Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Index RPM will not return to zero

« on: February 01, 2016, 02:18:09 PM »

Sorry, I cannot help you as I am having the same problem.  Just installed my sensor.

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Threading G76

« on: January 30, 2016, 08:00:37 PM »

Thanks.  Do I still need index input if I use G32 for the long form threading approach?

13

General Mach Discussion / Threading G76

« on: January 30, 2016, 04:04:03 PM »

So for G76 to work I have to have some way of sending a signal to Mach3 telling it how fast the spindle is turning, is that correct?  I thought that if I programed in the spindle speed, and then set my VFD to get that speed I would be good to go.  Right now I have a MachTach tachometer installed which gives me spindle speed but I am not sure if I can feed this info to Mach3.  If I am on the right track here what is a good simple way of getting RPM into Mach3? Thanks.

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: G code

« on: February 15, 2015, 03:44:51 PM »

Well that is ugly.  I was trying to stay away from CAD, but if I do start from CAD for the lathe do I do half drawings, that is from the centre line of the peice to the edge, given that the peices are always symetrical.

15

General Mach Discussion / G code

« on: February 14, 2015, 08:35:40 PM »

I have converted my lathe and have run some wizards with a minimum of problems and now want to try writing some Gcode.  I have the Smid book and using it tried to write a little program for facing using a G94 code.  I only ran it on the computer, but nothing would make it work.  Then I entered Smid's example right from the book for straight turning which uses a G90 code - again it traced a goofy path not making interative cuts.  When I looked at some of the wizards that came with Mach3 none of them seem to use these higher G codes.  So what G codes can be used in Mach3?  Do different programs use different G codes? 

Thanks.

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: SPINDLE CONTROL SETUP MACH 3 G540

« on: December 18, 2014, 12:41:37 PM »

I am in exactly the same situation as you are.  Which means I cannot really help.  I wired up my VFD to my controller and cannot get my motor to turn via Mach3 despite playing around with a lot of settings in Mach3.  I reprogrammed my VFD so I could control the motor via the VFD keypad and found the motor would only rotate at a slow speed when controlled via the key pad on the VFD.  When I unplugged the cable from the VFD to the controller the motor would now rotate at full speed.  My conclusion was that the wiring from the VFD to the controller was correct and something in the Mach3 settings was the problem.  Trying to solve these problems is like trying to look into a black hole - you cannot peer into the VFD or the controller to see where those signals are going astray.

Dennis

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle speed on my lathe

« on: December 11, 2014, 12:31:40 AM »

More of what I have tried.  In ports and pins, motor output, spindle, I enabled and set step pin to 1 and direction pin to 13.
Turned the spindle on at the VFD.  Still no read out at the S True DRO. When I click on the spindle button at the bottom of the screen the DRO counts down from a number I entered in the S DRO (which would not do anything as I am controlling the spindle speed from the VFD).

The spindle sensor I am using is putting out something.  Is there a way I can unplug the parallel port cable at the computer and see if a signal is coming in on pin 13?

I have tried all possible combinations of active low - emulated settings in ports and pins, input signals, limit that are possible.  So maybe no signal is getting through to the computer or the signal is of a type that is not recognizable.

Dennis

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle speed on my lathe

« on: December 10, 2014, 05:22:12 PM »

Well I had my VFD hooked up to my controller but I could get no movement on the spindle through Mach3, so I put everything back to manual control of the spindle through the VFD so I could just focus on spindle speed.

I checked the diagnostic screen, nothing flashes.  In port and pins, inputs, limit - if I leave unchecked the active low the index light in the diagnostic screen is on.  If I check active low the index light in the diagnostic screen does not come on.  However in both cases nothing in the diagnostic screen flashes with the spindle turning and the light at the base of the sensor flashing.

I also did this with a wizard running as I thought maybe the readout would not activate unless a program was running. Nothing.

Thanks for the google link.  I will see if there are any hints there I can use.  In the meantime all thoughts appreciated.

Dennis

19

General Mach Discussion / Spindle speed on my lathe

« on: December 09, 2014, 11:38:30 PM »

I am trying to get spindle speed to appear in the S True DRO in Mach3. For a sensor I am using an inductive proximity sensor which I think is type NPN (although I am not sure what that means).  With the controller I am using, the signal for this sensor goes into a Gecko board and then to pin 13 on the parallel port.  In Mach3, Pins and Ports, Input Signals, I have enabled Index, port #1, pin 13, and checked off active low.  Turning on the spindle and handholding the sensor I get no reading in Mach3, but the light is flashing at the base of the sensor indicating it is active.  The only thing I can think of is that no signal is getting through from the sensor but I am not sure how I would check this.

Of course it could be something different all togeather.

All suggestions, pointers and ideas appreciated.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Creating wizards

« on: November 30, 2014, 05:52:17 PM »

So I guess I need to know how to program in Visual Basic.  Any books or references you might suggest?  The last programming I did was back in the days of punched cards.

Dennis