I recently got my mill hooked up to Mach using Hillbilly's BOB and instructions. First I would like to say that Darek is a stand up guy and his product is top notch. He promptly sent out the board after I had ordered it and quickly responded to all of my questions. Following his instructions it is extremely easy to get everything hooked up and running. I still have some relays to hook up for coolant etc. which I will be working on here soon. I had the chance to give everything a good rundown this past weekend by running a pattern for a model car I am making for one of my ME classes. I drew the model in solidworks, generated the tool paths with freemill and cut with Mach3. Everything has worked great so far. I would highly recommend Dareks board to anyone wanting a cost effective way of upgrading their BOSS control.

Here are some pictures of my project in MDF.

Matt

That looks GREAT!! Which ME class is this project for?? I am guessing fluid mechanics?

Thanks for the compliment.
It is for my manufacturing processes class. It will be made of carbon fiber or gelcoated fiberglass. I am making my own wheels and steering linkage to go with it. It is a model of a car I am working on to compete in the SAE supermileage competition next summer.

Matt

wow, cool, little different than when I went to school for an M.E...doing projects like that will make you an EFFECTIVE M.E., instead of some of the theory only persons whom I'm sure a lot of us have had to deal with.( and deal with..and baby sit etc)

Adobe (old as dirt )

Adobe makes a good point about having some machine-shop experience. Most Engineers today, lack valuable shop experience. They have no idea what it takes to make something to .0002"; let-alone how to measure it. It is funny when you hand a fresh-college graduate a set of mics and ask them to measure a part <chuckling>. I was fortunate to spend my nights working a 2nd shift job in a local tool & die shop during my high-school days. It helped me to decide on my career path, and has given me the edge at each of my past jobs. Keep-up the GREAT work!!

wow, cool, little different than when I went to school for an M.E...doing projects like that will make you an EFFECTIVE M.E., instead of some of the theory only persons whom I'm sure a lot of us have had to deal with.( and deal with..and baby sit etc)

Adobe (old as dirt )

I am a senior this year and it amazes me how many of my peers have no interest in going to the machine shop. I would like to be there all day. You are correct in your statement Adobe. Due to cooping and actually knowing how to make something I have gotten offers to quit school for 50k to start working and I don't even have a degree. Some of my fellow ME seniors can't even tell you what a four stroke engine is.

Matt

Got a link to that BOB?

PM Hillbilly
He will tell you everything you need to know.
He has a web site at http://home.icx.net/~ashburn/index.html

All told its about $70 and an hour to buy and hook it up.
I was running on mach a couple hours after I got the BOB.

Matt

Thanks, that's a nice looking board.

Hey Keebler,

Thansk for the recommendation, i got the bob controller and wired it up and setup a machine to run MACH3.

Only questions I have are:
1. what POST Processor are you using now?
2. Does your Z axis "crash". It used to home and stop at the end of the quill travel, but now i get gears crunching at Z+ above the old ZERO point. Do i need to do something special to wire a Z limit switch?
3. what acceleration settings do you use?

Thanks again, Mach 3 looks great, more to try out tomorrow.

bbuonomo

1. You haven't said which cam program your using, I used a general 3 axis fanuc post for mine but had to alter the drilling cycle a bit to get it working properly, this was in mastercam.

2. Your Z shouldn't chrash, if you've gone past your old Z zero I'm guessing you will have bent or broke something, the z home switch is a push button so it can't go past it without bending it or breaking it. I would have a look behind the cover to see if you've damaged anything.

Have you followed HillBilly's instructions "Z Home should be enabled, set to port #1 pin #12 and set to active low." Mine was wired into pin 13 for some reason, it may have been me wiring it incorrectly. If you done this and you can home your Z I would also set up softlimits from 0 to -127mm (-5"), a slow zone of about 20mm and set the %speed to 5%. I would also enable Z++ to the same port and pin as your Z home.

3. I use 26.25 mm/s/s for my acceleration, 2010 mm/min for the velocity and 100 steps per mm. This is for a Boss 6.1 a metric machine with a 5mm pitch ball screw so will probably be different to yours.

Hope this helps

Chris

Sorry, using Mastercam X. I'll check the pin and port settings again.

Thanks.

