a spreadsheet program.....I cant quite see how you wish a table of numbers to be interpreted.

If for instance each line of the Excell spreadsheet has the three numbers required to express the coordinate of a waypoint
in the toolpath......that could be done, in fact has been done before. That might be suitable for G1 codes but how about
any arc codes G02 and G04 and what about the other 50 or so Gcodes and what about any of the Mcodes and/or spindle
control codes?

May I suggest you do some research on what constitutes a Code program by studying some simple Gcode jobs and then ask yourself
'how do I expect an Excell spreadsheet to express itself in a Gcode environment?'.

Most CNCers use a CAM program or a Wizard to generate Gcode, not an art program or a spreadsheet program or any other program, but
one that it intended to produce Gcode which can in turn control a machine.

Craig

3380

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

« on: December 14, 2018, 01:24:35 AM »

Hi,
Mach2 is long dead and all development on Mach3 ceased five years ago.

You will have to update to at least Mach3 or if your controller has a Mach4 plugin then upgrade to Mach4.
I'm guessing you will have to buy a new licence to go from Mach2 to Mach3 and you would certainly need a new
licence for Mach4...there is no upgrade from Mach3 to Mach4....you have to buy new.

What USB controller do you have?

Craig