Messages

11

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Slot cuting wizard by Brian/Kran

« on: March 30, 2014, 01:03:30 PM »

Thanks again, will do. I just figured out my other question on why the coordinates appeared wrong.  The coordinates in the wizard are center of slot, and they compensate for the tool diameter.  Since my slot was 2" long, it seemed to push my Negative Y way off.  Looking at it from center of slot, not the end and adding half the tool diameter, it is exact.  Makes perfect sense now.  Knowing where to start the coordinates helps put the slot where I wanted it.

Have a great day.
Ed

12

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Slot cuting wizard by Brian/Kran

« on: March 30, 2014, 12:21:34 PM »

Thanks gentlemen.  Ron, Yes, it gives me an understanding of the wizards.  If I have my eye on Mach4, would it make more sense to get the Newfangled Mill Wizard?  Since it's stand alone, I assume it would generate G-Code that can be imported into either Mach3 now or Mach4 when it's released?

Russ, thanks for the tips.  I realized that the Y was backwards.  I was thinking properly, typing improperly.  Apparently can't do two things at once anymore....
I have one further question.  I was messing with one other wizard just to see how it might work.  It's the Keyway wizard by Brian Barker.  It looked very interested, and I found while playing with it that it showed the absolute coordinates of the cut, and realized that the wizard was not taking the size of the tool into account.  I did the simple math to remove half the tool diameter, and got what looked like it would cut the slot where I wanted and to the proper size.  I did notice something interesting when I ran it in demo mode on my laptop.  When it was moving through the Y axis, it was moving the X at the same time rather than holding it steady.  I couldn't figure out how to zoom the toolpath and be able to se what was happening with the X, but it seemed like it was getting narrower at the center rather than making a square pocket.  Since it's a keyway wizard, does it make the center narrower than the ends?  Off to try the wizard you suggested....

I fibbed, I have one more question that is just for my confidence.  It's on federates, and remember I'm a total novice.  I found several calculators, and also looked at the calculator in one of the Newfangled Mill Wizards, and it shows the federate for a 3/8" HSS, 4 flute mill cutter to be about 4.6 ipm.  For some reason I envision my cutter to find a home other than in the collet of my machine running at that speed.  Although my reading tells me that too slow heats the cutter up and destroys it.  I have a small 3 in 1 machine, just trying to build some confidence to run it this way.  Also the plunge rate is about 2.32 ipm.  Again seems fast for my little machine.  I think the machine can handle it, but just don't have the confidence.  Any advice?

Thanks
Ed

13

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Slot cuting wizard by Brian/Kran

« on: March 30, 2014, 08:31:23 AM »

Ron, it's exactly as I typed it.  "Slot Cutting", by Author Brian/Kran.  It's a wizard that is bundled with Mach3, it's not part of NewFangled wizards or Mill Wizards.

Could be an issue with the Wizard itself as Russ suggested.

Ed

14

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Slot cuting wizard by Brian/Kran

« on: March 30, 2014, 08:27:38 AM »

Thanks Russ.  Those darn motor mounts Huh?    
Hey, care to point me to the wizard you used.  I tried the side slotting wizard using the one on the far right, and it sent my mill in the wrong direction.  I thought I tried the rectangular slot also, but don't remember.  I tried a few of them to find one that might work.  One issue I seem to have is that when I set my zero's on a corner of my workpiece, the mill seems to take off in the wrong direction.  I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong being a TOTAL novice.  I'm trying to think of the X and Y in terms of the tool.  So if the tool was to move toward me, table away, that would be +Y, tool to the right, table left would be +X.  Z is easy.  Does that make sense?

I'm still confused on the wizard I had tried, as to why it moved to different dimension than I had input.  It was close in the X, but Y was a bit further off.  Didn't make sense.

I'll try the wizard that is called Rectangular Pocket by Brian Barker and see if I have more luck.

Hey, what is the difference between the NewFangled Wizards and the Mill Wizard?

Thanks
Ed

15

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Slot cuting wizard by Brian/Kran

« on: March 29, 2014, 09:47:47 PM »

Not sure if this is where I should ask this question, but I didn't see a place for general wizard questions.

I'm trying to cut 4 slots in a piece of mild steel to make a motor mount.  I ran across the slot cutting wizard in the subject of this message.  I was going to set it up 4 times to get all 4 slots cut.  I'm having trouble understanding the wizard. 

First, I set the X and Y user coordinates to zero at the corner furthest away from me and to the right of the workpiece.  It is the same corner I chose with the Set Position in the wizard.

I want the slots to be in the Y direction.  I'm using a 3/8" cutter, and would like them slightly wider than 3/8"
I set the wizard up with the set position in the upper right corner of the graphic on the screen.  I set the following parameters.
Tool Dia, +0.375", Feed Plunge +0.10, Rough Feed +0.30, Rapid height +0.1, X Position -0.25, Step Depth +0.1, Y Position -6.5, Length 0.38,
Width 2.0, Depth +0.3.

