Messages

1421

General Mach Discussion / Compaq pc any good?

« on: August 04, 2016, 02:38:57 PM »

Having just lost another, and my last Dell Optiplex pc on my plasma cutter, seems cheap pc junkers are getting more expensive

Are there any know issues with Compaq units/win XP / parallel port


Thanks

1422

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors are not operating correctly

« on: August 04, 2016, 01:50:11 PM »

That sounds expensive for a psu ??

What size - voltage and current is it meant to be ?

1423

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: August 02, 2016, 02:26:16 AM »

Oh, course, forgot the pots, got them.

no flood on mill - makes way too much mess on an open machine.

PC is auto-boot when mains comes on.

I was going to fit ref button - z axis only, but can see use for separate X, Y, Z ref buttons now,

No power drawbar

1424

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motors are not operating correctly

« on: August 02, 2016, 02:22:18 AM »

When you checked 5v on the BOB, was it at the point the PSU was connected?

I would disconnect the PSU and check again, if this is one of the cheap silver PSUs, they are usually adjustable by a couple of volts, but don't adjust when connected to the BOB;)

1425

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: August 01, 2016, 05:33:15 AM »

Front panel, physical buttons

Ok, just designing my floating pendant control station, so far i have this to go on...

stainless keyboard with trackball,
hand pendant with jog wheel, axis and multiplier switches
E-stop
reset for safety system
cycle-start
feed-hold
stop
coolant auto-off-manual
spindle motor toggle

am i missing some buttons??

1426

General Mach Discussion / Re: Machine setup help - urgent if possible :)

« on: July 31, 2016, 10:47:12 AM »

Ignore the last post, it worked on the simulation but not in reality as the PWM was totally freaked out!

I have gone back to my code with the screwy SSO DRO stuff, i also fitted the SSO pot so the CSMIO had control - it certainly fixes the weird SSO behaviour BUT the range of the override pot is very limited and dependant on the pulley setting - very complex relationship between pulleys, wpm and SSO pot i think.

Still it all seems to play together now, pretty smoothly.

1427

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

« on: July 31, 2016, 10:32:54 AM »

Just a couple of pics of the busted Z axis coupler and the replacement, I had no idea the original part was cast iron!

New one should be a fair bit stronger.

1428

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: July 31, 2016, 10:23:12 AM »

Got the cabinet built today, an absolute monster and takes two to lift as i only had 3mm sheet in stock

Its now sitting in the garden in satin black finish.

Also sorted out the mounting bars on the mill, just have to clean the crap out of the corner and pull the rack out to fit it

1429

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

« on: July 30, 2016, 04:05:46 PM »

Nah, its all accessible - buttons just call macros.

It was the same macro i hacked to bits to create my tool setting routine;)

ill have another look - the crash happens between the first pass and the second so should be easy to read.

1430

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

« on: July 30, 2016, 12:15:57 PM »

Right, stuff learnt

By trial and error I got the math right for tool offsets

Made up some sacrificial tools from 2mm ally Tig rods, master ref tool was longest and rest got shorter by random amounts around 10-12mm each

Put master tool (eventually my Haimer probe) in the drill chuck (easy for messing about) and set it manually onto my touch-plate.

Ran my setting macro and stored the master offset, then fitted tool 1 and allowed the macro to auto-probe, then set that as tool 1 in the tool-table.

Rinse and repeat the last step up to tool number 4

Move the knee a bit, put tool zero (ref tool) in the Current Tool box, manually ref the work (top of vise) and set Z zero

Change to tool 2, enter tool 2 in current tool box, MDI'd G0 Z0 and it went exactly where it should,

Repeat the last step with all tools and all went to the exact spot (top of material) - things were looking up, i could now use my four tools without re-refing the surface.


OK, what i did wrong which trashed my Z axis....

I had put tool 1 in the machine and entered tool 1 in the current tool box but then ran an auto-probe routine on the surface, expecting it to just set that tool as Z0 and then be able to carry on as normal with other tools.

I did it again and only sacrificed 6" of Tig rod this time, what happens is this....

Tool comes down at fast probe speed,
Touches off the plate,
Tool lifts 2mm,
Tool then plunges rapidly downwards.

So for some reason it seems you cannot use the 2010 screen simple probe macro with tool length offsets applied?

Scary stuff - so easy to trash things.

Is this normal or total operator failure??

Maybe i should block that macro running if tool number is >0 ??