Messages

151

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servo for lathe spindle ?

« on: September 28, 2014, 03:51:59 AM »

What servo drives are you using? You need to set them to analogue input if you're using the CSMIO/IP-A.

Dan

152

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servo for lathe spindle ?

« on: September 13, 2014, 02:56:22 PM »

I am using a USB SmoothStepper on the mill and the lathe in the video. The other lathe has the Ethernet SmoothStepper. If you're referring to the gcode in the video cutting the hex, it is a parametric Gcode I wrote.

Dan

153

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servo for lathe spindle ?

« on: September 13, 2014, 03:31:13 AM »

I am using AC servos for driving the spindle on two lathes and a mill. All are timing belt driven. I am VERY happy with them, and if money is not an issue I would use AC servo on any machine I shall ever do. I can do rigid tapping on all the machines, and some other things. Check out this video, where I am cutting a hex on my wee lathe:
http://youtu.be/DajrTlI8IWA

Also, I should note that as far as I know the CSMIO supports rigid tapping with any spindle motor provided it has an encoder.

Delta servos are excellent. Properly tuned you should not experience resonance. However, if you belt is too long you may need to use some tension wheels along the way. AC servos have full torque starting from zero rpm. You can run it in the rpm range you ask. Your original motor 1400W @5000rpm provides a nominal torque of about 2.6Nm. If this satisfies your needs, then this is the torque I would go for when picking a new motor.

Dan

154

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: May 06, 2014, 03:42:26 AM »

If you can, a switch could be nice. Don't like to see my toolpath window full of lines.

Dan

155

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: May 06, 2014, 03:39:34 AM »

Is it possible to do a button that will save the offsets? So to not need to restart Mach4?

Dan

156

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Bug Reports

« on: May 06, 2014, 03:05:03 AM »

This one looks like a bug to me. Jogging the cross-hair around the toolpath window is leaving traces. Can you this this please? 

Dan

157

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: May 06, 2014, 03:02:14 AM »

Dan,

Brett posted a new install in the Announcements and updates thread.  Have a look at it.  I think you will like it. 

There is now a choice of editors for the DROs.

I like it a lot, Steve. Much, much better!!! Thank you!

Dan

158

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: May 06, 2014, 02:54:17 AM »

Hi Steve,

Thanks. Just downloaded the new build and playing with it. So far looks good.

Yet another question: In Mach3 you had to close the program for changes and settings to be remembered. So if you had power loss, and you didn't restart Mach prior to it, all your changes have been lost. How is it in Mach4? If I change offsets, tool offsets, etc., are they being saved instantaneously, or waiting for restart of Mach4?

Dan

159

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: May 06, 2014, 02:34:17 AM »

Thanks Steve. For the protocol, it seems to be machine 1.0000 for each motor here.

What about the single click highlighting of the DROs - are you considering this? I still think that this is a must for touch screens. Also, the cursor is quite confusing. I enter as number in the X DRO, hit Enter, and then the cursor moves down to the Y DRO, allowing me to type in there, but hitting the Enter key, doesn't save the number there. So could the cursor just disappear after you hit Enter and not move to subsequent DROs?

Dan

160

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: May 05, 2014, 02:01:16 PM »

Hi Steve,

Start Mach4, go to the MDI command "G0 X0 Y0 Z0" (or whatever), restart Mach4 and I want to see the DROs show the last location: X0 Y0 Z0. We used to have a setting for this in Mach3 under general Config.

Also related to this, while not as important, is having the option to be asked if I want the fixture to be saved before exiting, like it was in Mach3.

Dan