Has anyone had any experience using Kcam 4.

M

I played around with it for about a week. It ran my motors ok. But I didn't like the fact it had no windows XP support.

Thanks for the input.

m

I'm using Kcam 4.?.

I thought it good enough to pay the registration fee $95.00US.

What would you like to know?

Unless they have a board to buffer it's gonna run verry sloow.

Originally posted by CNCadmin
Unless they have a board to buffer it's gonna run verry sloow.

A board to buffer. I'm using Stepper 3 LLL 3 axis controller for mine. Is there something I can learn to make mine a little faster.
Right now I'm achieving about 7IPM. With considerable stutter over that. My motors are 6vdc/1.2amp, powered by a standard 12v psu, -w- power resistors on the positive lines???

I tried KCAM and was pretty disappointed. I tried with 6v 1.2A motors at 12V as well and 6ipm was about as good as it got and that was not even particularly reliable.

I moved up to a 24v supply and Turbo CNC in DOS and can step nicely over 33 ipm.

The problem with kcam is windows. It interferes with the programs ability to deliver a smooth pulse train to the controller. If you use Kcam, try Turbocnc in dos mode (not a dos "window" and you will see a 50% improvement in speed and smoother too.

Eric

Originally posted by anoel
I tried KCAM and was pretty disappointed. I tried with 6v 1.2A motors at 12V as well and 6ipm was about as good as it got and that was not even particularly reliable.

I moved up to a 24v supply and Turbo CNC in DOS and can step nicely over 33 ipm.


Do you think the same would hold true? If I continued to run my 12v psu -w- 6v/1.2amp motors.

Give TurboCNC a try you'll be impressed with how much smoother the steppers run. Even at 12V it'll be better. Your rapids won't be much better. (They will be better by an inch or two per minute, maybe more.) Even with 24v and KCam you'll not be able to touch what it'll do with TurboCNC. When I tried KCAM the motors sounded awful and had very non smooth motion and seemed to loose steps very easy even when operating at slow speeds.

If I get a few minutes I'll fire up the Kcam demo again and do a direct comparison between it and TurboCNC. Haven't done that in a while.

I'm waiting to see what I can find out about my current controller/motor configuration.
Also Turbo CNC does not have the User GUI I got with Kcam, so that's going to take me a minute to get use to.

Thanks a bunch guys.
Peace
Neil





Commandment #1
THOU SHAULT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.

Does this mention a specific GOD or is it the guilt of all the people who want the commandments banded that see something wrong with the world's first set of truley basic LAWS.

How does Mach1 get around this problem?

I know that windows has a multimedia timer function in the win API, so why would KCAM not tack advantage of this, if this works for audio play back it should be able to run a stepper. Timing for audio playback would be much more demanding I would imagine.

Mark

If you do try Turbocnc, remember it needs to run in DOS, not in a DOS window.

Eric

How does Mach1 get around this problem?

I believe that Mach1/2 uses a Windows driver that loads when you boot to get control of the parallel port.

Gerry

If you want faster and smoother motion try minimizing the plot window. It works.

Kellycam works fine if you do not refresh the display.
That is the main reason that it runs slow.
I changed that feature in the set up and the program works like a gem.
It is good in the sense you can see a plot of your gcode.
Very nice feature.

I purchased Kcam3 (now version 4) and minimize the plot window and it runs even smoother.

Tom

OOps I already said that didn't I?

There are things you have to do to get speed out of kcam.
One thing to remember ,0 support from kcam just like he says when you buy his software. It took me about a month to figure out how to get 40"/ pr min with the same electronic set up i had when i was getting 5"/min. The thing is i had to build a new machine my third one, but it was well worth the pain and suffering. I got very lucky because all my parts were free. About $10,000 worth of mechanical parts. I found 3 gear boxes 10/1 that fit right on my stepperworld 50oz stepper motors. I then set up my motors to a rack and pinion system. The tourqe i'am getting is crazy. I had to set the kcam tablesetup to 4000 pulses to get 1 inch/pr mn. Now i have the kcam tablesetup to 509 pulses and i get 40"/ pr mn. The speed is 8 times faster the tourqe is crazy. still have to test the tourqe with a meter. Will test this when i get back from EAA. You also have to set your system time constant to 4000. Make sure you leave the rest of the kcam table settings at 5" /pr mn. Your desired feed rate should still be set at 5"/pr mn. I have to investagate why this works iam still not sure how. O by the way i did not change anything on my plot window and that plots out just as fast as my machine cuts.