Make sure you set your soft limits and turn them on, I'd set Z++ limit to the same port & pin as Z home too, this should stop you going too far again.

For your postprocessor try using this one, it's one I've moded.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=1306.msg7315#msg7315

This forum wouldn't let me attach this file so you will have to follow the link.

Cheers

Chris

Well an unfortunate development today.

I did the Z limits, that worked, but as soon as i went to move -Z after going "home" the z-axis stopped moving.

The stepper (i think they are steppers not servos right?) pulses, and if I tap page down key it moves step by step, but if i hold page down key i hear the motor moving, but nothing else moves.

So I open front panel, switches are intact and still work (feedback on BOB controller verified that). I expose dte pulley that drives the Z axis and it will free spin when power is off, but only still only pulsed when i hit Z -.

So i took the stepper off the machine, still doesn't move, just pulses step by step. At this point i thought it was the stepper, so I wired the Z stepper to X axis and Z stepper works, so it isn't the stepper motor.

I had also looked at the Z axis control board in bottom right of machine, nothing looks burnt out (i've seen some of the pics on the forum for a fried controller board. I checked the Z axis fuse.

Now I'm pretty much clueless about where to trouble shoot what the problem is.

I hope this all made sense, i'm still new to all the terminology, I'm a computer geek by trade.

Anyone have some ideas? Please help! :-)

Thanks Chris, I'll try that post as soon as I get the mahcie running.

Make sure you set your soft limits and turn them on, I'd set Z++ limit to the same port & pin as Z home too, this should stop you going too far again.

For your postprocessor try using this one, it's one I've moded.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=1306.msg7315#msg7315

This forum wouldn't let me attach this file so you will have to follow the link.

Cheers

Chris

just a thought, can i swap the x and z boards? to test if it is a board failure?

I will bet its a transistor.
You will not be able to tell it is bad.
More info in a min.

Matt

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23776

this will get you started.
search bridgeport transistors for more info.
you need to pull your drive boards and get to the set of 4 transistors located on the heat sink behind the drive boards. There will be 4 transistors labeled z axis. one or more of those is probably shorted or burnt open. you can check with a multimeter.

good luck
Matt

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3570&highlight=bridgeport+transistor
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/search.php?searchid=911575

you know, i had a fear that would be it :-)

I had the x axis transistors replaced 2 years ago.

ok, so now I know where they are and what the problem is, does anyone hze a source for those parts?

Is it as simple as writing down the number off the transistor and searching for it on a electronic suppliers website? Jameco, newark, radioshack?

Thanks for the help guys.

Yes, just write down the number and order them from Newark or whoever has them in stock. OEM transistors were Motorola 2N6547. I think I just purchased some ST Microelectronics 2N6547 transistors from Newark.

Try www.futurlec.com I got some from here, they were the proper Motorola 2N6547 ones as well.

Placed order for ST Microelectronics transistors, does it matter its not motorola? $3.60 each from mouser. ordered 12, JIC :-)

brand doesn't matter the numbers are there so you can cross them over.
you should be back in action soon.
good luck

Matt

I just pulled out the transistor block.

The numbers I get on 3 of the transistors are STA7018 - 8039 and 1 is STA7018 - 8041. Is this going to be a problem? I ordered the ST Microelectronics 2N6547 transistors. Or are these the same parts, just different reference numbers.

Thanks.

Just swap all 4 for the ST version, keep the others for emergency spares.

Hi Guys, Could you guys fill me in on how this board is hooked up into the boss machine. Exactly what does this board do for the machine? I have a boss 6 machine and am looking for a cheap way to run long programs where my machine is not down to long. I have the boss control on my machine, and run it with Mastercam 9. Thanks, Pat

you cut about 15 wires which the BOSS controller interfaces the drive through. You hook these wires up to the hillbilly board. The hillbilly board hooks up to the computer so that the signals to the drive portion of the machine are generated in mach3. Basically, the BOB and mach3 on your PC replace the function of the actual boss controller. The drive portion and power supply all remains the same which makes it cost effective.

Matt

I just pulled out the transistor block.

The numbers I get on 3 of the transistors are STA7018 - 8039 and 1 is STA7018 - 8041. Is this going to be a problem? I ordered the ST Microelectronics 2N6547 transistors. Or are these the same parts, just different reference numbers.

