Well, not the busiest board in the world so thought I'd add to it.
I'm in Sunny Scotland (which right now, isn't)
Have set up my 2.7 with a "Heavy Metal" kit and electronics from  automation solutions
It's running under Mach4

Started the process about 6 weeks ago and the machine will cut what I want, much to my absolute amazement.

Cons:
The Electronics were a bit of a bugger to fit out, the online documentation for the stepper motors referenced Smooth Stepper control boards and the guys I bought the kit from suggested a UC100, the wiring for stepper motor controllers is different and not interchangeable, Arturo got me sorted out once I was put in touch with him and that is sorted.
The Heavy Metal kit, overall, excellent!. there is probably a bit of variation between seig mills and the heavy metal components needed a bit of tweaking to allow them to function well. but they were minor tweaks (mostly with a  grinder)
Mach4, driving me to distraction . . .
It opens G code files randomly (relative position to where the table actually is)
The "Home in place" then doesn't move the "Work area" shown on the toolpath relative to where the machine is homed.
I'm more frustrated with trying to move the machine to where I want to cut and being unable to get mach4 to understand that "I WANT TO START HERE! (this being x0, y0 z0 as far as I'm concerned)

Bryonys video's are lovely, but how the hell do I set where the machine is right now, as 0,0,0 (xyz) and have the toolpath onscreen reference that?
ferinstance, if I was using mach4 on a plasma table and have a nice bit of sheet about the size I need for whatever widget I want to cut.
Jog the machine over to that area, load up the file, how do I get it to cut, right where I am, right now?
Mach 4 loads up the file which seems to be in some random position relative to wherever the machine happens to be.

Can someone point me at a video that shows me how to jog to a spot and in that spot, load a file and cut it right where the machine is?

Hi,
you mention SmoothStepper:

the online documentation for the stepper motors referenced Smooth Stepper control boards

and then you mention UC100:

the guys I bought the kit from suggested a UC100,

So which do you have?
They are not the same. The Ethernet SmoothStepper (Warp9TD) has 51 inputs and outputs whereas the UC100 has only 17 inputs
and outputs. The UC100 has sufficient IO for only the most basic of machines, with all the 'input economizing' like combining
home and limit switches that we used to have to do with Mach3 and a parallel port in days gone by. With an ESS, or other boards
like 57CNC (PoKeys) with 57 IO's or the UC300 (CNCDrive) with 85 IO's you can have separate inputs for homes and limits. Thus with a three
axis machine you would have three home switches, one per axis, and six limit switches, two per axis. With that setup all this stuff
like 'Home in Place', Soft Limits and 'Work Area' just falls into place.

Without Home switches and a repeatable Referencing (Homing) procedure you will always get the mind-bending errors you are referring too.
With Home switches you don't get 'Home in Place' and Soft limits which are directly related to 'Work Area' are consistent and repeatable,
without Home switches Soft Limits and Work Area are meaningless.

Craig

UC100, no limit switches fitted yet (tho there are _just_ enough inputs on the UC100 to get limit switches on x,y,z)

Irrespective of the machine knowing where "it" is, I want to jog it to where "I" want it to be, and set 0,0,0 there.
And have Mach 4 let me cut from the 0,0,0 I have just set.

Is that possible?

i.e. when I load up the G Code and see the run outline on screen, I want that at the 0,0,0 I have just set.
Mach 4 references (something, I've no idea what) and seems to randomly set the machine toolpath at some place that is not the 0,0,0 I've set on the mill.

You do need limit/home switches I have 3 per axis

That said

Do put the machine in the position you want as home then ( if you have the home in config to home in place it should if no limits are defined ) and then make sure the dro are zeroed
Then on the offset page set up the WCS with offset for tool setter 0 again make sure dro are on 0 not machine 0

Then load the gcode it then should work

But to reiterate get those switches setup and do it the correct way from the start

Cheers Stuart,
I shall give that a bash.
I intend getting limit switches in this weekend.
Having said that, I intended to be a millionaire by the time I was 30 . . 25 years past that point and no sign of it happening anytime soon . .

Hi,

Irrespective of the machine knowing where "it" is, I want to jog it to where "I" want it to be, and set 0,0,0 there.
And have Mach 4 let me cut from the 0,0,0 I have just set.

Is that possible?

Of course it is possible.....Mach4 would be a complete dud without being able to do that.

Given that you have a UC100 and are therefore very 'input challenged' consider having three home switches (one per axis)
and forgo limit switches.

With good limit switches and a repeatable Referencing (Homing) procedure then Soft Limits work well. While not as secure
as genuine Limit switches they still work. My mini-mill operates that way, ie three limit switches only an no limit switches
and I have operated that way for years, and in recent months it sees several hours use every day.

