Messages

31

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 14, 2008, 08:35:18 AM »

Hi Graham,

That might be useful. It's only me starting off this idea of standard threads, I just find it a bit tedious looking up numbers & typing them in. There are enough choices to make, without things that should stay the same.
By the way, have you got anywhere with your drives yet?

Tony

32

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 14, 2008, 05:12:28 AM »

Scott,

the fix for the internal multiples was adding an 'appendTeachfile()' to the start of the  internal second operation code. I also put in the LED inidcator increment code, as in the external version.
Not sure about the tools, as I can only envisage about 8 in one setup. In the Txxyy format xx is the tool & yy the offset in the tool table. I haven't worked out a situation yet where I would want to use another tool's offset, but I'm fairly new at this game. The main point is that mach ignores entries of the T1 sort. M6 goes & looks at the toolchanger macro so that's fine, but I don't know about the H word.
I've got a fairly crude extra page of standard threads working now, accessed by an extra button on both threading pages.
Its just a lot of buttons with standard threads  on them. Pressing one inserts the Pitch, OD & ID into the appropriate DRO on internal & external pages. You can, of course, still alter them manually before posting.
The thing was easy enough to do, but it's rather tedious entering the data. A proper system would use a table setup in Exel or something like that & access it from a drop down menu. I'm a bit rusty on the VB front so I'll have to think about that a bit.
Don't want to hijack your code so tell me to back off if it bothers you.

Tony

33

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 13, 2008, 09:39:26 AM »

Scott,

I've had a first try at editing your code, so see what you think. I found that it was not possible to do a second operation on internal threads so I've fixed that. I've also altered the tool change format so that putting say tool 1 in gives T101. I'm still not sure about code H & how it works in turning. Anyway, Mach picks up the tool change now ok.
An extra bit of code that I put in is G4 P10 to give my spindle time to get up to speed before the threading starts. A nicer way would be to only start when the set speed was reached, but I'm not sure how to do that yet.
I'ts all quite instructive & interesting to use some of the bits of the software that I hadn't looked at before.

Tony

34

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: From .DWG to LazyCam to Mach3 Turn - Natural Progression

« on: January 13, 2008, 06:09:11 AM »

Hi Anton,

try this to start with. All I've done is add a vertical line out to the 10mm stock radius ( 20mm dia). The code produced is not ideal in any way, but it would get a profile eventually.

Tony

35

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 12, 2008, 12:33:00 PM »

You're quite right, of course, it might be a good opportunity to do something that won't have disastrous results if I get it wrong.
Thanks for the work so far.

Tony

36

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 12, 2008, 12:15:34 PM »

Right,

that didn't take long. I cut quite a nice M6 x1 thread in mild steel - nut fitted first time! Used the Thread calc table to get the numbers. It occurred to me while I was getting the numbers, that it would be really smart if you could just click on the ones you wanted & transfer them into the appropriate box in the wizard. Don't know how easy that would be, but most people would want to produce standard threads.

Tony

37

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 12, 2008, 11:00:39 AM »

Scott,

I sorted out the help & Thread calc Table. Or rather when I installed the wizard on my lathe PC everything worked. The install does bury the files a directory or so too deep & it's necessary to copy it back up a level or so.
Should be able to try cutting some metal now.

Tony

38

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: From .DWG to LazyCam to Mach3 Turn - Natural Progression

« on: January 12, 2008, 10:54:05 AM »

Thought you weren't a gambler, RC


Tony

39

VB and the development of wizards / Re: New Multiple and Complex thread Turning Wizard!!!

« on: January 12, 2008, 05:55:50 AM »

Scott,

thanks for sorting that out, I think it looks much better. G21/20 works fine & I see what you mean about the tool code, but it might be better to default to the standard Mach T101 format. Machturn  just ignores T1 style changes.
Where should I put the help file? I don't get it coming up with the help button? I also don't get the Thread Calculator Table.
A 'nice to have' thing would be an indication of how many passes the code will generate, as in the other threading Wizard. I often find I'm being too timid with my cuts and generate far too many passes.

Tony

40

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: From .DWG to LazyCam to Mach3 Turn - Natural Progression

« on: January 12, 2008, 05:39:08 AM »

Anton,

why not post a file with the sort of thing that you're trying to do? I don't mind fiddling with it for a while.

Tony