Messages

231

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 13, 2018, 09:05:18 AM »

The new setter in action, simple and fast

Uses CS-Labs M31 coding.

https://youtu.be/YzV89lxtjcA

232

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 10, 2018, 01:02:05 PM »

Got the real height-setter mounted today.

All works nicely, my screen-set now sports a page for tool-setting with table/knee positions, speeds etc

Using CS-Labs M31 probing code.

Job done:)

233

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 spindle behaviour

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:47:12 PM »

sorry guys thats an never ending Basic discusion, and i am realy sorry to say that, what has nothing to do with the Basic thread.

sorry again Thomas.

My fault, apologies

234

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 spindle behaviour

« on: May 07, 2018, 12:17:18 PM »

Back in the old days before CNC that old Bridgeport had a number of  ratios, you selected the speed closest to what you required and got to work. Are you trying to tell me that all those jobs I did with manual mills and
lathes were compromised because I did not have the exact speed ratio available? Of course not, provided the surface speed is within 20% of the recommended for that material you can always find a feed that worked well.

Craig

Back in the day, the BP only went to 4200rpm max and the brain controlling the handles was very adept at altering rates depending on how the tool sounded and th colour of the chips, BUT it was never running a tiny cutter at 24,000rpm - there is no sound apart from the 'ping' when it snaps   I'm not having a dig or anything, far from it but I would never state that speeds do not matter

235

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 spindle behaviour

« on: May 07, 2018, 02:28:59 AM »

Is there a particular reason you need really accurate speed? In most cases you just set the speed, often as fast as it will go, and leave it there. Who really
cares what speed it is?

Craig

That is a very odd statement to make i think - speed and feed are critical in most cases. If you have a tool that needs 35,000rpm and you only have 24,000 then its going too slow and allowances must be made or it will break - if you don't know or care what speed it is doing, how do you compensate. On a 20mm tool you can get away with slightly wrong chip load but at this speed it will be small tool and even a little runout can be enough to break it.

236

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 spindle behaviour

« on: May 06, 2018, 09:36:04 AM »

I had the same issue on a Huanyang VFD on a UC100 controller, non-linear 0-10v scale. I changed the VFD to a Bosch item and it worked perfectly after that.

237

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 05, 2018, 09:27:29 AM »

Impressed myself today.

While waiting for my tool setter to arrive, I built one from bits - 8mm ground shaft, linear bearing, scraps, odd switch from junk box.



Ok, she's ugly - i wasted no effort on aesthetics, no aerospace grade aluminium was cut and its wired up with croc-clips

BUT...

This little bugger has an accuracy of 0.005mm - thats less than 2 tenths of a thou anywhere on the plate surface thanks to the linear support bearing

The switch is nothing special, a China import V3 micro with roller lever.

I'll probably end up using the bought one when it comes but shows what can be done with junk.

Hopefully get some time Monday to test it on real tooling and a small job.

238

General Mach Discussion / Re: mach won't save cv control settings.

« on: May 05, 2018, 02:57:53 AM »

IIRC Mach will auto-save when closing if it has been running for more than a few minutes.

Easy way is to try it - open Mach, no need to ref or reset, Change a DRO, then close and reopen, see if change was saved.

239

General Mach Discussion / Re: newbie needing advice

« on: May 04, 2018, 01:49:14 PM »

What i would next is flip the dir-active-low setting in ports and pins.

Now try jogging but with the OPPOSITE key you would expect so down arrow to move away from you and note the DRO readings +/-

Report back

240

General Mach Discussion / Re: newbie needing advice

« on: May 04, 2018, 10:10:56 AM »

Ok, lets get back to the start.

Lets do one axis.

You have the machine Y axis so if you press the up arrow on keyboard, the axis moves away from you BUT the numbers go negative?