Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Keygrabber improvements

« on: January 27, 2011, 02:21:44 PM »

I have started using Keygrabber on my lathe recently. It is really good for use with a remote numerical keypad on the door for jogging, I added buttons for rapid and incremental jogging. But Keygrabber seems to have stuff that needs working on to make it mesh with Mach better. Could keygrabber be totally intergrated into Mach somehow, right now I have to start it seperately and then it can be finicky. The program will move off to the lower toolbar on XP, but I am not really sure if it is still running, you have to click on it, then it won't come up again. I tried making it start on Windows startup but it still needs attention to work right. It wont let Windows shut down if it is still running either. All in all, a really wonderful addition to Mach, but I think it still needs work to be great.

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: Making a list of things that need fixed in Turn

« on: January 06, 2011, 11:32:47 PM »

A nice improvement for Turn would be on the Tool page. I use slow feed to move close to the stock or an electronic edgefinder, then switch with jog mode to a 0.001" resolution incremental jog and bump it to touch that way. There is no button on the Tool page so you can switch between continuous jog and incremental jog, so I have to keep switching back and forth between the two pages to set multiple tools. Just a thought.

43

General Mach Discussion / Keygrabber tips?

« on: January 06, 2011, 11:27:28 PM »

Mostly have my lathe working well now, and Keygrabber seems to work in this new version of Mach as well. I have a numeric keypad up on the enclosure door of the lathe and use it for jogging up to the stock and setting Z zero etc. So, I used keygrabber and changed the "/" to a shift button so I now have rapid there instead of having to go back to the main keyboard for rapids. Question, do you always have to start Keygrabber up to make it function in Mach, or is there something I can do to make it always work without starting Keygrabber each time?
Thanks, DaveA.

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with Backlash...

« on: January 05, 2011, 04:44:15 PM »

The jog shuttle thing is much better now, but it started losing steps while threading, but not any other time. I have had to go down about 25% for the Z axis speed and have the accel down too, from where it was with 1.84. This is only at 325 rpm, and a fine pitch thread at 24 TPI. Should I bump the shuttle time setting up, so I can go up again with the rapid speeds?

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with Backlash...

« on: January 04, 2011, 06:56:33 PM »

Makes sense, thanks Mr Hood. maybe it should be relabelled as something like "Jog wheel/ jog accel" or something like that to avoid confusion.

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with Backlash...

« on: January 04, 2011, 06:29:13 PM »

I set it at zero and it stopped it, nice. But when I went back and looked again, Mach had changed it to 0.001, so I guess you can't have zero. Wondering why it is labelled "shuttle WHEEL setting", which is what made me think it was for a jog wheel that some had used a few years ago.

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with Backlash...

« on: January 04, 2011, 06:16:38 PM »

Shuttle wheel setting you mean? I thought that was for a jog wheel.

48

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem with Backlash...

« on: January 04, 2011, 05:58:23 PM »

I am having issues with this as well, but didn't have them in version 1.84, which I just upgraded from. Hood sent me to this thread, so I thought I might ask here. My lathe does some funny stuff, but if it involves backlash then I don't know what. I have 0.002" in the X axis, and 0.020" in the Z axis. In the Z axis, it accelerates about 0.200", then slows down to almost a dead stop, then accelerates up again. I had changed nothing mechanically since the upgrade, and the XML transferred over fine. I tried not using "enhanced pulsing" on the general config page, no difference there. I noticed that the backlash setting page shows the backlash as in "units", would that be the same as the actual measured amount or?

49

General Mach Discussion / Re: Upgrade from 1.84 on lathe

« on: December 31, 2010, 02:13:29 PM »

Worked perfect on the index debounce setting, even 10 there would screw it up, zero was what it needed, thanks mr Hood! I will look into the backlash wierd speed thing next, happy New Year!

50

General Mach Discussion / Re: Upgrade from 1.84 on lathe

« on: December 31, 2010, 09:52:10 AM »

OK, XML duly attached, thanks Mr Hood.