Messages

901

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Power Feed Wizard

« on: February 10, 2007, 11:20:27 AM »

Ok, I was going to make the Feed buttons in an arrow shape but I dont have a good tool to do that. The idea is that the button by the Xneg limit is the one to send the table to the positive limit. So the button my each limit assume you are at that limit and want to go to the other limit. Ill see if I can make better buttons.

Good idea on the feedhold button, I will see if I can make that work.

thanks

ron ginger

902

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Power Feed Wizard

« on: February 10, 2007, 10:47:56 AM »

There is a DRO for X minus and one for X Plus. You set those to be your limits. The wizard loads them both to zero to start with so there is no mistake with an old value, but you must set at least one of them to some other value to get a move.

The keyboard arrow keys are your normal jog keys, and there is a button to turn jogging on or off.

Do you see a better way to label the keys to make this more obvious?

thanks for trying it.

ron ginger

903

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Circular pocket question

« on: February 09, 2007, 11:23:26 PM »

Yes, but then you will be cutting air in the center of the larger pocket.

I will be releasing a new wizard set in a few more days that has a Ztop setting for circular pockets and several other fixes.

ron ginger

904

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Stand alone wizards ?

« on: February 09, 2007, 11:21:16 PM »

You could run Mach without installing the parallel port driver- there is a check mark for that on just about the last screen of the install. You could then run wizards and let them generate the code. Once you return to Mach hit the 'Edit Gcode' button and when the file opens do a 'Save-as' and put it wherever you want it.

The Newfangled wizards generally create a file in the Gcode directory called NewProgram.tap

ron ginger

905

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Power Feed Wizard

« on: February 09, 2007, 10:58:06 PM »

I have written a new wizard that runs as a simple power feed.

You can set a limit switch for X plus and X minus, then with a single button click you can feed back and forth, much like you could with a manual power feed option.

It also has controls for feed rate and can raise the Z axis on rapid moves.

Save the zip file to Mach3\Addons and extract the files to Power Feed X.

I think it might be useful, so its posted here. If there are no error reports it will go into a future release of the complete wizard set.

ron ginger

906

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Circular pocket question

« on: February 04, 2007, 10:43:16 AM »

In defense of Sheetcam their pocketing is a general purpose that can handle any shape. They have to be much more careful with the code. The Wizard is only doing circles, so its easy to make a better path for them

It is easy enough to change the wizard to allow a setting for the top of the pocket to be below the top of the work surface. However, this could get someone into a lot of trouble if they do such a pocket in the wrong place. I will make the change, and maybe have the program flash a warning dialog box that you just generated code that might be to low.

907

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Circular pocket question

« on: January 31, 2007, 06:25:08 PM »

Sorry, the circular pocket wizard does not offer a way to make the top of the different than the top of the part. We are doing some clean up work on the wizards, maybe a top of cut can be added.

Whats wrong with Sheetcam? There are 2 choices for pocket- spiral and zigzag. If you set it to spiral it ought to look a lot like this wizards code.

908

General Mach Discussion / Re: Set Z to zero automatically?Auto tool zero questions

« on: January 28, 2007, 08:24:57 PM »

I made a small plate from a piece of PC board. I soldered a wire to it and hooked that to my probe input. I used the Z button script from a few replies back.

That worked so well that I decided to add buttons for touch off on X and Y. I used the standard screen for Offsets, and used the graphic there to indicate which edge I was touching off. I simply hold my little PC board plate against the correct edge of the piece and click the button. It seems to be working perfectly.

I used the same script for each button, with the obvious changes for X and Y. I did screw up one button and made the pull back move the wrong sign and snapped off a test tool. At least I know my new mill has lots of torque :-)

I set the feed to 1 in/min, rather slow, but then the overshoot of the probe after it touches the tool edge is so small it doesn't hurt anything. I jog up close to the touch point, less than 1/4" before touching.

Works well for nice edges, like a vise. Might be hard to hold the PC board up to an irregular edge.

909

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cabin Fever

« on: January 25, 2007, 09:45:49 PM »

There are now several pages of photos of this years show on the New England Model Engineering Society web site at http://neme-s.org/Cabin_Fever_2007/cabin_fever_expo_2007.htm

910

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cabin Fever

« on: January 17, 2007, 12:34:45 PM »

There will be at least 20-30 vendors of used tools and macinery. Also many vendors of model related stuff- plans, kits, castings, etc. On friday there is a BIG auction, usually 600 or so lots. Machines, tooling, junk, models, stock, etc.

On CNC specific vednors Fred smith of IM service is alwyas there, as is Steve stallings of PMDX.