As yet i havnt used mach3 but i will be shortly when i finish my mill. Basicly all operating systems use the same codes with a few differance which im not going to go into here.

m4 = unticlockwise rotation
m3= clockwise rotation 
m5= spindle stop

S = speed, 8000 would only normally be used in highy speed machining using carbide and coolant unless you have a small diamater tool

evrything i do is in mm ( im in Australia) but they still use imperial measurements in some parts of the world so youll find nearly all programs can be setup to use metric or imperial just depends what you prefer. so depending on which way you system is setup will depend on what 5 means. i ment it to be 5mm above the job.

In this line "G01 Z-0.25 F10 (THIS LINE IS GOOD)" G01 = feed Z-0.25 = .25mm below the surface of the work piece F = feed rate

so you teeling the machine to feed the tool .25mm below the suface of the job at a rate of 10

your tool speed can be worked out like this: say your using a 10mm drill made from high speed steel the calculation would be 300x25/10 ( 300 is rounded from pie 3.14, 25 is the allowable suface speed of high speed steel 10 is the diamater of the tool.

the same caculation is used for carbide except the suface speed for carbide is 120 your feed rate is normally one tenth your speed but this can vary considerably depending on your materail being used ( what your work piece is made out of) age of tool etc etc.

with out seeing a picture of what you trying to make its very hard to tell if the program itself is correct

glad to help, going though this stuff keeps it fresh in my mind so if you need anything else just yell out.

hey back again

i seem to be havign some troubles making turns

is there any chance you or anyone, could describe right quickly how to make turns

such as a simple S, C, O or a U type turns?

would be greatly appreciated, Ty in advance for any assistance

if your trying to engrave letters using a cam program would be youre best bet. If you trying to mill out a circular pocket you could try this

G3 X0 Y25 R50 (this would give you a circular curve from X0 to Y25 with a radius of 50mm moving in a unti clockwise motion.) this would be 3/4 arc

or

G2 I50 J0 R50 this would give you a full circle starting from X50 Y0 with a radius of 50mm ( you need to work in incremental mode for this to work thats why its I + J instead of x+y

im pretty sure my setup is a little wrong, i cannot seem to get this circle going .. any suggestions?

G3 X0 Y25 R50  = if i put this into the code, wheni load up the code, this line disappears, like theres an error type thing

"G3 X0 Y25 R50" is only half the equation. The line before that tells the start of the arc, and what you gave us is the end of the arc position. What ever position Mach happens to be at when you load the file, is assumed to be the start point in this case. As far as the line disappearing, I have no idea. Here is another simple arc....

G90 G70 G01 F100
X0.0 Y0.0
G3 X-1 Y0.0 R0.5
M30

correct me if I'm wrong somebody, but shouldn't we get an error with a smaller radius than 0.5 in this particular code? Any smaller is impossible, and Mach just makes it 0.5 no matter what you specify smaller.

When arcs come into play, theres definitely more than one way to skin a cat. I+J, Incremental or absolute distance from/to  this/that point. Some machines methods can send your brain spinning in short order.
As Ian said, if your doing letters and stuff, its time to move on to learning a cam package. However, you still need to know the method behind the madness. Good luck.

How goes the welding? Got a bit burned myself this week. Grrrrrrrrrrr       

Thanks for the post. i been practicing coding different shapes .. like pyramid type things, wrapping my mind around how to code stuff, below is a code i made for practice but i know parts are missing such as spindle speed, which direction of rotation, manual stop and a few others

What program is used for the cam thing? id be interested in checking it out

and welding is going pretty good, we finished up our Tig welding course, i got my lap and 1/4" thick mild steel root passes done in all positions, since i got finished ahead of everyone else, i was show how to use the pipe cutter to bevel off edges of schedule 80 pipe

was practicing Tig welding the roots of pipe in all positions (tacked the pipe in a fixed position) and welded all the way around, very nice penetration on the insides with no skipped edges, got my hot passes in but had trouble filling up with the 7018, need more practice at that, i know what the problem was tho, doing blueprinting now for a month then done, out working

but yeh, any information about the cam program would be greatly appreciated, and practice coded is below if you wanted to check it out for some constructive criticism

Thanks in advance for any help

Lazycam thats with Mach is one of many programs.
Sounds like your already more than your everyday average Joe Welder. I remember at one job, we made hydraulic cylinders for military aircraft. Needless to say you have to be certified. So when cert time rolled around, we just hooked up the gun to a mill table, turned on the table feed, set the wire feeder to automatic mode and let it lay the beads down for us. Your dog could get certified if need be. Hows that for a confidence booster to the guy shoving out tons of equipment out the back of a c130. There all welded robotic now I think, so it's not really an issue anymore.

Code looks good. You shouldn't need to specify a feed rate except for the very first time, or when the feed rate changes. Going from a feed move,to a rapid, and back to a feed move will not change the rate. Also makes it allot easier to edit, if need be!  Only seen two potential errors. The last perimeter overlaps the previous perimeter on the first line move. Could be intended, I don't know. Also I see that in some lines you a use a space between the axis and the value, and no spaces between the two in other sections. (X 1.5 or X1.5) I see that Mach has no problem with this, but other machines may not run the code this way. Just a heads up.

Thanks, i'll check those out and fix tha problem

1 more question for the night .. in the display box .. is there a way to zoom and and see the design better?

Thanks

mouse wheel zooms for me, and pan is hold down right mouse button, tilt is hold down left mouse. I'm sure there must be keyboard hotkeys, but I don't know them.