Thanks.


The -8039 and -8041 are date codes....ie, the 39th week of 1980 and the 41st week of 1980. The resistance and diode check values on the 7018 are different than the 2N6547. I had the 7018s and one was bad so I just swapped in a 2N6547 instead of replacing all of them. This was just to make sure it fixed the problem I was having. I still need to go back and replace the other 3.

Thanks for the number decoding!

I plan on replacing all four (parts should be in by tuesday), but how do you test to see which one is burnt out / shorted / bad?

they are npn transistors. the way the arrow is pointing is the way that current flows through them. you can use a continuity tester to see if the diodes are working or shorted. The shorted transistor will pass current in both directions, a burnt open transistor will not pass current in either direction.
Here is a diagram of what pin is what and an ok procedure to test transistors.

good luck
Matt

Use a digital volt meter thing on diode check or if your doesn't have it I think you can do it with resistance, check from pin to pin and from pin to case you should see one of them is different to the rest, be carefull to keep the positive and negative leads the same way around when checking as this alters the reading.

Chris

too slow, need to type faster.

Perfect, thanks!
The students keep asking how and why on all this stuff and i'm only learning this stuff a second ahead of them. It's been a while since i've worked with troubleshooting electronics :-)

I'm a so excited to start playing with MACH 3, this setback is driving me nuts..... then there is the whole thing of getting Mastercam to post it right for this machine, and.....

so much to do...

FASTER UPS!! FASTER!!!

I have a mastercam 9 post that works fairly well with the boss 6. You have to edit it somewhat when you post such as when you do and inside circle in multiple plunges. After the first plung which is g1 feed it rapid plunges to go for the rest of the z plunges, so I edit the g0 to g1. I have been using mastercam for about 10 years, but have not done much complex sufacing with it. Pat

Its alive!

Replaced Z axis transistors, z moves again.
Now I need to get the Z limits working right.
I'll start another post though :-)

Thanks again!

PM Hillbilly
He will tell you everything you need to know.
He has a web site at http://home.icx.net/~ashburn/index.html

All told its about $70 and an hour to buy and hook it up.
I was running on mach a couple hours after I got the BOB.

Matt


How do i get one of these boards?I have a series 2 that runs well just
limited and needs a upgrade.

thank you
Tom C.

email Darek

ashburn "at" icx.net

As an option for the 2N6547, you might want to consider the BUX48 or BUX48A (the "A" is a higher Vcex rating, 1000 versus 850).

The charm in the BUX48 is that it is a second generation, newer design that has a VERY high overload rating and it appears to offer faster switching potential - this could help reduce cross conduction potential during turn on/off of adjacent phases.

You would want to replace them in matched sets per axis.

Hey Matt, how did you set up the limits and deaccelleration on all 3 axises.
I am going to switch over to a Bob board, and Mach 3 soon. I will post with Mastercam 9 . We need to keep in touch, as we might be able to help each other. I have had quite abit of experience in the machining trade, and have been a toolmaker for 21 years. Pat

Pat

The limits are triggered off of the existing wire from the boss control. I am not sure exactly which wire it is offhand. If you are planning to get a Hillbilly BOB it comes with instructions showing which wires to hook up to the board and all of the settings you need in mach to get it to jive. I do not have soft limits setup. There is no deceleration on the limits because it does not know until its there that it has to stop so it is a dead stop. If you are talking about the z decel switch, it is not used for that function. you can use that as a home switch for the z and use the upper switch as the limt.

Matt

One more question Matt, how does the Bob board mount in the Bridgeport cabinet? and do you remove the old logic and axis cards? Thanks, Pat

you can remove the logic boards and the big power supply for the logic boards. The drive boards stay. You can mount the board anywhere you want in the cabinet and attach the wires from the drive boards to the BOB. It does not plug into a slot or anything so it can go wherever you see fit. Mine is mounted to the back wall of the cabinet. I have my computer I run it on stuck inside the cabinet as well. There is room for this after you take out the logic board rack and the PSU for it. I have seen others with tyhe board mounted inside the computer case as well, this is another option.

