Messages

1361

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: August 18, 2016, 02:19:19 AM »

Sounds good, lots of learning to do i think.

The part i need is 1/2" round, 3" long and has a 5mm square peg machined on one end - a small chuck key style tool.

I tried doing CAM for the peg last night, seems Aspire will not let me do it how I thought in would, I am sure F360 will but that seems overkill.

I might have a stab at hand-coding the part for educational reasons, needs two passes, square corners, but cut with a 1/2" ball nosed tool so there is a radius between tip and body, DOC would be 11mm, steel is EN16T so a little harder than plain mild. Speed would be around 450rpm, 60mm/min on HSS tools.

Sounds simple, see how far i get

1362

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Offset Macro...

« on: August 18, 2016, 02:12:33 AM »

Yes, that quill connection is a real weak spot. It places a lot of twisting action on the ballscrew nut as well. There probably is a current limit option but the manuals are a bit scary Chinglish at best.

1363

General Mach Discussion / Re: Change direction of the work area

« on: August 17, 2016, 10:42:48 AM »

Before you do that, have a read here, may find some answer....

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=25867.0

1364

General Mach Discussion / Re: Change direction of the work area

« on: August 17, 2016, 10:22:14 AM »

You have a switch on main axis and on slave axis, and they show up in Mach when triggered?

If yes then it has to be a software setting.

1365

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Offset Macro...

« on: August 17, 2016, 08:11:01 AM »

If it was a large offset, it can be worse, when i first had it happen it ripped the Z-drive apart on my conversion project, luckily the part that broke was cast iron, it's steel now so a future crash would be far worse, even a 400w ac servo and 2:1 drive has a frightening amount of power in it.

1366

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Offset Macro...

« on: August 17, 2016, 07:21:55 AM »

Its just the math - having an offset gives a result for Z that can change a small upward lift to a large downward plunge.

1367

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool Offset Macro...

« on: August 17, 2016, 05:31:32 AM »

Just had a reply from CS-Labs re the probing crash, It seems i am correct that probing must be done with tool zero or a tool with NO offset entry - they sent me a macro and it will only run on tool zero - just as mine does now.

That explains the crashing then

1368

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: August 17, 2016, 02:21:20 AM »

Well, not used it in anger yet as i'm still messing with the build, final steps etc. But it's a serious bit of kit, well made and looks like its exactly the right thing for the job, I have no doubts it will work fine once i get the first job on.

I think i posted many posts back about a little job i do batches of - round shafts with a square peg milled on the end and i asked about the CAM for it, I was using a 5C collet block and making four cuts, rotating 90deg each previously, someone mentioned standing the 5C block upright and working round it, but yesterday i realised what i really need is a pair of custom vise jaws with a half-round slot in each one - this would give me very accurate position and grip.

This will be one of the first jobs, plain mild steel will work as they will likely only be used for this job. Then I can just run round the tip with a 12mm ball-nosed cutter and speed would be greatly increased over the manual task.

1369

General Mach Discussion / Re: Change direction of the work area

« on: August 16, 2016, 04:33:12 PM »

do you have two home switches on the slaved axis - you need one at each side

1370

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: August 16, 2016, 02:27:03 PM »

Changed Mach down to V0.062 tonight, supposed to be best version, also got the Haimer 3d-taster zeroed, had to mark the spindle and mount as there is runout otherwise - this will need a bit of investigation, might be a burr in the R8 socket, might just be a poor 12mm Weldon mount that I have the Haimer mounted into.

Still testing the tool-length offset but it seems stable now I have sussed out how to do it;)