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Author Topic: Has anyone used 4 Axis in Mach4  (Read 2318 times)

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Offline Mauri

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Has anyone used 4 Axis in Mach4
« on: December 12, 2017, 05:17:41 PM »
Hi,
Has anyone used 4 or 5 Axis in Mach4?
If you have, how can you tell if the G-Code is ok, if you cannot display it correctly in the Mach4 Toolpath?
Does anyone that uses 4 Axis with Mach4 do any fine large Carvings?
If so how do you stop fine tapered ballnose cutters from breaking or burning the wood since Mach4 does not use the Z Axis as the control for surface speed?
We have a Router Table and have all the hardware to change it to Mach4 to do 4 Axis carvings with Mach4, but without these program changes in Mach4 we cannot see how we can and will unfortunately have to continue with Mach3.
Does anyone support the Mach4 program changes?
Although we have Mach4 running on our Mill we have not used it to do 4 Axis for the same reason.
Regards,
Mauri.
Re: Has anyone used 4 Axis in Mach4
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2017, 05:50:03 PM »
Mauri,
We haven't had issues with Mach4 4th Axis.    http://www.byrdtool.com/shelix   this is what we manufacture.
I've never changed the Machine Plane using G17, G18, or G19; but maybe this has something to do with what Axis drives the Feedrates.  Someone else smarter than me will have to chime in on this.  However, tomorrow I'm going to test this out for myself.  Figure out if changing this changes which axis drives our feedrate. 
-Chad
Chad Byrd

Offline RDR

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Re: Has anyone used 4 Axis in Mach4
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2017, 07:33:15 PM »
The G17,18,19 only has to do with arc movements. To do what he wants with the z axis is to use G93 inverse time that will make all axis to be at a point in space in a certain time frame.   Most cam software can do this in the post   And as far as the tool path window goes it will be hard to se 4 and 5 axis tool paths but then again on my 1999 haas control all I see is code so at least Mach has something to look at
Re: Has anyone used 4 Axis in Mach4
« Reply #3 on: December 13, 2017, 08:12:01 PM »
Hi
I managed to get a '3D' 4th axis toolpath to show up in Mach4 eventually.
Here is a picture of the toolpath.