Well Matt, I am getting the computer next week. Got the 17 lcd screen yesterday. I will get the rest next week. I am going to build a mount that clamps right on the exsisting console pole and offsets the screen and keyboard right in front of the present console, but leaves the axis enable button exposed.
My keyboard will be RF so as to use it remotely on the table for pickups. The computer is a duel core with 1 gig of ram and a 160 gig hard drive with wireless internet capabilities as to get drivers and upgrades as I need. I will build a tray clamp mount out of aluminum to keep it light. I will post pictures when it is done. Pat

sounds good

Matt

Hi Matt, thanks. The boards that are in my machine are ERS,ZCK,NTP,ZDI,LSI
The instructions from darek that he sent me said XDI that the plugs are hooked into. I think the board ZDI,XDI are the same. Pat

hello,
i am wondering if any one can help me.i have just upgraded my boss6 to hillbillys
board and i cant seem to get mach3 to work i have got mach2 to work fine.
mach3 dosent want to move any of my axis. they just bounce,i have used
all the same settings as mach2 but still dont move .any help please??
also derak who made the board has been very helpfull and has a great product
it will make a lot of old bosses have new life.

Thank you
Tom C

what does "bounce" mean? When did you have it running on mach 2, recently? you have the port turned on and everything right?(checkbox in mach) Do the led's on the BOB sequence through or not?
What kind of computer are you running? laptop?
If the lights are stepping through and the machine is not moving the problem is on the machine side. if the lights are acting funky it probably the computer side.

Matt

Has anyone tested the wireless keyboards?

Do they pick up any interference from the machine? I've never used one outside a computer lab / home office, not sure how they will work around machinery. Just curious.

We're looking to mount the BOB Board where the tape reader was so you can see the lights and mount an LCD to the old control interface.

I'll post pics when we make some progress.

BTW, I did some drilling and pocketing, all with a generic 3 axis VMC (fanuc) POST in Mastercam X. Everthing seems to work so far. Still ahve a lot of experimenting once we get it back online after the PC is inside the cabinet.

Hi guys, I decided not to try the keyboard due to the multimedia keyboard only working with xp multimedia, Maybe you guys could help me with this. How are you powering your Bob boards? Is anybody using the card rack power supply? I see that it has 5 volts and grounds. Would this work ok? Got the computer working good with Mach 3. I am pretty much just taking my time gathering information. It sounds like you can pretty much rip your control off the machine except for the limit enable button. Has anybody ever used the feed override knob on the Bridgeport control face? Could this control be interfaced with Mach 3? Please, everybody keep in touch so we can all help each others, and I would like to see all your pictures, and I will share mine when I get started. Thanks, Pat

Pat

Initially I used the card rack supply, just found the terminals which corresponded to 5V and ground. Then I took out the power supply and now have the board running off a spare plug from the computer power supply. I took out the card rack and power supply so i could put my computer in there. I took off the control box and pulled out the wires except for the limit override. I made a small wood box to hold the limit override switch which mounts to the pendant arm. I have my monitor sitting on the control cabinet right now and i need to figure out what to ddo with my keyboard and mouse.
It would be handy to have the feed override but I'm not sure how or if that could be integrated into mach. I can eventually get some pictures but I always forget at the time while I am working on it.

Matt

what does "bounce" mean? When did you have it running on mach 2, recently? you have the port turned on and everything right?(checkbox in mach) Do the led's on the BOB sequence through or not?
What kind of computer are you running? laptop?
If the lights are stepping through and the machine is not moving the problem is on the machine side. if the lights are acting funky it probably the computer side.

Matt

i have found the problem. i had some bad code in the m1s macro files my falt
bad typer. mach3 runs fine now.the only thing i was wondering is that when it comes to a
m5 in the program the spindle dosent shut off do i need something else in the m5.m1s file??

thank you
Tom C.

there was an issue with the quotation marks in my files. just open it up, delete the quotes, then put them back in. If you are still having a problem give darek a yell and he will get it sorted out for you.

Matt

Now that i have bobs board running with mach3. I was wondering if
I could hook up x and y limit switches to bobs board for home??
could any one help me with this?? tell me where to hook them up
and what input and output pins to use in mach3.



Thankyou
Tom C.

don't remember how many inputs are unused. You could get away with just one. The number on the BOB input is the pin number you want to use in mach. Not sure but I would say you want the x and y home setup for this pin in the ports and pins configuration. That should get you most of the way there.

