Hello Guest it is March 28, 2024, 05:15:02 PM

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Sage

Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 »
91
General Mach Discussion / Re: Understanding Tool offsets G41
« on: January 24, 2013, 09:21:45 PM »
Wel I think you've pointed out the problem for me.
 I was using the P figure as an offset i.e how much I want the tool to be offset from the programmed path.
I thought that's how Smids described it in his book. G41 stay to the left of the line G42 to the right of the line by the amount specified in the P value. (may have the directions wrong).
I guess I read it wrong.

So if my gcode specifies the tool path center line i.e the tool diameter has already been figured into the code, how do I adjust the path slightly for a worn tool?

Code is attached

Sage

92
General Mach Discussion / Understanding Tool offsets G41
« on: January 24, 2013, 08:33:44 PM »
I have some code that mills a small cam shape about .25 inches in diameter.
I have a huge tangent lead in line several inches long at the moment. The code runs fine.
In order to understand tool (wear) offsets I added a G41 P0.05 at the beginning of the code just after the default pre-amble G40.
When the code loads I get a  "tool radius greater than approach".
So Where does Mach get it's information about what tool I'm using? I have NO tools programmed and there is nothing in the code to indicate a tool size.
So the tool radius is certainly NOT larger than the several inch long lead-in line.

I have also attempted to add a tool T1, selected it in the code and go into the tool table and assign it a value of 0.5" diameter. Mach still complains with the same error.

What am I missing here?

Sage

93
General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and Tapmatic Tapping Head
« on: November 03, 2012, 07:41:10 PM »
BR549:

You are exactly correct. I've only used my head a couple of times and as usual my memory did not serve me correctly.
Things happen so fast in the video I guess I was seeing whatever supported my memory.

Sorry for the interruption.

Sage

94
General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 and Tapmatic Tapping Head
« on: November 03, 2012, 05:26:36 PM »
I have no intention of throwing a blanket over this whole discussion becasue it is educational in finding out how to hook up an RPM indicator. BUT:
If you look at the video from Tapmatic - and from my experience doing it manually - as long as you are only tapping a hole maybe no more than a half an inch deep or so, all you need to do is set the tap into the hole. The tap will screw itself into the hole and the spindle of the tapping head will automatically extend by itself as the tap screws in. When the tap reaches the bottom of the blind hole the head internals will slip until you get aroud to lifting up on the tapping head. Then it will go into reverse unscrewing the tap.

With that said I figure all you need to do is emulate the action you take when doing it by hand. I.E. do a G1 down to a depth enough to get the tap into the hole to get the thread started. Then perhaps feed down very slowly a very small amount just to waste some time until the thread is complete. Then retract the head again quickly to ensure the tap is above the work. The tapping head knows how to do the job for you. I don't think you need to down-feed at any particular rate to follow the tap. That only complicates things. (it may depend on the type of head you have - not sure but mine works as described).

BTW andy_con.

There is a tension adjustment on the tapping head that ensures it slips if the tap binds up in the hole (or when it runs into the bottom of a blind hole). If you have that set too tight that might explain why you broke so many taps.

Just my 2cents worth - sorry for the interruption - now back to the discussion.

Sage


95
Polls / Re: Depth of cut strategy
« on: August 31, 2012, 03:35:34 PM »
I voted for number 1. For the same reasons as others have mentioned. Don't try to out think the operator.

Considering your example of .5 total depth with .2 DOC.
If you try to calculate equal passes you either end up with values that cannot be accurately achieved (like .5 / 3 = .1666666...) or more passes than are necessary (.5 / 4 = .125) when all you need is is to do two passes of .2 like the operator asked for and 1 finish cut of .1

As far as I've seen in other programs I set the depth of cut and if I'm not happy with the number of passes then I can do the math to adjust the DOC for less passes. The result is under my control.

Sage

96
Regarding making your angle iron rails straight. No need for a long straight edge.
Looks as though all you need to do is fasten a taught string from one end to the other along side the rails nearly touching them.
 Keep the two ends fastened down. Loosen the middle bolts and force the middle section  until the rail is evenly spaced along the string.

 As for aligning the rails to each other, equal corner to corner measurements should square it up good enough..

Sage

97
Well, sometimes it's all the little things that don't work that make a program a failure (and dictate a complete re-write). Sound familiar? And certainly the timer is pretty tiny feature.

As for what the timer is good for - I explained above. Sometimes I just want to bugger off while the machine works, and, being able to figure out how long the the rest of the 50 passes (of say a pocket) are going to take based on the one pass that just completed is handy.

I guess nobody uses the timer?

It was just a suggestion.

I'll just add it to the list of small things that bug me about Mach.

Sage

98
General Mach Discussion / Run Timer _ Mach 4 improvement suggestion
« on: May 25, 2012, 08:17:34 PM »
Some time ago I mentioned that I didn't like the way the run timer kept on running even if the process was stopped on an M1 (optional stop) wating for me to tend to the machine. Well, I was shot down by others saying that they thought waiting for the operator was part of the run time and they wanted to know the full time it took for the process (or something like that). I guess if you're charging by the hour for the whole job that's a good reason to keep it running. I guess everyone has their opinion so I just let it go.
 I use the timer more to anticipate how long the a piece of the process is going to take by looking at something like how long a passs around a part is taking and then I can multiply by how many passes and figure out when to come back to check progress or change a tool etc...

Well, today I wrote a program with a subroutine and noticed that the timer started over every loop of the routine making the timer pretty useless for anything.

I guess I'm wondering if this simple feature of the program could be improved, perhaps with some operator options in setup or something.

Sage


99
Just bringing this back to the top again. It got buried with no coments.

Sage

100
Besides the post I made here almost a year ago which I forgot about:
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,17549.0.html

I needed to do some surfacing again and went to the NFS surface wizard (V286). I found another oddity.

Unlike the other wizards (like the pocket wizard) the depth needs to be a negative number and the depth per pass needs to be posiitive (or perhaps it doesn't care).
Yeah, I know the depth is in the negative direction but the standard amongst programs in general (and the NFS wizards themselves in particular) is a positive (absolute) value for depth.

As a follow up to the  problem I linked to, I spec'd a depth of 0.01 and depth of cut of 0.01
One would think that should be one cut - and would want it to be.
The wizard takes two passes of 0.005. I'd like to see it do what I asked. Not what decides. I should be in control.

Ron: Clearly this one can use some re-work.

My apologies if you have already fixed it and there is a new version somewhere.



Sage


Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 »