Messages

7511

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing program

« on: July 31, 2015, 05:13:44 AM »

Hi Keith,
on re-reading your post I realise you don't care about a built in PP. Your choices just got wider!!

I was always keen on the AMD G series both the APU types (which require a support chipset) and the Soc
series which do not. The boards equipped with these CPU's didn't have a built in PP and I rather lost interest but
may be just the ticket for you. I am of the opinion the AMD GPU capability is better than the Atom's.
Have a look at
Gigabyte E350N-WIN8 Dual Core Mini-ITX Board with Radeon HD 6310 and 4x SATA for $89US.
In fact it too has a built in PP, why didn't I see that first time!!!

A search  on ebay for Atom mini-itx will produce enuf choices for any purpose also.

Craig

7512

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing program

« on: July 31, 2015, 04:35:27 AM »

Hi Keith,
the particular board I'm using is UMB-D255E1 made by UNIGEN in Taiwan. The reason I bought this particular unit was that there
was a local supplier (New Zealand) and was able to offer a runtime licence for Windows 7 Embedded Standard as well. By choosing
this supplier I ended up paying WAY above what I might have done otherwise, about $750US for the board, RAM, SSHD and the licence.
Having done more research since I realise my mistake, or if not mistake, the premium I paid for a one stop buy. The price aside the
platform has run flawlessly ever since and the pain of paying a bit much fades as more and more chips get made.
As a starting point try Mini-ITX.com.
They sell boards by a number of well known makers, the one which is almost identical to the one I'm using is

D2500HN 1.86GHz Fanless Dual Core Atom Mini-ITX Board (Intel ODM) at $85US

My board has one SATA port and the other being configured as mSATA in which goes the SSD, brill! I used the SATA port only when I
loaded the OS from an optical drive.
Any search on the net will find such units and it seems that about 20% of them offer a built in PP. I didn't bother with the socketed versions
for Celerons etc because as you point out CPU power has very little to do with how Mach3 on PP runs.

Craig

7513

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing program

« on: July 30, 2015, 03:42:54 AM »

Hi all,
I was interested in Jimthefish's comment about difficulty finding suitable motherboards to run Mach3 with PP. I would guess
he is correct if talking old boards but I know there are new boards  out there with PP that run fine.
18 months or so ago I bought a single board computer based on a dual core Atom with 4G ram and a 64G SSHD and installed
Windows 7 Embedded Standard. Result has been perfect. It will run the pulse engine at 100k with less jitter than my XP machine
at 25k.
Within an hour on the net I could list a dozen or more boards with one built in PP and at least one expansion slot to run another
for as cheap as $75US less RAM and HD. Why anyone bothers with old potentially unreliable boards is a mystery to me when new
alternatives can be had so reasonably.
I had one crash which I blame on my XP machine albeit with my prompting and poorly configured limits and it cost more than
a new Mini ATX board. Now I wouldn't go back to XP if you paid me.

Craig

7514

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help this newbie (engraving)

« on: July 28, 2015, 04:22:01 AM »

Hi Carlos,
I had the same problem when I first built my machine. As Tweaky has said it is the table not quite being flat with respect to the vertical
axis. As it turns out it wasn't that bad, about .2mm variation over the extent of the board. Problem is that .2mm (20 micron) is nearly
two thirds of the thickness of the copper.
In my case as the bed of the mill is 25mm steel I took it off and had it ground in a surface grinder ($40.00) and now it is flat to 8 micron
over the entire table and within 3 micron over the extent of the board of 160mm by 100mm. That's close enough for me to produce good
boards.
If I wish to do better then I will do as Tweaky suggests and use a spoil board that I can machine flat in place. I wanted to use some sort of
plastic like polycarbonate so  I could cut a 160 by 100 pocket and use vacuum to hold the board down. Keep on getting overtaken by more
pressing jobs...
Looks to me like you are on the right track, keep it up and you will make some excellent boards. Extremely satisfying.

Craig

7515

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need Mach3/CNC help Please

« on: July 26, 2015, 04:13:39 AM »

Hi again,
see the description of G90.1  It might be as simple as manually executing a G90.1 code then try running your code.

Craig

7516

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need Mach3/CNC help Please

« on: July 26, 2015, 04:06:35 AM »

Hi,
I'm no expert but have heard of a situation that can occur. The circular Gcodes G2 and G3 have two different operating modes. Read the Gcode description
included in the Mach screen. There is a setiing on the General Configuration page that determines which mode is set.
My setup is  'IJ set to inc'.
Hope it helps.

Craig

7517

Mach3 under Vista / Re: G84 tap cycle spindle not turning random error

« on: July 26, 2015, 03:37:35 AM »

Whoops,
posted before I was ready...
Should be able to get a 3 phase motor for a box of beer...
Most industrial electrical places have fan motors lying around. Look for one that does a little under 1500 rpm if you live in a 50Hz country
or a little under 1800 rpm in 60Hz countries. That would make them 2-pole-per-phase, slower but twice the torque. 1 pole-per-phase
motors have speed rating of 3000 or 3600 rpm respectively.
You may get lucky and find a 3 or 4 pole motor (1000 or 750 at 50Hz, 1200 or 900 at 60Hz) slower again but grunty as hell for tapping.
If you want quick accel- deacccel then you will need an outsize VFD and fit it with a big braking resistor.

Craig

7518

Mach3 under Vista / Re: G84 tap cycle spindle not turning random error

« on: July 26, 2015, 03:23:42 AM »

Hi,
a single phase motor is not the way to go despite being plentiful.
Most capacitor start motors have a centrifugal switch inside so the star winding is active on start up but disconnected
once the motor runs up to a couple of hundred rpm. If the switch does not connect at start time the motor will just
tremble and get hot real quick!
A VFD controlled 3 phase motor is a much better option. The VFD manufacturers tend to say that you need special motors.
They are probably right at high speeds but at lower speeds I don't think so much of a problem. I run a 1hp 3 phase motor
thru a VFD and no smoke has leaked out yet!
I bought a 2nd hand 750W Vfd for $100 of ebay. Some of the el-cheapo Chinese units are pretty poor, the smoke is just dying to get out.
Hitachi seem to have a good rep but a little dearer.

7519

Mach3 under Vista / Re: New Windows 7 computer not working help with spindle

« on: July 26, 2015, 03:03:32 AM »

Hi,
if your axes a driving correctly that suggests your computer and the PP are working OK.
Does the C11 have LEDs on the outputs? I use the boards from Homan Designs (near enuf to a local supplier in NZ) and they
have them and make diagnosing things much easier. I suspect the C11 boards are the same. You can see them quite plainly
when you jog an axis. Have a look. Should be able then to tell if the BOB is getting signalled from the PP...


Craig

7520

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Mach3 post for Mastercam. This post enables use of the Mach3 Mill tool table.

« on: July 26, 2015, 02:40:44 AM »

Hi guys,
I have tried both the generic Fanuc post and the Lowry GenericMach3 post. Both work but both also throw a line at the end of the part
program which halts my machine:
;N2532 G91 G0 G28 Z0.
As you can see I have commented it out. For some reason it tries to drive Z to -50mm which is a disaster on my machine.
I can't decide whether the post is inserting a line that Mach3 can't handle or because of some setting I have made that makes
Mach3 misinterpret the line.
Any ideas?

Craig