Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Moves in x direction before step down

« on: March 29, 2019, 03:27:52 PM »

Yesterday all my finished projects involving a step down started moving a small distance in the x direction before each step down. For example, if I am cutting a circle on the CNC machine that is cutting 1 inch deep with four .25 step downs, it will cut the first revolution of circle cut correctly, but it and hits the point to drop the Z level down .25, it first moves over slightly in the x direction before beginning the Z level drop. What could be causing this? It is now affecting all my Gcodes that were working correctly until yesterday.

2

General Mach Discussion / additional offsets/fixtures

« on: February 16, 2019, 06:46:37 AM »

I am trying to add additional offsets/fixtures. As it is there are only 6 available..G54 to G59. How do I add additional offsets/fixtures?

3

General Mach Discussion / Radius to end of arc differs from radius of start line

« on: November 14, 2018, 11:44:38 AM »

I n mach3, when running a gcode, I get this error message. I was going to look it up in the search box, but the search function is not working. Does anyone know why this is happening? I changed the ij line to absolute, as suggested after in one forum. That didn't work. I am at a loss.

4

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 trial fully functional?

« on: November 24, 2017, 07:31:37 AM »

 Mach3 has been a little buggy lately, losing steps, dropping my soft limit settings, etc.
 I was thinking of trying out Mach4.
 Is the 30 day trial version exactly the same as the paid version?

5

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 changed my Z settings by itself!

« on: November 23, 2017, 06:08:41 PM »

i was happily running a gCode to make a part. I had my soft limits set and thought I had no worries. The gcode contains a drilling operation, followed by a profile operation. The drill operation went perfectly, then the profile operation kicked in and did one profile cut perfectly. Then it moved over to the next cut, and sank deep into my salvage board, past where the soft limit was set. 
Confused, I raised the spindle up, and to my shock, the settings on the z axis had been lowered almost an inch! I knew this because the stop limit had been lowered an ich from the top, which lowered the bottom stop limit and allowed the bit to sink deeply into the wood without the stop limit kicking in.
 What can the problem be? Everything has been running smoothly until this happened.
 It has happened twice so far. So it is not just a one time accident.

6

General Mach Discussion / Change direction of workpiece

« on: October 31, 2017, 06:18:44 AM »

 I finally got everything up and working, thank goodness!
 However, I have a project file that involves drilling several holes down the length of an 18" board. When I run the file, the machine seems to assume that the board is placed horizontally on it. It is a CNC 6040, which is approximately 19" wide. Therefore, there is not enough room to drill the holes with the spindle going side to side.
 I need it to assume the board is placed in the machine along the the length, not width.
 Is there a setting in Mach3 so I can change the direction of the board and the machine will recognize this?

7

General Mach Discussion / Cannot use tw0 gcodes that both use axis line 30

« on: October 30, 2017, 10:46:38 AM »

I have made a part in Solidcam. I then put it in gcode form. when I start it in Mach3 it will load fine. But when I try to run it, I get the error message "Cannot use two gcodes that both use axis line 30.
 How is this fixed?

8

General Mach Discussion / Which tutorial to use?

« on: October 24, 2017, 06:15:12 AM »

I recently purchased a CNC 6040 and am going to set up up soon with Mach3. When looking around for instructions and tutorials, I found that they are all different. The cd istructions that came with the 6040 is not the same as the instructions from the manufacturer's Youtube videos. And Arcsoft's tutorials are different also.
 So which tutorial have other's used for the 6040 to make it work?