Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: New guy frustration LOL

« on: November 26, 2019, 06:04:36 PM »

I do not drill into the vacuum plate, that would be real dumb and after a few holes you would lose the vacuum anyway.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: New guy frustration LOL

« on: November 26, 2019, 03:55:13 PM »

Autoleveller is a great piece of software but when milling PCBs I prefer to hold the workpiece flat, eliminating the need for profile correcting software.  Simple vacuum chucks can do this extremely well.  I have made several for different size boards.  Here is a 20 minute video showing the smallest one,  the second half of the video shows measurements which illustrate just how flat the boards are held.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7rKm1RwYM

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: mach3 MPG setup and galil

« on: November 26, 2019, 12:14:43 PM »

Yes, that works fine.  I mapped Alt - A, B, C to set the active axis for the MPG.  So the MPG went through the Galil card and the axis selection and rate go through the iPAC2 emulator as keyboard shortcuts.

4

General Mach Discussion / Bug in mach3 ToolPath colours?

« on: November 26, 2019, 11:18:53 AM »

Is there a known bug in Mach3 ToolPath colour settings?

I prefer a light colour background rather than the default black.  If I set the background colour to white or other light colour and the other colours to suit that background (black for G1 for example) then when the ToolPath graphic is redrawn the tool path is shown for a guessed 0.5 secs then I just get a white screen.

It seems as if the white background is drawn first, then the lines for the other stuff such as the tool path are drawn but then it seems as if the background is redrawn over the top of everything, blanking it out.  This can be seen by going to a 50% grey, then the lines are only partially swamped out.  As black is defined as nothing then redrawing nothing over the image will have no effect, but redrawing white over everything will wash it out, which is what happens.

Is there a known fix or work around for this?

5

General Mach Discussion / mach3 MPG setup and galil

« on: November 18, 2019, 06:46:12 PM »

I am making an external control panel, with a bunch of buttons and an MPG.  I use a galil controller and plan to connect the MPG direct to the controller using an aux encoder input.  That should be straight forward but I need to add switches to select which axis and what feed steps.  Searching the forums here the usual advice is to write a "Brain" to do that but I have found no guidance on how to do that.

I have another idea how to do this and I would like some feedback on its feasibility.  For the various buttons I am using an iPac2 keyboard emulator to send Hotkeys to mach3.  So my idea is to use the iPac to send the appropriate messages to select the jog rate and selected axis.

6

General Mach Discussion / Wiki problem

« on: November 14, 2019, 05:29:19 PM »

Has the wiki been moved or taken down?  When I try to access it I get the page title and some stuff about the GNU licence details, otherwise a blank screen.  There is a login button but my MachSupport login details do not not fire it up and I cannot find anywhere to join.

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Galil vs Vital

« on: November 07, 2019, 07:08:25 PM »

Craig,

I thought that the main advantage of the A2 over the B2 was that the A2 could process the motor encoder and the linear encoder whereas the B2 could work with the motor encoder only.  Or did I misinterpret your earlier comments?

8

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Galil vs Vital

« on: November 07, 2019, 05:50:20 PM »

I was just considering options and learning.  That was not a definite proposal that I had real intentions of following.

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Galil vs Vital

« on: November 07, 2019, 12:07:43 PM »

Yes I was thinking about that also.  If the tachos were not used then there would be plenty of room.
The motors and ballscrews are connected by a toothed belt, would it be better to put encoders on the motors or ball screws?  On the motors would be the easiest.

10

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Galil vs Vital

« on: November 06, 2019, 01:59:06 PM »

Craig,

I revisited your responses from the beginning and I note that you mentioned the Gecko 320X.  I just had a look at those and they appear to be suitable.  OK maybe not state of the art but my needs are not production nor customer based.  Purely for making some parts for my own classic racing motorcycles.  I guess that the Gecko performance is short of what the Deltas would produce but otherwise would they do what I need if I kept the original motors?  I guess that I would still need the ESS and breakout boards?
I had previously associated Geckos with stepper motors and so I never considered them earlier.
With any of these options do I feed other inputs like an MPG in through the breakout boards or.....?