Messages

6451

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Spindle At Speed, Spindle Zero Problem

« on: October 03, 2017, 10:24:09 PM »

Hi Hakan,
not convinced that the macros are responsible for the behavior that you describe but rather the way the interpreter
works.

My understanding is:
When the interpreter encounters a macro, m3 for instance it passes control the the function in the macro and
when the macro returns it goes back to the next line of code. Any other Gcodes on the line after the remote
function call are missed.

Would like to test it out. Maybe one of  the Mach/Lua gurus will chime in.

Craig

6452

General Mach Discussion / Re: Coordinates

« on: October 03, 2017, 07:11:00 PM »

Hi,
just one other thought, some Wizards only produce code in one set of units. Could it be that the wizard your using
is producing code in mm and so appears 25 times to big for your inch machine?

Either way being able to see the job relative to the machine boundaries will show it up.

Craig

6453

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can not reinstall Mach3

« on: October 03, 2017, 07:07:10 PM »

Hi Ted,
publish your advice far and wide, hundreds have or will fall into the same trap.

Craig

6454

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 03, 2017, 04:54:07 PM »

Hi,
sorry misread your post, I guessed you were talking about stepper drivers.

I personally use, like and recommend an Ethernet Smoothstepper from Warp9. As it turns out there are a few choices.
Don't buy Chinese, most of its rubbish and little or no help when you get stuck.

Beware also the there are some Chinese knock-offs on Ebay trying to pass as a UC100...don't go there!

Craig

6455

General Mach Discussion / Re: Coordinates

« on: October 03, 2017, 04:47:51 PM »

Hi,
does your machine have home switches?. If it has and you can reference your machine to a known location repeatably
then you can meaningfully set soft limits. The soft limits can be optionally displayed in the toolpath window and you can
see at a glance whether your Gcode job is within the machine boundaries. Very handy.

Craig

6456

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 03, 2017, 04:05:04 PM »

Hi,
the 80V capable Geckos, Gecko have a great rep but reasonably pricey

ger21, very experinenced CNCer, says:

Get some Leadshine AM882's from Ebay, and some low inductance, high current steppers, and you'll get all the speed  and power you need. And they'll run smoother, cooler and quieter than what you have.

Craig

6457

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Spindle At Speed, Spindle Zero Problem

« on: October 03, 2017, 02:14:33 PM »

Hi Hakan,
hadn't found that bug...I will give it some thought.

Get into the habit of using lowercase m for macros, I've caused myself plenty of grief by not doing so. Windows is by and large NOT case sensitive
about script and filenames but now you are relying on Windows to come up with the right file....it will fail occasionally so use lower case m.

Craig

6458

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 03, 2017, 02:07:03 PM »

Hi,
the hybrid 'servo steppers' are just stepper motors with a smart drive, useful to be sure but its still a stepper with the same limitations of speed
and torque. The premium you pay for the smart drive gets you too little....either get plain steppers and drives but the next size up OR get proper
AC servos and drives and be done with it.

You pay a premium for analogue capable controllers, if you instead stuck with a cheaper step/dir controller you have more budget for a servo
and drive.

Bang for your buck, ordinary 34 or 42 size low inductance steppers with 80V drives are still easily the most cost effective for hobbyists, if
you need more performance the AC servos are the answer...no in between nonsense.

Craig

6459

General Mach Discussion / Re: Is there a way to slow the speed of x and y

« on: October 03, 2017, 01:54:43 PM »

Hi,

G1 X...Y....F10   The F word is the feed rate, in this case 10 units, whatever units are active, per minute.
Also FRO, that is feed rate override, lower right of main screen.

http://www.machsupport.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Mach3Turn_1.84.pdf

Manuals work best when read, usually more than once.

Craig

6460

General Mach Discussion / Re: 0-10v spindle control convert to +/-10v spindle control

« on: October 02, 2017, 10:38:54 PM »

Hi Mark,
the reason I considered a Mosfet (or some other transistor) was to pull the output to zero volts when stopped, within a few
millivolts. The natural bias offset voltage for these little opamps is about 50mV. It may not cause any problems but then
again it might. Try it and see...if it needs to be more sophisticated thenit can be done.

Craig