Topics

21

General Mach Discussion / VFD and noise questions

« on: August 31, 2008, 07:19:18 PM »

I have three machines between 2 and 15 HP all running VFD and three phase spindle motors , all have the vfd mounted in the same cabinet with my breakout boards relays , amplifiers etc with no problems.

I am finaly finished with my big MHP 30hp lathe (THANKS HOOD) , the last thing to do was wire the VFD to the breakout board so mach can control speed direction etc.  The VFD on this one is mounted on the wall aprox 6 feet from the machine and everything has been working perfectly before hooking up the control wire . Walk over push the start/stop buttons etc no interference.

I have run a sheilded cable from the VFD to the breakout board consisting of one wire from the analog out on my breakout board , two wires +- from the vfd power supply to the breakout board and three wires from the vfd for direction , common and fw/rv . Both ends of the sheild are grounded , tryed it both grounded and ungrounded.

Now the instant I switch the spindle on with either m3 or m4 it spins breifly and I get an estop and the watchdog triggered message.  In General config the debounce and index (?) settings were set at 200 for the top one and 4 for the lower one. At those settings the spindle will spin up for almost 10 seconds before going into estop . I have adjusted the numbers up and down with out any better results.

If I disable the watchdog in gen config I can power up the spindle but everything on screen freezes , cant move the mouse , hae to hit the physical estop and once the spindle winds down everything is fine , While the spindle is running I can walk over and turn the vfd off by using the stop button on its control panel , it stops as it should but Mach is still frozen until I hit estop .

Any thoughts on how to solve this problem greatly appreciated,  should I possibly not be using the 10v power supply in the VFD for the analog output on my breakout board? on all the others I am using a seperate power supply , this 30 hp vfd had a power supply built in .

22

General Mach Discussion / SImple tool offset procedure

« on: August 28, 2008, 12:12:20 PM »

Could someone give the simple run down on setting tool offset in mach3 mill.
I am using the blue mill screen set and I am sure from the offset page its a simple procedure.
I am not using any tool setters , probes . I Have a refrence tool set as tool one and would like to touch off on the feeler gauge on a block of aluminum in the vice , then use the same method to set the length offset of each tool I add to the library.   

Is there a simple method of changing the tool number, jogging to my feeler gauge and then pressing a magic button to enter the data in the tool library?

Once I build my tool library which file do I need to back up ?
Thanks Richard

23

SmoothStepper USB / Strange issue since installing SS

« on: August 21, 2008, 03:02:17 PM »

With LOTS of help from Chaoticone I was able to get my SS configured , but have yet to be able to use the mill. Now as soon as I power up my power supply I get the message "external Estop Requested"  . I have been running this machine for 4 years with no problems , this is a first. As long as the power supply is off there is no problem , the instant its powered up I get the message.
None of the axis are anywhere near limit switches and the power supply is a commercial Lambda 48v 40amp power supply thats not in the same cabinet as the SS, no wires or cables laying atop each other .
Just a little confused.

24

General Mach Discussion / Homing Order?

« on: August 15, 2008, 10:38:18 AM »

I used the search feature to look for methods of setting the homing order of mach and cant find anything other than request to home z first which makes sense for a mill.

I need for the x axis to home first on the lathe and then the z axis so my tool changer can get out of the way of the tailstock. Yesterday thats how it was working when I hit ref all , now it homes the z first and doesnt home the x axis at all .

The last software I was using had a simple screen to choose the homing order , how do I home x then z ?

25

SmoothStepper USB / distance traveled not matching value input

« on: August 12, 2008, 06:44:31 PM »

Couldnt think of a good title for this thread but here is the problem.

With SS running and all my settings the same as pre SS , when I call out a distance for the x axis to move,  g01 x5.00 f2.00   , the DRO will read x5.0045 and the dial indicator I am using also confirms thats the actual distance the table has traveled.  After that move if I type g01 x0.00 f2. , the table moves and stops at x.0045 , confirmed by both the DRO and the dial indicator .  It doesnt matter what my initial call out is x5.00 or x25.00 it always moves an additional .0045 when starting from zero and always moves back to .0045 when I call out x0.00 .     
It also doesnt matter if its a rapid move or g01 , also doesnt matter what the feed rate is , f.5 or f40. , always the same .0045 overshoot when starting from zero . based on the fact that it does this even at a crawl I dont think its an issue of inertia or overshooting .

I can call out x 8.00 starting from x0.00 and it will move to x8.0045 , I can then call out x10.00 and it moves to x 10.0045 , then call out x12.00 and it moves to x12.0045 , from that point call out x0.00 and it moves to x0.0045 , the .0045 isnt added at each move , just the initial move off x0.00.

If I call out x5.00 and the machine moves to x5.0045 and I then zero the x axis , call out x5.00 again it will again travel x5.0045

Apologies for the confusing description I just want to accuratley point out whats happening . The machine also has nice tight ball screws and virtualy no backlash and the backlash compensation settings are all at zero .

26

SmoothStepper USB / initial install question

« on: August 11, 2008, 07:45:58 PM »

I am more of an end user and not so much a computer guy , so this is probably a simple/silly question .

I have mounted the SS board and have unzipped the instal file. When I plug the SS board in I dont get the new hardware wizard. I am running xp pro .

When I go to control panel/instal hardware wizard the pop up window I get does not look like nor does it display the options shown in the instalation pdf file examples.

I get a window that searches for new hardware , it doesnt find anything and gives the option of installing the item manualy from a list . I do not see the ss board as an option , just monitor , ports etc .

What should I be looking for or doing differnetly ?

27

SmoothStepper USB / Spindle encoder

« on: August 03, 2008, 08:25:38 PM »

Just curios if SS suports the qaud encoder on spindle yet?

28

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Afew things I have made

« on: August 02, 2008, 11:11:40 PM »

Just found this section and thought I would show some of the stuff I have made

Before anyone freaks out with all the firearm related stuff I want to point out that everything here is legal in the United States were I reside and I am a licensced 07 firearms manufacturer and an SOT  (machine gun license)



semi auto m60 receiver

29

General Mach Discussion / Spindle encoder disk diameter?

« on: June 08, 2008, 11:06:48 PM »

Is there any problem with a using 5" + diameter encoder disk with the C3 index pulse card from cnc4p

30

General Mach Discussion / pins 2-9 as inputs ?

« on: May 03, 2008, 08:14:42 PM »

In ports and pins there is an option (check box) to use pins 2-9 as inputs but on the "inputs" dialogue box  it says only pins 10-13 and 15 may be used as inputs. Which is correct?

 I am Using the basic breakout board from cnc4pc with the jumper choosing pins 2-9 as inputs for my limits and home switch inputs but mach doesnt seem to recognize any inputs on 2-9 , I can move the switches over to the std inputs 10-13 and 15 and they work fine but I still need 4 additional inputs for cycle start, pause etc .

Whats the method for using 2-9 as inputs?