Messages

6031

General Mach Discussion / Re: True 4 axis milling

« on: November 04, 2017, 05:58:08 AM »

Hi dude1,
we have conversed before, the picture is Banks Peninsula east of Christchurch. How have you and yours recovered from the earthquake?
I don't know about you but if the gurus are right and we've had our 1 in 500 year event I'm bloody glad its over.

To others reading this post dude1 was shaken by a sucession of earthquakes reaching something like 7.6 about a year ago.
About 5 years ago we suffered a 6.8 but only 5km deep immediately below the city of Christchurch. Both events did incredible
damage and not inconsiderable loss of life.

Craig

6032

General Mach Discussion / Re: True 4 axis milling

« on: November 04, 2017, 05:03:28 AM »

Hi,
one piece of software I use is Eagle a PCB drafting program. When I bought it a perpetual licence was $700NZD. Element14 later sold perpetual licences for the
next generation of the software for $2300NZD. More recently Autodesk have bought it up and they want $500USD annually.

I don't know how the community of users will react to a change to a subscription model and likely to be pretty grumpy at having to log in with Autodesk every
two weeks to keep their program alive.

I suppose if Autodesk brown enough of the current users of then some other company will come up with a program of their own, supply/demand etc.

I feel aggrieved that software just goes out of my reach.

Craig

6033

General Mach Discussion / Re: True 4 axis milling

« on: November 04, 2017, 04:18:29 AM »

Hi Dude1,
that's very kool indeed. It beggars me that they can be so generous with 'potential' customers but as soon as you express a genuine interest in being an
actual customer do they start grinning and writing down numbers with lots of zeros.

Nonetheless I'll take whatever scraps they are offering.

Craig

6034

General Mach Discussion / Re: A-axis rotary lathe question for Mach 3

« on: November 04, 2017, 04:10:02 AM »

Hi,
I believe a vertical router with a small diameter endmill probably with a modest radius if not a ball mill would make the bridge pictured easily. The resulting
curve would be close enough to circular that you couldn't measure the deviation from ideal. Of course you may decide to go with a parabolic or elliptical
shape, given how radical you are! LOL

Where fourth axis machining really pay dividends is things like truing cylindrical surfaces of engraving on a cylindrical surface.

You may have noticed that dude1 chimed in that Fusion 360 can't do continuous 4 axis but can index up to two for 3+1 and 3+2.

You can by the way attach up to four images in one post. When you attach one image click on <more attachments> to browse for another pic.

Craig

6035

General Mach Discussion / Re: A-axis rotary lathe question for Mach 3

« on: November 04, 2017, 03:51:47 AM »

Hi Bob,
extremely nice work, but where do you plugin the big fat amp?...LOL

My guess when I asked you about what you wanted a rotary axis for was that the subtle curve in the bridge and nut were what you had in mind.
Any decent CAM program can follow a gentle curve like that to well within the resolution/accuracy of your machine. We are used to manual milling
and cutting a curve by co-ordinating two axes by hand is beyond a human operator. Not so for a CNC machine. A rotating axis could potentially offer
accuracy in line with the Truth In Rotation of the axis, a few um with care. I would expect a decent hobby router to achieve some thing like 0.02mm
or 20um if the curve were generated by co-ordination of two axes.

I imagine 20um would be considered pretty fair when compared to hand worked.

Craig

6036

General Mach Discussion / Re: True 4 axis milling

« on: November 04, 2017, 02:12:53 AM »

Hi Dude1,
this is my quote:

Autodesk have a policy...'Bend over with trousers down while we extract the money we want'.

Craig

6037

General Mach Discussion / Re: A-axis rotary lathe question for Mach 3

« on: November 04, 2017, 02:06:34 AM »

Hi,
the curve on the bridge of my guitar (steel acoustic) is curved but slightly. If I were making it I wouldn't bother with a rotary axis.
Mach can quite comfortably mill around a curve like that. Do you have a sketch or a pic of what you want to do?

Craig

6038

General Mach Discussion / Re: True 4 axis milling

« on: November 04, 2017, 01:58:28 AM »

Hi Dude1,
thanks for clearing that up, from the way you are talking is continuous 4 axis coming? I haven't used Fusion much but was pretty impressed all the same,
even 3+1 indexing is pretty damn good, and really hard to complain about the price!!!

I don't have a very high opinion of Autodesk's money gathering policies but with Fusion they have proved me wrong bigtime!

Craig

6039

General Mach Discussion / Re: new setup issues

« on: November 04, 2017, 01:52:33 AM »

Hi,
OK, the chances are that the stepper are locking  up as power is applied. If you attempt to turn them by hand with the power off they should turn pretty easy
often with a slight 'cogging' feeling, called detent. When you power them up they should lock up and hold their position, you can twist them hard enough to get
them to budge, its called its Hold torque.

You will have to stick with what the manufacturer intended as you cant rewire the inputs to the drivers.
Try jogging any and all of the axes with both the arrow keys and the <tab> flyout.

Can you post your xml file. In the Mach3 folder there will be a file of the type Mach3Mill.xml Copy it and rename the copy woodworker.xml and attach it to your next
post using <Additional Options> and browse to the file to attach.

Craig

6040

General Mach Discussion / Re: new setup issues

« on: November 04, 2017, 01:36:01 AM »

Hi,
the ICs, looks like three of them, lined up along one side of the board very near the wall of the box are your stepper driver ICs. Unfortunately that means
you cant shift wires around to experiment with them. It also means that if any one of them blows up then if you cant repair it yourself you have to
throw the whole thing away. Should that come to pass don't buy more Chinese rubbish....seriously its not worth even the little money they want for them.

In absence of an oscilloscope and the skill/experience to use one the best your going to be able to do is try with the best setup you can come up with
and try it. If it doesn't work hassle the supplier to get another or bite the bullet and buy something decent.

If you don't mind me asking what did you pay for this setup? The reason I ask is that while I'm very very scathing of Chinese electronics often the rest of the gear
is OK and even if you threw the electronic bits away you still have pretty good value in the mechanicals, motors and stuff left over.

Craig