Hello everyone,

I am a Mach3 newbie, and i would appreciate help with an issue i`m having.

I made a code in RhinoCam which engraves a pattern around a cylinder part that is positioned in 4th axis (rotary). The pattern stretches all the way around the cylinder - full 360 degrees. When i test the code in RhinoCam simulation, it works great, but when i run the code in Mach3 and do the actual milling on the part, the result i`m having is that the pattern doesn't stretch all the way around the part as it`s supposed to. Instead, the whole pattern is compressed into approximately one half of the part`s circumference, while the other half remained untouched.

What am i doing wrong?

May I suggest initially checking that the steps per unit are correct for your rotary axis. If you command 360 deg. does it actually rotate 360 deg. ?

Tweakie.

May I suggest initially checking that the steps per unit are correct for your rotary axis. If you command 360 deg. does it actually rotate 360 deg. ?

Tweakie.

Thanks a lot for you suggestion. I checked with the 360 deg. command and the 4th axis rotated 180 deg. so i doubled up steps per unit and it rotated 360 deg. But now a strange thing happened - z axis was making cuts at the radius that is two times smaller than the actual radius, even though i entered the correct value for Rotation Radius in the Settings tab. I then doubled the value for the rotation radius and it worked fine. Now i`m a bit confused about the rotation radius - why did i have to enter the diameter instead of radius?

Rotation radius only affects feedrate, not depth of cut.

Rotation radius only affects feedrate, not depth of cut.

Yes, i understand now. I entered the correct radius again, restarted Mach3 and it works great. Thanks a lot!