Topics

81

General Mach Discussion / Control input methods...

« on: August 13, 2015, 02:53:12 PM »

Building a new CNC Plasma table so it seems a good idea to fix other little niggles at the same time. One of these is the keyboard / mouse.

The keyboard is mostly not used, just a few keys - shift, up, down, left, right, pg up, pg down, maybe a little g-code etc  the mouse gets full of crap and needs space to work.

I thought of a touch-screen monitor but then i lose the jog arrow and other keys which are far better than the tab fly-out screen in Mach.

I then thought of a keyboard track-pad but these are pretty expensive.

Next up was a keyboard track-ball - this is possibly what i'll get but is there a better method?

I can't fit a pendant as the serial port is used by my THC, so i need an easy method to jog the torch around.

82

General Mach Discussion / Life at the bottom end of the PC food chain :)

« on: August 04, 2015, 10:46:22 AM »

Ok, so i'm trying to put a second pc together to enable me to test a new table i am building without stopping my existing table working.

I have managed to find a lowly Dell Dimension desktop that had '98 running on it and updated it to XP sp3, it has a speedy 500mhz processor, massive 128m ram and a super 10gig hard disk 

I have Mach running on it now, it passed the port test at 25khz only, any other speed results in instant reboot 

I have set the motor tuning to something like what i need (9000mm/min) and have a simple g-code running an 1100mm square at full speed repeatedly on it.

Is there anything I should be aware of or does this sound like it will work when i connect the BOB up to the drives???

Thanks

83

General Mach Discussion / Step/port frequency

« on: June 23, 2015, 12:09:45 PM »

Step frequency?

I need to drive a machine driven by two steppers at 9000mm/min using ballscrews, direct drive.

Is it as simple as...

9000mm/min with 20mm lead screw so 9000/20=450rpm

450*200 steps per rev=90,000 steps or pulses per min

90,000 / 60 = 1500 steps per second

so max frequency per axis is 1.5kHz ??

Using 10x micro stepping would need 15kHz per axis?

If so would that be safe if my port is happy at 50kHz?


Many thanks

84

General Mach Discussion / Can Mach3 go too fast??

« on: June 15, 2015, 05:20:24 AM »

I am having difficulties dialling in a new plasma cutter on my table, faults lead towards going to fast but everyone says the book spec should work perfectly.

My question is - Is there any way I could set say a feed speed of 1000mm/min in code and Mach3 runs it faster than it should?

What is the speed regulation method internally??

Thanks

Dave

85

General Mach Discussion / Zoom without mouse wheel??

« on: April 15, 2015, 10:35:17 AM »

Is it possible to zoom the path display without a mousewheel?

Yes I know mice are like 50p each but heyho 

Or is it possible to have it auto-zoom to fit the job each time you load code??

86

General Mach Discussion / Ref X/Y tweak to give dead space...

« on: April 13, 2015, 05:01:32 AM »

Is it possible to set the Ref X-Y feature to home to zero then set DRO's to say -3mm

I have my axis zero points set to the edge of the material guides on X & Y, but if I forget to allow a shift of around +3mm in Sheetcam it fails to cut or tries to cut along the edge of the sheet.

Just wondering

87

Feature Requests / Plasma Arc Timer?

« on: October 29, 2014, 05:04:23 AM »

I don't think this is already featured in Mach but is it possible to add a cumulative Arc-On timer plus maybe a pierce counter??

Both would be reasonably easy to add as external units but that would not show on the screen.

Needs to be cumulative and have a reset button.

It would aid greatly in tracking consumable life for job pricing etc.

88

General Mach Discussion / Mach + CandCNC MP3000 help please

« on: August 29, 2014, 01:08:44 PM »

I'm upgrading my plasma table to an MP3000-DTCHII from CandCNC and have now gained connection to the various boards and control of the motors and also fired the torch etc.

On my last setup which was mach3 with a Proma THC, I had my limit switches at each end of the axes all wired in a normally closed series chain and Mach3 would decide if they were limits or homing switches depending on what it was doing so when referencing the axes they were read as homing switches but at all other times they were read as limit switches.

This worked really well but I can't figure out how to reproduce it in the new setup.

I have the chain connected to the "Limits" input on the I/O board but do not know where that shows up inside the mach setup.

The Z home switch is really the floating head sensor and that is connected to z home and shows up as such in mach.

Anyone here got an MP3000??

Thanks

89

General Mach Discussion / Arc-on timer????

« on: August 15, 2014, 02:54:20 AM »

I don't think this is already featured in Mach but is it possible to have a cumulative Arc-On timer plus maybe a pierce counter??

Both easy to add as external units but that would not show on the screen.

Needs to be cumulative and have a reset button.


Any ideas

90

General Mach Discussion / 1st pierce is longer...

« on: August 13, 2014, 10:35:26 AM »

I am using my plasma torch to make marks for drilling on a job, it has 6 marks on it. It works very well at low power setting and a 0.1s pierce delay. After the piercings I have added a pause in the code so I can up the power and make the following cuts as normal.

However, at the start of each run, the first pierce is always longer, maybe three or four times longer than the rest.

Is there any reason for this in Mach3, I have checked the code and each pierce is identical in duration?

Maybe a setting needs tweaking?

Thanks