Matt

Tom

I've put some more wires into the limit switches so I can reference the X & Y axes. I don't think you can use the oringinal wires as they run at too higher voltage, hence the new wires, there is a spare seperate switch under the cover on the limit switch. It a normally closed switch so if you want to put both axes on the same input on your BOB you will have to wire them in series.

The BOB needs 24v inputs, there is a spare 24v terminal and earth on the left side of the main terminal strip, above were the old logic rack used to live.

Hope this helps

Chris

Finally had a chance to take some pics of BOB Controller mounted cabinet. The kids got it mounted and writed yesterday. They decided that we need to mount an LCD screen, so the MDI control panel was removed.

Where have you guys mounted the emergency stop switch?
I can't decide if it should stay on the control panel area of if we should move it to the side of the cabinet. Any suggestions? Obviously it should be easy to access and visible while runninng the machine.

ok, more pics when they get more done. Already they have to redo the plexi mount plate, someone over tightenet top left screw and cracked the plexi.....

Chris.

Did you get rid of the old wires on the switches?or just leave them on and run
new wires to them?where would you put these new wires in bobs board?
and how would you turn them on in mach3?im not a electrician just a
machinist.a diagram would help.

Thank You

Tom C.

Very nice pictures bbuonomo. I was thinks of sliding my computer in where your shelf is, and have it halfway sticking out. I have a lightscribe burner in the computer that I want to be able to get to. I am going very slow in my installation as this is all new to me and I am over cautious. When I get done, I will take some pictures also. I see Tom said he had some code problems. Thanks you guys for post all the info. We are all like a big family helping each other. Thanks again, Pat

the students are going to wire the PC on switch to the old tape reader switches, as well as a power light so we know the PC is running in there.

I wanted to put just the PC parts in the cabinet, but it was just easier to put the whole PC case in there, than to start doing something custom. That PC is just for MACH3, so we don't need access to anything but a USB port to download the g-code we want to run. they're going to mount that in the BOB Controller plexi plate as well.

Bbuonomo, I have a question. On your Bob board you have the 12volt hooked up as well as the 5 volt. It looks like you have about the same machine as myself. Is the 12 volts on the Bob board near the PC hookup for spindle speed?
I am no electrician, so I am just curious what it is for on our machines since ours speeds are set by air. Thanks Pat

He just hooked it up so its there if he needs it. Or the kids hooked it up because they thought they needed it. You will notice in the picture that there is no fuse installed on the 12V circuit so its not being used for anything. The 12V for the spindle speed module is for a VFD. Then you can set one mechanical speed on the mill and use the VFD to slow down or speed up the spindle motor to achieve different speeds. To use this module you need a fuse on the 12V in, a jumper as marked on the BOB and a speed module for output 1.

Matt

exactly what Matt said.

Our spindle speed is also set by air.

and sound... :-)

the RPM range is not set right, so we can do slow, fast and somewhere in between. That is an issue for another thread, another day :-)

Tom

I'm still using the orginal wires so will you so don't get rid of them, I've got some new wire running along side the old ones now have a look at the pic's below. Probably should buy some proper 4 core cable and replace the old cable as what I've got isn't ideal.

In the pic's you can see the new wire I've put in, the switch with the new wire connected, the wires connected to the BOB, the 24v supply terminal and the pinouts I'm using.

You need a wire from the 24v terminal (40 or 39 on the terminal strip you'll have to check) to the limit switch, then a wire from the other side of the switch to your BOB terminal B and lastly a wire from terminal A on your BOB to ground (40 or 39 on the terminal strip).

I used pin 15 for X and pin 13 for Y, but if you need the extra input, wire the two switches in series then you only need the one input.

Hope this helps, im not a electrician either so double check.

Chris

Chris,

You say wire them in series how is that done??
pic's are kind of dark but maybe I can lighten them up
Thank you for the help. I probably will need more.


Tom C.

Tom

Like this
____/ ___________/ ___________
X limit switch. Y limit switch

But if you didn't know that, should you really be trying to wire them up, electricity is dangerus it will kill!

