Messages

4671

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 driver not install correctly on W7 32 bit.

« on: May 02, 2018, 04:51:54 AM »

Hi,
I ran Mach3 and two parallel ports on Windows7 for three plus years without problems. Did you find a copy of he optimization list....it had about 30-40m items on it?
Anyway you've got XP to work. If you were really concerned you'd ditch the parallel port altogether and get a genuine SmoothStepper or UC300 or 57CNC,
not some Chinese rubbish, then you could use just about any PC and Windows OS you care to name.

Craig

4672

General Mach Discussion / Re: HELP MACH3

« on: May 01, 2018, 08:54:27 PM »

Hi,
I think this is the current list:

G70/G71   Inch/Millimetre unit
G73   Canned cycle – peck drilling
G80   Cancel motion mode (including canned cycles)
G81   Canned cycle – drilling
G82   Canned cycle – drilling with dwell
G83   Canned cycle – peck drilling
G84   Canned cycle – right hand rigid tapping
G85   Reaming Canned Cycle
G86   Intended Boring Canned Cycle
G87   Intended Back Boring Canned Cycle
G88   Intended Boring Canned Cycle
G89   Boring Canned Cycle

Craig

4673

General Mach Discussion / Re: HELP MACH3

« on: May 01, 2018, 08:47:36 PM »

Hi,
not hard to find out....this is off the Artsoft website:

Converts a standard PC to a fully featured, 6-axis CNC controller

Mach4 is likewise capable of six axes of coordinated motion with up to 4 slaves on each axis and six out-of-band
axes, again with up to four slave motor per axis. In all Mach4 allows the definition of 32 motors.

Once you have downloaded and installed Mach3 there is a button which reveals a very concise description of
the Gcodes available for use.

Craig

4674

General Mach Discussion / Re: Milling an Area on wood bed to get flat surface

« on: May 01, 2018, 02:48:42 PM »

Hi,
my personal experience is that prior to using Autoleveller I could get only fair results even after surfacing the spoil board, and even then only on smallish
through hole boards and that was with a lot of cutter wear.

With Autoleveller I don't bother surfacing the spoil board and I can do surface mount boards down to TSSO (0.2mm clearance between pads) no problems and one cutter lasts
hours and hours.

You need to go back and have another look at it. Do yourself a favour, the free version works but the subscription version (20 GBP) generates a probe file and is much
easier to use and understand. If you're serious about making PCBs this is the way to go.

Craig

4675

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems with ref all home

« on: May 01, 2018, 02:37:04 PM »

Hi,
can you post a screen shot of your Homing/Limits page?

Craig

4676

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems with ref all home

« on: May 01, 2018, 02:33:52 PM »

Hi,

If I watch the gantry the slave stops when the switch triggers, but never pulls back off the switch

So the Y motor pulls back but the slave (A) does not?

Craig

4677

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems with ref all home

« on: May 01, 2018, 02:03:34 PM »

Hi,
so you have one home switch for the gantry but two motors?

I think your problem is more to do with slaving than homing. Try a few searches on 'slaving'.

Craig

4678

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 driver not install correctly on W7 32 bit.

« on: May 01, 2018, 01:59:44 PM »

Hi,
you might try the 'Search' function, with it I found this:

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,6346.0.html

There is, or used to be, a list of things you could do to improve your PC for parallel port operation. I'm sure if you spent some time
searching for it you could find it.

Craig

4679

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle driving through bed on mach3 - cam by fusion360

« on: May 01, 2018, 01:42:53 PM »

Hi,
use the 'Search' function, if you try several searches with sufficiently refined search terms you will find examples of what you are looking for. As it turns out the thread I linked you to
is current...you didn't have to look far.

Craig

4680

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Toggle button

« on: May 01, 2018, 01:31:12 PM »

Hi,
a toggle button has two states and therefore requires two scripts.
One script will cause the spindle to start and the other will stop it.
As an example have a look at the Enable/Disable button in Mach4 wx4 screen set.

Craig