Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stalling on program run screen

« on: May 11, 2015, 06:43:24 PM »

Sorry for the late reply so turning off the toolpath did the trick not sure why as the computer is plenty fast and has plenty of ram

Anyways it fixed it the g code was a very long file 8 meg is a pretty big txt file 

thanks Gerry I guess I need to do a screen set with out the toolpath as I really don't need to see it anyways in fact I don't think I have ever really looked at the big ones for me are the 4 axis DROs and the line currently on (in case I need to know where or what is causing a problem if and when it happens).

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stalling on program run screen

« on: May 07, 2015, 01:17:04 PM »

Gerry
How do I do that?

I have to go back to work so I wont reply back until I get into the shop tonight and try stuff.

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General Mach Discussion / Stalling on program run screen

« on: May 07, 2015, 12:38:06 PM »

Ok so I finally got all my rotary stuff working and I was trying to tweek out the accel and velocity settings and I got everything running a lot faster with no missed steps when I manually jogged everything.
So I loaded up a file that is a 3d relief rastering across instead of around the work (have a small bit of flex in the belt when rastering around the work need to fix) and right off the bat motors stalling and going nuts
So did some reading here on the forum and tried all kinds of stuff.
During the process at one point I let it run stalling its self and went to adjust things and well when I went to the settings tab everything stopped stalling and ran great went back to program run screen and instantly everything starts stalling again switch back to settings tab and runs smooth.
So I restarted everything and as soon as I hit the program start button I switched to the settings tab and the whole program almost 1 hour long ran without a single problem.
I noticed during the testing that on the program run screen and the MDI screen which also stalls the motors that the box showing what line of code its on is not updating while running when you pause it jumps to the line that it is actually on.

Ok so this is a fresh install of XP computer and I dont remember what version of Mach is running but its an older one I will try updating it tonight and see if that works. I have plenty of motor power and all that its not mechanical or electrical it is in Mach and has something to do with displaying the run code I believe ( I did change the look ahead from the default to 200 trying to fix something previous could that have done it? Also this computer has plenty of power and memory kernel is set at 60K but could be lowered for the gearing used.

So any ideas what to do?

What or how do I update mach without loosing all my motor tuning, ports and pins, etc stuff.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Rotary carving skewed

« on: April 26, 2015, 08:57:31 PM »

as a side note I noticed the last time I did a profile cut of text that at a production speed
most of the letters had a slight skew at the bottoms like a lower case l where the bottom should be 2 equal length vertical parallel lines connected with a horizontal line what i got was 2 vertical parallel lines but one slightly longer than the other and the horizontal line was angled they all touched but not right hope that makes sense I cant remember if it was top and bottom or just the bottoms it was a few weeks ago.

I can cause this issue when diamond-drag engraving both 2D and wrapped by running faster than the machine/pc can handle, slowing it down restores normality,
Regards,
Nick

I am thinking this is what the problem is and it is really bad in 3D  I am not going fast enough for the PC to have a problem but maybe its to fast for the cutter and its flexing a little and causing this I will slow it down and give it a try hopefully in the next few days to busy at the moment.
Thanks for the replies so far. will keep you posted

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Rotary carving skewed

« on: April 26, 2015, 08:51:00 PM »

Ok it is not loosing steps its way to consistent and the axis is dialed in with returning to zero after many many revs.

and the drivers are gecko 203 vampires so all good there.

Its pretty odd I have not had a chance to mess with it this weekend I will try to get some pics and do some tests and post if I find the fix.

I have not tried slowing way down as that will take forever but I will try it. I know when I went to fast with the engraving it altered the text so maybe its just to fast and there is runout in the cutter I dont know.

6

General Mach Discussion / Rotary carving skewed

« on: April 26, 2015, 01:36:37 AM »

So I was running a 3d carving file on my rotary axis and well all is good EXCEPT I noticed that it is slightly skewed.
I was machining a skull at a shallow depth (think of a relief carving wrapped around a cylinder) and i noticed that the
whole thing is skewed a little just enough that i noticed it and I just cant let it go to the customer this way.
When I say skewed Picture a skull made out of clay and some one put there hands on the top of the skull and the bottom and twisted it
in opposite directions its very little but enough to notice if you study it and this will be studied heavily so any ideas whats happening.
  
