Messages

31

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Cylinder Heads

« on: December 28, 2010, 12:29:05 PM »

I've been following this with great interest and I'm amazed at the amount of patience you've got.
I'm in the middle of making an Edwards 5cyl radial engine and I've got a little impatient at the repetative bits, my sons just the same, it's got to appear in front of you after a few minutes :-)

Steve

32

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Free cnc simulator ....

« on: December 23, 2010, 12:42:07 PM »

Ok I've managed to get it to work this time so it is all still working, the've changed how you get the petrol file now so it's just a code not a file like it used to be.

Steve

33

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: Free cnc simulator ....

« on: December 23, 2010, 12:06:57 PM »

I've used it in the past but then I had a problem doing the fuel thing so tried reinstalling it and it's never worked since, eventually uninstalled it but I think I've got the file here somewere.

Steve

34

General Mach Discussion / Re: Setting up safe limit switches

« on: December 10, 2010, 05:20:30 AM »

Use the N/C side then if a wire breaks it stops the machine instead of only finding out when the machine crashes through the limits.

I've only got homing switches and they are in series, mach can sort out the homing order and only looks for the trigger for the axis it's homing at the time.
So you should be able to put all your limits in series and set one as home or have seperate home switches if that's how you want it.

I just home each time the machine is switched on and make sure the soft limits are on, this seems to take care of everything for me BUT my mill is only smallish and not very fast, same with my router.

Steve

35

General Mach Discussion / Re: blue screen of death

« on: December 03, 2010, 02:39:32 PM »

Keithmech beat me to it but I'll second his comments.
Check a few items like how clean the inside of the computer is, check the CPU heat sink, RAM, power supply, graphics card or chip.
All of these can cause the problems your having and are more likely than the programs as you were already running the computer without problems.

Steve

36

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hobby CNC Spindle Motor Choices

« on: July 26, 2010, 12:18:08 PM »

I have a Kress, can't remember which model but I think it's one of their 800watt ones, it's got a variable speed wheel on the top.

I do V carving etc in wood and plastic and when the cutter has to go deep to do a large width you can hear the load coming onto the motor but it doesn't slow at 800mm/min and that's with 1/2 inch 45 degree V bits.
6mm bits don't bother it at all, even on 6mm deep cuts.

Their also meant to be quite well built but I can't comment on that but it's way quieter than the cheaper ones I've heard.

Steve

37

General Mach Discussion / Re: My 4th Axis

« on: July 04, 2010, 07:28:11 AM »

I have a similar setup but the stepper is direct onto the 90:1 spindle, worm is adjustable on an eccentric and it seems OK for machining however I'm not doing critical stuff with multiple tools, just odds and ends of model engines etc.

Steve

38

General Mach Discussion / Re: Conversion of Denford Triac VMC milling machine

« on: May 02, 2010, 01:45:15 PM »

I've done my Denford Easimill, not sure if they were anything like.
I only kept the original steppers though and used new power supply and drivers (& mach of course)

Steve

39

General Mach Discussion / Re: How can I shut a routing job off, then restart it the next day?

« on: April 27, 2010, 05:05:26 PM »

The few times I've done this I just stopped and shut down leaving the axis in position, I also write down the line number and ofset from home just in case.
As Hood said routing tends to be not that critical and I've never seen any problems using this method on a router.

Steve

40

General Mach Discussion / Re: Curious occurrance

« on: April 12, 2010, 09:04:27 AM »

I've had a similar thing happen at least 2 times in the past and I've definitely started the controller after mach is up and running, same as you, no indicators working on the diag screen
I just put it down to the mach PP driver not starting up or something like that and a restart seems to cure it