Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: N00b - DRO innacurate / calibration

« on: April 06, 2020, 06:41:11 AM »

Hey Craig.
Thanks so much for your reply. Reducing the velocity has helped the x-axis, it runs pretty accurately now. I can't get my head around the y-axis, though. I set it to run 200mm in the axis calibration widget, it runs 208mm, make the advised adjustment. set it to run -200mm and it runs 190 ish. Just end up going round in circles.

I don't know the answer to any of your three questions... I didn't get any paperwork in the sale.
Drivers? The standard driver in Mach3...
Voltage to drivers, do I need to get my voltmeter out?
Stepper specs? This is the number on it 57HD-15S

12

General Mach Discussion / N00b - DRO innacurate / calibration

« on: April 05, 2020, 06:18:43 PM »

Hey, I'm new to CNC and the forum. I have a 2030/3040 CNC router hooked up to an old pc tower with windows XP. My business partner purchased this little setup in a job lot on eBay and there is a bunch of extra boards and stepper motors in a box, I have no idea what any of it is so I will probably be asking questions about all of that at a later stage. The lot has been sat in the workshop for years, we never touched it and said partner left the business last year. What with the current lockdown situation I figured it would be great fun to get this little machine up and running 
The learning curve has been steep! I have never had anything to with CNC until last week, I am a TIG welder. Never heard of Mach3 and I've got a basic level of CAD experience. So, I have managed to get up to speed with CAM in Fusion, created g-code, run it through Mach and I now have an engraving of my logo in a piece of ply. I was pretty chuffed with myself to be fair. But it hasn't been without trouble, I've pulled what little hair still grows on my head more than once over.

Right now my problem is with the axis' being inaccurate. Just to re-iterate, the CNC is the bog-standard cheapo thing off eBay, the controller is a "T-D 3 axis controller" with the JP-328C board, Windows XP.
So I have gone through the calibration and got my steps per kinda sorted etc. The numbers there are:
G's - 0.00509. Pulse. 5 Dir - 1
x- Steps - 398.5. Vel - 1000. Acc - 50.
y- 540 - 1000 - 50
z- cannot get it anywhere near

Basically it won't stay accurate. I run my programme and at the end when it goes back to zero it's in a completely different place and most of the time it hits the stop and the motor freaks out. If I lay a ruler on the x-axis and run up and down the bed, each time it loses or gains a few mm. Same on the Y and the Z is just all over the place.
I have no idea what it could be and I can't seem to return any results on my searches... Please help.

13

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Can't get the jog pop up in mach3

« on: March 28, 2020, 08:38:27 AM »

Ok, thanks for the information.
So that opens up a dilemma for me... I bought this old 2030 off eBay a few years ago and it came with a pc tower with widows xp. The pc has Mach3 with a licence under someone else's name.
Will I be able to update the software, or should I upgrade to Mach4?

14

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Can't get the jog pop up in mach3

« on: March 28, 2020, 07:51:18 AM »

Hey, sorry to drag up such an old thread.
I'm new to this CNC stuff. I have an old 2030 router I'm trying to get up and running, and I'm learning how to use this Mach3. In the process of setting up the motors and all that, the  video I'm watching says to hit the Tab key to get the jog control menu to pop up. Only that is not working for me. I've tried tab, shift, control, cnt-J, all sorts with no luck. Hitting the tab key just tabs through the boxes on screen...