It looks great and stock is true so I'm thinking maybe a cv thing (as a side note I noticed the last time I did a profile cut of text that at a production speed
most of the letters had a slight skew at the bottoms like a lower case l where the bottom should be 2 equal length vertical parallel lines connected with a horizontal line what i got was 2 vertical parallel lines but one slightly longer than the other and the horizontal line was angled they all touched but not right hope that makes sense I cant remember if it was top and bottom or just the bottoms it was a few weeks ago.)

Oh and I am actually machining around the A axis so the tool path wraps around the cylinder so its constantly going 0 to 360 to 0 etc the step over is on the linear axis not the rotary.

I am running in constant velocity mode and I have not made any changes from whatever is set when Mach is installed.

Thanks for any help you guys can give.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: CO2 Laser and also Mach4 questions

« on: March 27, 2015, 03:46:50 PM »

tweakie,
  Thanks for the reply especially about the thermark compound and I was not aware that the mach3 plugin only works with the parallel port good to know.

I have read bits and pieces of the thread you linked its long and I have read a lot of your stuff.

So there really is no good way to run a laser without serious $$$$ or the Chinese software that sucks oh well guess its Chinese software for now and if I can justify it in the future then perhaps spend the money for the better stuff.

Tweakie do you see any reason I cant use X axis moves as rotary for engraving on a laser. Heres the idea build a rotary axis with same motor and gearing as the X axis of the laser. unplug Xaxis motor plugin rotary motor move carriage to above rotary axis and lock it down.

Measure the diameter of the piece to engrave do the math for circumference then use that as the X axis size in the design software and when rastering the image with the laser the X axis will only be moving a small amount for the stepover I believe this would work for a laser.
On my lathe I use aspire to export Aaxis moves to the chuck by degrees but the way a laser just goes back and forth then moves down then back and forth I believe it could be done the way I described above.

8

General Mach Discussion / CO2 Laser and also Mach4 questions

« on: March 27, 2015, 12:17:23 AM »

Hello all I have not been here for some time infact I had to make a new account.

Ok so here are the big questions I have.

I have mach3 and it runs both my cnc router and my 9 X 20 lathe

I am looking to get a Chinese 40w CO2 laser and well I see some that come with moshi and others come with laserdrw from my understanding they are both crap but most of the posts are rather old I know there is a 2014 version of moshi out there. anyways I use coreldraw regularly as well as photoshop and illustrator. So which one would you recommend moshi laser or laserdrw laser. I would love to run it from mach and perhaps will in the future when I decide to tear it apart and mod it and that leads me to my next question running a laser with mach or better yet mach3 and 4 as I have mach 3 and as of right now don't really see any reason to change to mach4 does mach 4 run lasers better than 3 I am looking to do ALOT of raster engraving more so than cutting Im sure I will cut but I am thinking a lot more engraving/raster stuff in the beginning.

I really like being able to set up a job in aspire and all the settings etc does the engrave plugin give you the control that is needed to select an image and lettering etc to engrave or would you have to send multiple jobs from say aspire for the lettering then the engrave plugin for the raster image then say aspire again to profile cut etc. just not sure how it all works as far as the laser plugin goes and jobs etc and I really don't want to have to setup jobs in different programs etc and having to set the work piece and zero in the correct spot etc. I Know I will want or need to do rotary engraving I can build that but not sure about jobs I do it now with my lathe and have the spindle ran by a stepper it really works great and I use aspire to generate the A axis moves from the X axis moves not sure about doing that in the laser Im thinking that I could build a rotary axis and run it as the Xaxis and just output it as X axis since its only going to be moving the laser step over and in aspire just do the math and create my X axis at the right length I don't know will have to play and figure that out.

Also if anyone can help me out with this question that would be great I have some stainless steel that I would like to engrave with the laser I know about the thermark stuff but do the 40w Chinese lasers have enough power to engrave stainless steel with the thermark stuff I would really like to know before I spend the time and money on a laser and the thermark chemical its not cheap. Also can you do grey scale raster engraving with a Chinese laser and the thermark stuff?

Oh and I am looking at going to a USB device probably the smoothstepper unless theres something better you guys recommend hows that going to effect the laser and mach 3 or 4 etc...

Thanks for any and all help
Oh and sorry for the super long rambling  post lots of info and questions.