Chris

Nice pictures Chris. Looks like you did a good job. Pat

Hello Guys, just got my breakout board hooked up and almost all seems to be working good. The only thing so far is I cannot turn on the spindle. I am sure that I have something set up wrong or some wrong code typed in. The sample program will run with out the spindle being turned on. The axis's move just fine, but nothing with the spindle. Any quick fixes? Thankyou, Pat

Pat

Have you checked the slide oil level, if it is low you cannot switch the spindle on.
Also in mach you have to switch the spindle on in mach then switch it on on your machine.
When you switch it on in mach, just click the spindle on button, you should here the relay click in, if not try checking the wire for the spindle where it connects to your BOB and the port & pin settings.

Hope this helps

Chris

Thanks Chris, I will check these things and let you know. Pat

exactly what Matt said.

Our spindle speed is also set by air.

and sound... :-)

the RPM range is not set right, so we can do slow, fast and somewhere in between. That is an issue for another thread, another day :-)


Here you go:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11321

Joe

You are right. I have programmed and operated cnc mills for about 23 years. Everyone is different. I have not run one at work for about 4 years, but am about to start again in about a week. A Cincinnati Cintimatic horizontal mill. I was just getting use to my bridgeport and then I changed it. But it will be for the better as soon as I get use to things. Thanks, Pat

Their, I figured it out. I had a port set wrong. Something real simple. The Machine runs good now. Thanks guys. Pat

Here you go:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11321

Joe

Thanks!

Guys, just ran into a problem. I jammed the spindle screw alittle. I freed it up and replaced 1 transistor on the z axis. Had a hum but no movement. Now not even a hum and keep blowing the fu14 fuse which is the z axis. Can any of you steer me into the right direction. I tried switching the axis boards but no luck. Could the acc board be bad? Thanks, Pat

Could this be a bridge rectifier? If so could someone show me a picture of where these are? It would be the one for the z axis. Does anybody know how much these cost? Part number? Thanks Guys. Pat

Pat

I don't think it would be a rectifier, I think it would blow the AC side if this were the case. I would first look for another transistor thats shorted or a diode in the drive circuit which is shorted. Does anything look fried? ACC transistors, SMD transistors, anything on the SMS board, check fuses on SMS board.

The best way to diagnose the source that I am aware of is to buy a handful of fuses and start disconnecting things in the z axis circuit. Disconnect everything and then start putting things back in one item at a time. Start with the first thing the power gets to from the fuse and work your way through the circuit.

Good Luck
Matt

Thanks Matt, I will start checking. Pat

Hi,

I am also working on interfacing mach2/3 with boss series 1 mill but i cant understand how bob board is working directly with your stepper board (SMD)as these board take bi phase sequence of logic to drive motors but BOB board dont have this provison in it.
Please explain. can i have the link how you are wiring the BOB board.

Regards.

Ahmed Rehan

Ahmed

Mach must be set to Max CL mode in config/ports and pins. This will make mach output the necessary sequence for the existing driver boards. I'm not sure which outputs are which axis but you will have a pair of output signals for each axis. These pairs will give the step sequence to the SMD boards.

Matt

Matt
Have you tested this way. Also what value of accelration and velocity to keep in motor tunning.

Ahmed

yes this works, my machine has been running this way for months.
acc. I think I have at 1 right now and the velocity around 60 in/min for x and y and 30 for z.

Matt

Ahmed

From earlier in the thread
"I use 26.25 mm/s/s for my acceleration, 2010 mm/min for the velocity and 100 steps per mm. This is for a Boss 6.1 a metric machine with a 5mm pitch ball screw so will probably be different to yours."

Chris

Chris

My one is 1000steps = 1inch , 200 step per revolution.

any sujestion.

Ahmed

I'd just start off with something low like 1"/s/s (25.4mm/s/s) and 30"/min (762mm/min) and then try going a little faster till you have problems, the Bridgeport manual says that the machine can rapid at 120"/min (3048mm/min), so I guess this will be your limit.

Mine must have been turned down on the original control for some reason as I did a few timing tests when I first changed on to Mach3 to get the velocity and acceleration the same as it was originally.

I'm going to leave mine turned down as all sounds well and I don't need any higher speed at the moment.

Chris

Chris

My one is 1000steps = 1inch , 200 step per revolution.

any sujestion.

Ahmed

Ahmed

Yours is the same as mine. The numbers I gave you should work fine.