When I post the G-Code, the first few lines look like this:
G00 X-.44 Y-8.31
G01 Z-0.1 F0.1
Y-6.69 F0.3
X-0.5375 Y-.67875
Y-8.2125
X-0.3425
Y-6.7875
X-0.5375
G00 Z0.1

My first question is why aren't my X and Y representative of what I put into the settings.  I wanted to go 6.5" in the negative Y and .25" in the negative X.  The G-Code is going to .155 in the negative X when you take 1/2 the cutter with from the second pass of .5375.  Total with of the cut is not correct either.  It's much wider.  I found also that if I increase the width number in the wizard, the cut gets narrower.

The Negative Y is going to -8.31 rather than 6.5 minus 1/2 of the cutter diameter. 

I can mess with the numbers until I get what I want, but was wondering if I'm not understanding the Wizard, or if I'm doing something wrong.

Can anyone help?
TeaMan

16

General Mach Discussion / Homing table location on Lathe and Mill

« on: March 19, 2014, 01:08:37 PM »

I'm mounting homing switches on a 3 in 1 machine.  I the homing without switches document in user documents for the lathe suggests the table position to be furthest to the right and furthest away from you when home.  The lathe document shows the suggested table location somewhere between the left and right movements and also the movement toward and away from the user.

Is there a somewhat standard place to home the Lathe with respect to table location?  I'd like to make the same location home for both the Lathe and Mill so I only need one home switch for each position, although on the Lathe that is the furthest I can be away from the spindle.  It's not a very large machine, so that isn't a huge issue. 

Just wondering if there is a somewhat standard position.

Another Lathe question:  I read somewhere that zero on the X for the Lathe should be center of the spindle, +X towards you, -X away from you.  Any reasoning for this, or is it a standard way to work with a lathe?

17

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: NFS Turn Wizard

« on: March 02, 2014, 08:55:16 PM »

This may be a stupid question, but I read through the posts on the wizards and saw posts discussing metric and US threading.  I only see US threading when I click on the thread table.  How do I see the metric thread table?  Do I have to be set for metric turning, or can you cut metric threads if Mach3 is set up for US units.

TeaMan

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Proper directions of X, Y, an Z axis

« on: March 01, 2014, 10:28:07 AM »

If you are using Mach, imagine standing in front of your mill looking down at the table.  The table is like a piece of graph paper, positive X to the right and negative to the left, positive Y away from you and negative towards you.  The head goes up and down on the Z axis, positive being up.

If you dial in a positive X movement the table moves to the LEFT, so that the "control point" which is the tip of the tool held in the spindle, moves to the RIGHT relative to the table.  Similarly if you dial in a positive Y movement the table moves towards you.  If you dial in positive Z the head moves up, away from the table.

For all practical purposes, you can set the "zero" of the XY coordinate system at a convenient point on your work, for example at the "bottom left hand corner".  I tend to set the Z zero at the table surface as I have an automatic setting gauge for that; and measure the height of a convenient reference part of the work.  Another way is to set the Z zero at the work surface.  In either case, as the tool moves into the work Z decreases, and if you have set Z at the work surface, it cuts at "negative Z".

In principle you could label the axes differently, but for example the Mach wizards and at least the CAM program I use (G-Simple) use the above definition so you could get in trouble!

 

Hey John.  Do you use Mach3 turn as well as Mach3 Mill?  From your description it follows what Fastest1 said where the spindle is Z.  So on the lathe in Mach3 turn, there is no Y since the spindle is in Z.  The table that goes from you to away from you as you stand in front of the machine is Z, where on the Mill, the table the goes from you to away from you is Y.  On my machine, that is the same table, which is where my confusion comes from.  I have a 3 in 1 machine with mill and lathe in one machine and have DRO on my machine.  How do you handle the same tables going from having a Y axis on the Mill and changing to a Z axis on the Lathe?

Thanks
Ed

19

Brains Development / Re: Why did this work?! Modbus addressing

« on: March 01, 2014, 10:06:34 AM »

I may be able to help here.  If I understand what you are asking anyway.  

Not sure why your brain would write to a different spot than the Modbus test though.  This was a little confusing to me too, actually irritating when I first started working with Modbus and holding registers between two devices.  Some systems have "0" based addressing and some have "1" based addresses.  We call it an address shift.  Some devices actually have configurations that can be set to compensate for this. It appears your register in your PLC goes from 0 to 7 and Mach3 goes from 1 to 8.  You are simply shifting to align the two systems.

If I missed your point, and you were talking about the Modbus serial or Modbus TCP setup, the Cfg # of the line you have your address on is what you use in your brain.  If your address was on the Cfg #0 line, that is what goes into your brain.

Hope this is helpful.  Sorry if I misunderstood your concern...

TeaMan

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Proper directions of X, Y, an Z axis

« on: February 28, 2014, 11:43:41 AM »

Makes a lot of sense.  Your explanation of the rotating part of the machine being Z, makes sense as to why the lathe could look different than the mill, where the lathe spindle is in the same plane as the table and the mill spindle is perpendicular to it.

You said you were a hobby machinist, understand, I'm not even at that point yet, so I'm very grateful for all explanations.  Eventually it'll make sense in my mind and I'll execute on it.

Glad you posted that explanation, it definitely put that aspect into perspective.

Thanks
Ed