Craig

Hi,
sorry....typo:

My mini-mill operates that way, ie three limit switches only an no limit switches

,
should be three Home switches and no Limit switches.

Craig

Well, an update (I know, ejit with mill, how interesting can this be . . .*yawn*)
Well, for me, very 

As you guys guessed, most of the problems I was having were with the nut between the keyboard and the mill.
I was completely lost as to why a "toolpath" would show up on the Mach 4 screen and I'd not be able to "jog" round it without hitting a limit on the mill.
I read and listened and thunked hard about your comments, and decided to park the machine in a "home" position and re-load the file (having restarted Mach4 with the machine parked at "home")
And I could start to see why the toolpath was showing up where it was.

Then I noticed that some of my files had their 0,0,0, reference in the middle of the part and some lower left . . . .  So some sense is being made of positioning work on the mill and getting mach 4 to cut the work rather than destroy the mill (which is what I'm here for)

So, huge thanks for pointing me in that direction. I'd still like to have Mach4 "Cut Here" but am now starting to understand that I need to be consistent with reference point on the G code file to enable that (If I can stick to lower left I just jog to lower left and zero on mach 4 there, hey presto off she'll jolly well trot. (in vaugely the right place)

Other issues solved this week (tho positioning is not 100% there yet, I need to figure out how to stop fusion putting the stock point in the middle of the work..)
I had a stiff nut, one of the ballscrews on the X axis was locking up, watched a video, stripped it, cleaned it, re-dressed it and hey presto, with shiny balls, my nut runs smooth . .  (I know, childish and immature, but I am)
And the Z axis Gib has never been right on my mill, a bit of googling pointed me to how to "shoogle" the Gib into the right position that would allow the upper and lower Gib adjustment screws to actually work ("Shoogle" is a Scottish word meaning to faff with something 'till it's either better, worse of you've broken it completely)

Picture is a shark (Work in progress) fins cut on the mill.
I know, very simple,  but I am.
Hai Than Kew.
Roy

I will come back with other stupid questions, like how to get Fusion 360 to less aggressively plunge mills when cutting, but maybe on another forum (I have slowed the plunge rate, but really I need to "peck in or come in at some angle . . ) ((I think))

Have been using my KX3 still with Mach 3, and have gotten used to how fixture offsets work. It sounds like you are a bit earlier in the learning curve, and here a few things that I have found work. I have moming set up on my machine so machine zero is in the same place after a reboot. Then when Mach boots up it is in G54. I leave G54 as x 0 y0 z 0 and never change them.  I can then move the machine around to wherever the physical startpoint is for the program I want to run and then making sure there is a G55 or greater near the start of the program I then enter the numbers for X and Y into the work offset I will be using and then select that work offset in MDI and X & Y will then be 0. I have an unused tool holder - I have Tormach tooling and 1 10mm holder and no 10mm tools) and that is my reference tool or tool 0 (zero). I then use that tool to set Z. For preseting tools I have a short cyling=der I can set my tooling on, and with my height gage set to zero when set=ting on top of too zero I then measure the length of my tools and enter those lengths into the tool table.

MDI, pray tell, what is MDI?
I know, a confused man, always needs another TLI 

I've yet to get limit switches set up, I've bought them, I have cable, I have plugs, I know where I'm going to put them, it's just I've been run off my feet with the crimbo rush and the mill has been working for a living a couple of hours a day, every day for the last 3 weeks.

Getting work offsets in stuff knocked out in fusion 360 seems pretty logical.
There is a "home" thing fusion likes to chuck into the G code at the start and end of execution cycles which I assume is for toolchanges?
But other than that, I'm fairly happy with getting work on the table and having the mill execute it.

I was (and still am) thrown by the engraving wizard in Mach4 that seems to randomly place engraving anywhere . .
Buggered if I know how to get that into any place consistently.

I'm using 5mm endmills to cut shapes in 3mm steel plate (single pass, full 3mm DOC ) I get about 40 mins out of a cutter and it's fubar'd. Mill stops cutting and the Seig just loosed the plot as it can't make the cutter go through metal anymore.
Have settled on 1700 (ish) rpm and 40mm/min feed at which the cutter is cutting and there is some tolerance in there.
What was screwing me up was plunging end mills, oddly enough, that didn't go well.
But fusion has a ramp function, which if set at a 45 deg ramp and plunge speed of 10mm/min doesn't destroy end mills . .

Mach4 and Fusion seem to play well with each other.

The engraving wizard in mach4 has a mind of it's own for placement . . .

How do you get a toolchange into a G code run?
Or do you do separate listings for each tool and park the mill inbetween code runs?