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Author Topic: Mill or Turn?  (Read 26067 times)

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Offline Davek0974

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2019, 07:26:14 AM »
Does Mach3Mill understand the T0101 lathe tool change command style?

Seems not as i get a "Slot number too large" error, but thought i'd check ;)

Can it be made to understand it?

Offline Davek0974

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2019, 08:00:24 AM »
Seems this could be useful, DoOEMButton(131) - toggle mill/turn mode

Not found much about it - anyone know exactly what it does?
It does load the turn tool table and also allows the T0505 tool change code to pass ok

Also not found a LED or way to indicate what mode Mach is in but that doesn't mean there's not one ;)

Offline reuelt

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #22 on: April 21, 2019, 08:32:53 AM »
Does Mach3Mill understand the T0101 lathe tool change command style?

Seems not as i get a "Slot number too large" error, but thought i'd check ;)

Can it be made to understand it?
MACH3 TURN (Lath) uses the format TAABB to define the tool number and the offset where AA is the Tool number and BB is the offset number. That means that the max number of tools is 99 and similar for the offsets.
The so called ToolTable is actually the Tool Offset Table and the max number of offsets you can have are as above 99.

Mach3Mill only uses the format T### where ### is from 0 to 253. 254 tools max.
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Offline Hood

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2019, 02:10:28 AM »
Mach3 TURN does not even have G96 (CSS) and G97 (to turn off CSS and go back to speed per rev).

It does, G96 is CSS, G97 turns it off G50 is max RPM. As mentioned however it does not work correctly, the spindle speed will vary but the axis feed gets locked at the current feed/rev and converted to feed/min until a new feedrate is commanded.


Hi,
Mach4Hobby has CSS.

I suspect though that it suffers from the same fault that Mach3 does.

Mach3, according to the thread Hood linked to, makes a pretty fair approximation to constant surface speed
but cannot do Feed per Rev accurately. As was pointed out for Feed per Rev to be accurate requires that the spindle
be synchronized with the X axis and that is incompatible with buffered control system.

Mach4, despite it differences, is still a buffered control system and therefore probably not capable of accurate Feed per Rev
for exactly the same reason as Mach3. I have not tested it an Mach4 nor does my setup allow for it to be tested. I would
caution that if you require accurate Feed per Rev then Mach4 warrants investigation.....

Accurate Feed per Rev can be obtained by a C axis as opposed to a free running spindle. This is certainly capable of being
done in Mach4 and I can't imagine any reason that it could not be done in Mach3 as well.

Craig

CSS worked when I was testing. If I recall there were inconsitencies in the feed when using metric but that got sorted. I have not messed with it for probably 4 or 5 years though so things may have changed.

If you want "basic turning" capability why not simply have a separate lathe profile for your milling machine, mounting the tool on the table and putting the work in the chuck?  "Turn" is based on "Mill" with the mill laid on its left side then on its back.  You could probably make your own screen.  This could be interesting: http://www.vinland.com/CNC-Mill-Lathe.html


I can't do mill spindle 'turning' as i need to pass 25mm bar through the spindle, mill spindles can't do that :)

I'll try a new mill profile, designate the mill X-axis as lathe Z-axis and the mill Z-axis as the lathe X-axis, spindle will be declared as a servo spindle drive is CS-Labs setup.

See how that goes......

As was said, why not have a separate lathe profile  and use that when wanting to Turn or are you requiring something in Mill that Turn doesn't have?

Simpson36 makes  a 4th axis for a mill but if I recall he uses SwapAxis to shift spindle and axis and may also have some other electronics involved, it has been a while since we spoke.

Offline Hood

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2019, 02:16:29 AM »

Offline Davek0974

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #25 on: April 22, 2019, 02:58:31 AM »
Hiya Hood, how's the plasma cutter running?

Here's my thing...

I have my mill converted, i now want to do basic lathe work but my manual lathe is not worth converting and i will never have enough work for a full CNC lathe although I did look long and hard about getting a small one like a Denford Mirac etc.

I need to pass a 1" alu bar through headstock so mill spindle turning will not work.

I looked at the InTurn by Simpson36 and its pretty comprehensive, in fact way too advanced for my mediocre needs, he now uses a hell of a lot of custom electronics to make it sing via Mach3/4.

I cannot use SwapAxis() as i use a CS-Labs IP/A controller and that does not use the ports&pins in Mach so SwapAxis does nothing.

I will need to use another Mach Profile to swap my Z axis for X and my X axis for Z, the tools will be mounted on a quill clamp so no mill-turn work (yet) - its a Bridgeport manual mill (or was) so i'll be using Z as X. The quill clamp uses the BT30 socket for stability.

I have tested G32 threading and that functioned ok in Mach3Mill - i currently have an encoder on the main spindle and will have one on the aux spindle, switching from one to the other can be done electronically then the lathe profile is selected. I can only have one spindle encoder with CS-Labs.

I really want to stick with Mill as i'm used to it, I have my own screen set that I can easily tweak, it all seems to work fine for mill at least.

Not sure yet if it will be gang-tooled or a simple QC tool post setup. I'll probably only need a few tools anyway.

All i need is something like Simpson36' early model, I have now got a 5C spin-index spindle, bearings and a 750W servo and drive plus, aluminium tooling plate are on order.

I really want to stick with Fusion360 for my CAD/CAM so no doubt it will need the post modifying to output mill tool-changes instead of lathe codes.

Sounds simple, probably not, should probably have just bought a mini-lathe but there you go ;)

Offline Hood

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #26 on: April 22, 2019, 03:12:34 AM »
Still not sure why you can't just use a Turn profile unless you are wanting to do milling operations and turning operations at the same time, it sounds like you don't though.

Ok your screenset, that is not an issuer, just turn it into a Turn screenset. Copy it to your desktop or similar and change the extension to .lset then paste into your Mach3 folder. You can now open a lathe profile and choose your newly re-extensioned screenset and you now  have a lathe profile with your screenset.

It is infact the screeset that determines what a profile is. If you opened your mill profile and chose a lathe screenset then shut down and reopened it would now be a lathe profile.

Offline Davek0974

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #27 on: April 22, 2019, 03:21:26 AM »
Sounds good, i'll play with that thanks.

It did start out as a mill-turn project but on a Bridgeport thats just not going to happen i think as the only Z is the quill so the tools must be mounted on that and not on the head like other mill-turn projects are. I tend to get stuck in a groove and still think mill-turn although now its mill or turn and not both.

That would mean no post processor tweaks needed as well.

Offline Davek0974

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #28 on: April 22, 2019, 03:35:44 AM »
Ok, impressed so far, i now have my screen as a lathe, thanks.

Clearly i need to look at IJK stuff as (pictured) it's wanting to turn a circle rather than a radius ;)

Offline Hood

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Re: Mill or Turn?
« Reply #29 on: April 22, 2019, 03:39:44 AM »
Probably your tools are set as Front in the tool table, you can either set as rear there or change the "reversed arcs in front post." option see screenshot.