Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Question about Dolphin PartMaster Lathe/Mach3 post

« on: April 03, 2014, 01:17:48 PM »

Hood:
I have the guys at Dolphin working on it now for me so that should get resolved in the next few days.  In the mean time it isnt difficult to edit the code file, just a pain in the butt to have to do it.  On the first file I created I ran the code in air to see how it responded.  Everything worked just fine, however there was never any change in feed rate, and on a lathe operation there are several since the machine goes into rapid on the backpath, then slows down for the cutting operation.... that never happened, but it does now that I edited the code file.

I have sent a copy of the edited and unedited code to Dolphin for them to see what is needed and they will be able to fix it for me, but what really amazes me is that no one else seems to have this issue - maybe I am their only customer running Mach?

I had several other issues getting started as well, since they sold me a dual licence for the mill and the lathe, the licence file was never setup properly for lathe work, which is what I really needed.  Initially when I tried to run the post to generate a file - there were NO posts that showed up in the post window, it was blank, although there were posts in the folder.  It turned out that the developers had changed V12 to look for V12 posts and all the posts were V11, that is has now been fixed - 3 weeks later.

After that, when I eventually tried to generate a code file - I got an error and the post processor deleted all but about 9 blocks of code...... thanks very much.  That also got fixed - about a week later, apparently the licence file was never setup to allow me to do lathe work....

So now - almost everything works except the post processor doesn't produce code that works properly......

All in all, I think that Partmaster is a great program for lathe work, very flexible and easy to run - once you understand it, if you don't have all these issues.  That said, Rodney at Dolphin has been great to help me out with good customer service, but it is still annoying since none of these problems should have ever risen had their developers and programmers been on their game.....  based on this experience I don't know if I will ever use the mill program, especially since I have Aspire.  For the price, Aspire is the king of engraving programs IMHO.

I'll let you know if I need any help going forward, thanks for the reply.

Pete

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Question about Dolphin PartMaster Lathe/Mach3 post

« on: April 02, 2014, 10:11:10 PM »

I have just recently got started with Partmaster and I have discovered that the Mach3 posts do not have any feed rate changes built in to the g-code files.  For example there will be a line that has G00 at the start and some coordinates.  This will send the tool at max rapid speed to that position ok, but the following lines sometimes have NO 'G' at the start, or sometimes they will have G01, or G02/03 but at the end of the block there is NEVER a change in feed rate, so the machine just keeps on at the max feed rate.  Just because there is a G01 at the start of the line, Mach does not know what speed is supposed to be set, so it just stays where it is.  This tiny little issue makes the Mach posts in Partmaster totally useless from what i can see.  I have tried at least 5 different mach posts and they all have the same quirk.  Is there a way around this, is it normal, what do other people do - go in and edit the g-code file every time?  I have complained about this to Dolphin, but their 'post writer' is away.......

13

LazyTurn / Re: I am having trouble with tool size

« on: March 04, 2014, 02:28:37 PM »

Thanks Rich.  I am looking forward to using the Dolphin, from what I have seen on the web so far everyone really likes it.  I know it will easily pay for itself in labour savings over the next few weeks alone.

Pete

14

LazyTurn / Re: I am having trouble with tool size

« on: March 04, 2014, 12:12:21 PM »

ok, thanks Rich.  I just cannot get LT to work for me, and I dont have a lot of time to try to figure it out.  I have decided to jump into the deep end of the pool and I have gone out and purchased a copy of Dolphin's Lathe software, and they also gave me deal on the Pro Mill package which I can use down the road.

At any rate, the tool issue still needs to be resolved in LT as it is impossible to generate a proper round cutter.  the only issue seems to be that the nose radius is copying the I.C. of the insert shape, whereas it only needs to take half that value and things should be good.  They way it is now, I imagine that any generated code will be out of position by the tool radius.

Right now I have a hybrid setup, using my cnc router to do profiling with a mini wood lathe strapped to the end of the router bed to hold and spin the material, so I am now using a manual mini wood lathe as a cnc lathe, but I dont have proper software for it.  I am using Aspire to generate code as if I were milling a pocket, which creates its own set of problems, then I have to edit the code to strip out the Z tool paths, and then do some more editing to compensate for the missing Z pathways so the cutter doesnt pass through the middle of my spindle..... lots of work, especially when i need to make changes, I have to start all over....

The Dolphin software is cool since both the Pro Mill and the Lathe package will accept an IGES file directly from Solidworks, so that saves a lot of time for me especially with my hybrid since I wont have to run the image file through Draftsight to clean up the dxf file, and then through Aspire, I should be able to go direct to Dolphin and generate the proper code..... that alone can save me 4 or 5 hours of editing for a single project.  I am really looking forward to trying it out.

15

LazyTurn / Re: I am having trouble with tool size

« on: March 03, 2014, 02:00:11 PM »

I am also finding a problem defining tools.  I want to define a round cutter, 6mm diameter (.236"), so I select a button tool, but I cannot specify a tip radius of 3mm (.118").  LT keeps changing the radius to the same value as the IC that i entered.  I can get by this by defining a different shape of tool, but I don't know if that will cause other issues.