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*****VIDEOS***** / Re: Mach3 Turn CSS Mythbuster
« on: November 08, 2013, 05:11:37 PM »
Hi Hood,
You raise some points I hadn’t considered. I have not tried CSS with a parallel port connection, as my lathe is controlled via USB Smoothstepper. So I can’t say for sure if a PP connection would work. However I can’t see why not, as my understanding of Mach3 (which is not great; my understanding not Mach3, that is) is that the Mach3 PWM Spindle Control stream is simply passed through the Smoothstepper and not manipulated.
I cannot say categorically that the feed per rev remains constant but it appears to do so, both for diameter changes along the X Axis and linear cuts along the Z Axis. I guess I could measure it but I am very happy with the way it behaves for me. In early days of development of my gang tooling setup, I found out that very large diameters slowed the spindle RPM to below the lower limit I set in Mach3, triggering the lower limit function of Mach3. The upper limit is set to 1500RPM, well above the 1200RPM limit set in my Danfoss VFD, so I never reach the upper limit.
FYI, I use Mach3 Version R3.043.056 exclusively for both my lathe and mill. The mill is PP controlled.
For the USB Smoothstepper, I use Plugin BETA Ver 0.015meg. I tried later versions of the Plugin, but reverted to BETA Ver 0.015meg when I found that they would not report the spindle speed to Mach3.
In summary, given that G95 and G96 is not documented in the Mach3 manual, I have always believed that I have been lucky to strike something that works, and that it was more luck than good management. I can’t recall why I even started down the CSS route, but I have vague recollections that I read somewhere that others had used it with success.
PS I searched the forum and found this:
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,5503.0.html
Regards
Chrisjh
You raise some points I hadn’t considered. I have not tried CSS with a parallel port connection, as my lathe is controlled via USB Smoothstepper. So I can’t say for sure if a PP connection would work. However I can’t see why not, as my understanding of Mach3 (which is not great; my understanding not Mach3, that is) is that the Mach3 PWM Spindle Control stream is simply passed through the Smoothstepper and not manipulated.
I cannot say categorically that the feed per rev remains constant but it appears to do so, both for diameter changes along the X Axis and linear cuts along the Z Axis. I guess I could measure it but I am very happy with the way it behaves for me. In early days of development of my gang tooling setup, I found out that very large diameters slowed the spindle RPM to below the lower limit I set in Mach3, triggering the lower limit function of Mach3. The upper limit is set to 1500RPM, well above the 1200RPM limit set in my Danfoss VFD, so I never reach the upper limit.
FYI, I use Mach3 Version R3.043.056 exclusively for both my lathe and mill. The mill is PP controlled.
For the USB Smoothstepper, I use Plugin BETA Ver 0.015meg. I tried later versions of the Plugin, but reverted to BETA Ver 0.015meg when I found that they would not report the spindle speed to Mach3.
In summary, given that G95 and G96 is not documented in the Mach3 manual, I have always believed that I have been lucky to strike something that works, and that it was more luck than good management. I can’t recall why I even started down the CSS route, but I have vague recollections that I read somewhere that others had used it with success.
PS I searched the forum and found this:
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,5503.0.html
Regards
Chrisjh