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Author Topic: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.  (Read 6541 times)

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Offline nicad

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Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« on: February 15, 2006, 04:47:21 PM »
Art-
As I understand it, Mach4 outputs "curves" at a rate (1/64 sec?) that results in prominent vectoring of the curve at anything above a slow feedrate. If I am post-processing all my curves into very short line-segments (~0.002"), will Mach4 + Grex be able to output this smoothly at a quicker rate?

Also, The Grex has a USB and an Ethernet port. The USB is for flashing of the firmware only and the ethernet is for motion control commands (correct?). Will this always be true? It would seem that a direct USB link would be more "fail proof" than an ethernet network.. but I am just thinking out loud here.. :)

Thanks-
Colin

Offline nicad

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Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2006, 02:27:19 AM »
Hello...?
Can any one answer the vectoring question?? it is the main deciding factor on purchasing a Grex...

ynneb

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Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2006, 03:43:50 AM »
Nicad Art is on holidays for a week. You may also be able to get help on the gecko forum too.
Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2006, 07:12:39 AM »
USB (1) is about 6Mps and the Ethernet is 10/100Mps so you are going to get Much faster data in ethernet.  as for the small moves Art is going to be working on that when he gets back. We are thinking about blending the small lines into curves but I don't know how that will go...

Hope that is a little help
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Offline nicad

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Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2006, 03:58:29 PM »
so if I were to break up a circle into 1000 very short stright line segments in CAM, and then tell mach4->Grex to cut that path.. what would it do?

Offline ger21

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Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2006, 07:43:03 PM »
so if I were to break up a circle into 1000 very short stright line segments in CAM, and then tell mach4->Grex to cut that path.. what would it do?

It would cut the path. :)  I thought I read that Mach4's segmented arcs is only temporary, and will be corrected when it's finished.
Gerry

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Re: Mach4 - couple of quick questions for Art.
« Reply #6 on: March 09, 2006, 08:16:52 PM »
It better be fixed... I just got my mill in that is going to be the testbed! I will be mounting the 1KW servo this weekend and putting in the GRex. This mill is going to have about everything that I can add :) VFD 4th axis and air everything. The only thing that it will not have is a tool changer :( O well that is next  ;D
Fixing problems one post at a time ;)

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