There are things you have to do to get speed out of kcam.
One thing to remember ,0 support from kcam just like he says when you buy his software. It took me about a month to figure out how to get 40"/ pr min with the same electronic set up i had when i was getting 5"/min. The thing is i had to build a new machine my third one, but it was well worth the pain and suffering. I got very lucky because all my parts were free. About $10,000 worth of mechanical parts. I found 3 gear boxes 10/1 that fit right on my stepperworld 50oz stepper motors. I then set up my motors to a rack and pinion system. The tourqe i'am getting is crazy. I had to set the kcam tablesetup to 4000 pulses to get 1 inch/pr mn.
I believe that is 4000 steps per inch, not inches per minute

Now i have the kcam tablesetup to 509 pulses and i get 40"/ pr mn.

509 pulses to get 40" per minute, hard to believe especially with a 10/1 gear box, what size gear are you using on your rackmust be around 3" (steps per revolution x 10 x revolutions per inch = steps per inch.) not inches per minute.


The speed is 8 times faster the tourqe is crazy. still have to test the tourqe with a meter. Will test this when i get back from EAA. You also have to set your system time constant to 4000. Make sure you leave the rest of the kcam table settings at 5" /pr mn. Your desired feed rate should still be set at 5"/pr mn. I have to investagate why this works iam still not sure how. O by the way i did not change anything on my plot window and that plots out just as fast as my machine cuts.

as for table setup inches per minute is the max your table can handle without loosing steps minus safety factor of say 5%.

It just doesn't add up? You know I took some time to make sense of all that and by the time I was done I didn't care anymore! Plus I was wrong it does add up! When given how close my calculations were a few variables could cause the varience.

About 120 RPM motor at 5 volts
10 to 1 gear box
now = 12 RPM
turn 12 revolutions into 40 inches 1 : 3.3
for every 1 revolution the motor makes it moves 3.3 inches
200 step per revolution motor
10 to 1 gear box=
2000 steps per revolution
3.3 inches per motor revolution
2000 divided by 3.3 = 606 pulses per inch


Please tell me this is correct!

take the diameter of your rack gear at the bottom of the groove and multiply it by 3.14 for the inches per revolution, divide that into 2000 for full steps, 4000 for half steps. etc.. for pulses per inch.

where the heck is kcam support?
my computor crashed. i have save the file but it no longer works.
How do you get a hold of kcam/

http://www.kellyware.com/kcam/support/kcam_support.htm

Try this link

There is really only one MAIN way to speed up ANY windows based cnc controller program. And that is to use a pic controller of some type. ether pic or atmel etc... Because you'll never get 100% direct access to the par port. But you can blast a bunch of moves into a pic controller and it will take it from there. other wise trust me turbocnc works GREAT! though I'm not fond of the latest version 4.0 3.1 works SOOOO much better. but 4.0 does have a lot more support. 4.0 is just so $#%@$# buggy its not even funny One of the things I've found I HAVE to watch for is that the pulsewidth keeps changing which anoys me greatly because the motors stop working well at any thing over 2 for pulsewidth! Its like you have to setup a few small settings EVERY time you start the propgram.

I have kcam version 4 and I like it. It shows the toolpath which is of great value when you want to check if your code is good. It runs somewhat slow on windows due to the nature of windows and not the program itself. When you disable screen refreshing it speeds the whole process a lot. Jose.

I have kcam4.0.16...can anyone tell me if this kcam software can support windows XP or not???....thaNK YOU...

Hi... I have been using KCam on a little home built CNC sence 2002. I started with Ver3 and moved up to Ver4. I run it on an XP computer.... course its has a 2 gig processer in it and it works fine. I really like KCam.

