Hi All,
Like many here I have recently completed a router. I am using Gecko G202's and Mach 3. At present I can home all axes, and jog around like crazy, but getting the system to draw a picture of that d@#m roadrunner is still elusive. Perhaps my problems are due to the fact that although I have been a machinist for many years, I have no CNC experience.
The system details: X axis approx. 16" travel, Y about 12" and Z 4". X is driven by a NEMA 34 Pac Sci stepper and Y and Z are driven by NEMA 23 Pac Sci steppers. The Y axis is a second hand Linitech drive (very nice), but most of the rest is garage made.
Although I have read the manual for Mach 3 and have viewed all the tutorials up through Coordinates/Homing (and they are great), I'm still having some problems and have many questions which I hope someone can help me with:
1) Is it normal to have an axis drive whine/hum/whistle while it is idle? If I jog the axis it will change the sound or stop completely.
2) From the Coordinates tutorial it sounds like I should be able to home the axes, the DRO's auto zero, then jog to the corner of my sheet of paper, manually zero the DRO's, regen the toolpath and then run the roadrunner program. When I do this, the pen does not stay within the boundaries of the sheet of paper. Maybe I need to jog to a different point on the paper, or do I need to do something on the Offsets screen?
3) Should the highlighted line on the program window always follow along with the program as it is executed? Mine does sometimes, sometimes not. (not a big issue, but it makes me wonder)
4) Is there a library of sample programs that might be better than the roadrunner for determining system correctness, or do I have to write these myself? Perhaps use some of the wizards to generate circles, squares etc? What type of geometric pattern would be most usefull to excercise my system?
5) Is there another way to save the global configuration rather than going into the Mach folder and copying/saving the profile? Seems like there should be an option under the File menu...(again not a biggie)
6) Is the settings for the softlimits (Motor Home/Soft Limits) the only place that I need to tell Mach about the size of my system?
7) Although I believe that I have correctly set my Steps per Unit for each drive on the motor tuning screen, when I try and verify/fine tune them using the "Set steps per unit" button on the settings screen, I get VERY different numbers. Perhaps it is because I am only asking for pretty small movements to stay within the limits of my 1/2" travel dial indicator? Is there a way to control the feedrate that this test uses? It seems to ignore the feedrate selection on the program run screen?
Phew, that is a lot of questions already! I appologize in advance for my ignorance in this area, but I'm eager to learn.
Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide...
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