Newest Ver Changes per KCam: "*** Version 4.0.16 *** Added Speed Overide Throttle for MaxStepper(Does not work in Parallel Port mode) made small changes in parallel mode Get Timing Constant function. Added Keyboard Jog quick speed adjust (Feed Rate Toggle) with settings at 1/1(normal), 1/2, and 1/10 speed." I would assume that would make it run smoother. I have downloaded it but have not tried it yet.

I ran TurboCNC 4 on my other home built and had all sorts of move problems.... dropped back to ver 3.1 and it worked fine. But very "DOS"... I like the windows gui that KCam has. It is simple and clean.

Hey all,

I have found Kcam to be the easiest and most user friendly program to get started with.

There are definately things to do to optimize the system, but as a previous post says this is more a Windows thing than any Kcam problem.

I like the fact that a 4th axis has now also been added as well, and that you get a nice little plot window, and you can also edit the code directly in the program.

I think the most important thing is to spend time optimizing the hardware. Eg: I have a stand alone computer purely for CNC, and have removed all unneccessary programs, optimizing the machine (eg: correct power supplies and ratings for motors etc), then minimizing various parts of KCam, plot update etc, and correct setting in the table setup. All simple stuff I know but I wonder how many people have given up on programs, not because of the program itself but ignorance!

Just my 2 cents, now where is my change?????

I have kcam4.0.16...can anyone tell me if this kcam software can support windows XP or not???....thaNK YOU...

yes

I run kcam in the office on windos xp I draw with acad dxf to kcam then save the g cods to a memory stick and transfer it to the work shop on to a windos 98 166 processor the computer is 15 years old and with my home built cnc it cuts about 1m 1 minute hers sum projects

as for the accuracy I draw a circle 20mm dxf ot kcam set up the tool offset to 1.5 for a 3mm cuter and the set the steps until it cut a nice fit

kitsewaviation.com

Have any of you tryed building the Pstep serial stepper driver from this site? I have seen other post's of poeple building it and using kcam to drive there machines and getting GREAT speed. http://cstep.luberth.com/PStep.html

Hi Berin,

Had a look at the site, bit difficult to follow...maybe I'm just simple:p

Why not look at MaxStepper from KCam themselves. There is a section on the kellyware site dedicated to this wiht good info.

I had used kelly cam and found it ran my axes slow as well.
A friend of mine bought a comercial cnc machine with software called PCNC.
This software worked very well. It is a dos based program with two programs in one. One is to run the machine and the other is to allocate tooling and which side of the line to cut on.

Best Regards
Sparkyone

I´m trying to run servodriver with KCam 4. In manual mode everything runs quickly and properly, but in automatic mode rapid positioning (G00) behaves like G01 - runs slowly. Even if I increase speed for G01 in program setup, it still has very low speed. Can anybody help?

I´m trying to run servodriver with KCam 4. In manual mode everything runs quickly and properly, but in automatic mode rapid positioning (G00) behaves like G01 - runs slowly. Even if I increase speed for G01 in program setup, it still has very low speed. Can anybody help?

have you done a system timing from the setup menu you must set it so you have 0 freed rate errors


if not it may be your step settings 1/8 1/4 1/2

have you done a system timing from the setup menu you must set it so you have 0 freed rate errors


if not it may be your step settings 1/8 1/4 1/2

I was trying to get time constant, but I always have some feed rate errors. They were close to 0, but newer "pure zero". I use UHU servo controller, it is built for 3 axis, but now I have only one connected to my machine ( Z - axis). I´m trying to run this simple G-code (just to move up and down):

G00 Z0
G00 Z40
G01 Z35
G00 Z0
G00 Z50
G00 Z0

For G01 I have speed 40mm/min, for G00 I should have 200mm/min. Interesting is, that only movement in the last step (G00 Z0) is with proper speed, all other movements looks like G01. My OS is Windows 2000.

it may be that the z depth have depth control in the setup menu ,travel ,normal, deep cut, try setting the depth there or use x or y and see if it is the same

I had wrong DLL library for LPT port in setup, now everything is ok, thank you for help!