Matt

By testing the output of Mach on Oscope i found the mach is not giving stable pulses there is problem in pulse frequency they very alot and makes the motors noise and unstable. I think my laptop has many programs running i think this is causing problem I will try with seprate PC only running MACH.

Ahmed

there are a lot of posts in the mach forum about this. mach doesn't run well on most laptops, especially the pentium M series of processors. Quicktime processes are also known to screw up mach. Try mach on a desktop with all erroneous programs eliminated and your problem will be solved.

Matt

Ahmed: keep in mind that Mach is taking advantage of what is essentially a printer port to run a CNC machine. Novel use of a computer capability that is not always "real time" as far as the processor is concerned - therein lies the the problem.

Depending on the processing prioritization that the processor gives to the port and/or the various programs running simultaneously, it should NOT be surprising that data is NOT being fed to the 'lowly' (my characterization) printer port in a even, smooth, uninterupted data stream. OOPS.

It is NOT a good idea to let other programs run while Mach is running a machine tool. You never know when/if some other program may take hold of the processor priority to do whatever and your CNC could go "blue screen" or out of control.

Yes, folks run Mach on laptops - in spite of the fact that folks VERY WELL versed in "Machness" have advised against it numerous times previously. It probably should NOT be a surprise if/when laptops and Mach result in bizarre stuff that is semi-unexplainable that is actually QUITE explainable.

The admonition that has been offered previously, namely that the Mach user SHOULD NOT USE A LAPTOP, pertains no matter what....

Hi
What is the minimum speed of processor required to run Mach, will it work on 500Mhz P3, Has anyone tryied on celiron processor?
Ahmed

They recomend at least a 1Ghz processor and 256MB of ram, I ran mine on a 550Mhz but started to have trouble when using higher feed rates on 3D stuff, all's been good since I changed to a 1Ghz.

Chris

Thanks but my question will it work ok on intel celiron processor or should i buy Pentium.

Ahmed

Yehaa,

It is working fine with desktop PC neat and clean output signal also no jitter. Thanks to all of you. Now i will try to add spindel speed and coolent and oil control.
Ahmed

Ahmed

Spot on, glad you've got it sorted.

"Now i will try to add spindel speed and coolent and oil control." I would like to do this to, I recon it's not to hard to sort so that Mach can turn the spindle on, forward or backwards and maybe wire the speed increase and decrease switch into it aswell. Then with a spindle speed input it may be possible for mach to set the speed automatically.

Has anyone wired a spindle speed input to there BOB, I've been looking at it a bit just lately, I guess all I need is a phototransistor, Opto switch, slotted photo switch or whatever you like to call them that will work on 24v dc and read at atleast 100hz oh and a way of mounting single sloted disc to the spindle.

Any idea's wellcome

Cheers

Chris

Chris

I have to check what type of spindel motor is used in series 1 if it is 3 phase induction then we have to put frequency drive a used one is i think arround 150usd if DC motor then we can control by PWM and feed back circuit that i can do on pic microcontroller.

Regards.

Ahmed

It's a 3 phase motor 2hp so a frequency drive would do it.

I fancied trying to change the speed using the original air motor and the vari speed drive, it's should be possible but whether it's worth it is another matter.

Cheers

Chris

anyone have a postprocessor to mastercam 8.1 to a bridgeport wmc 800. i cant mill 3d in my bridgeport. i am from sweden bad english.

E-MAIL STAGGE1@HOTMAIL.COM

THANKS

Stagge: your English is better that that posted by some who's native language is English.

I hope you get a reply.... Sorry but I don't have anything that will help other than encouragement.

Hello gentleman, Everything is working fairly well after I installed another acc board, and replaced 2 transistors. If you could help me out, I would really appreciate it. How exactully do you set up the x and y limits on the bridgeport boss 6 series 2. My table is 15"x30" I mean the soft stops and Min max limits in the table in mach 3? This is all new to me. Thanks, Pat

Pat,

Glad to hear you have it running! I am not at the machine but setting up the X and Y will be similar to the original control ( since there are no home switches.). There is a spot at the front left of the table that is X=0 Y=0. You jog to this spot then hit REFERENCE ALL. In Mach if a axis does not have a home switch it ZERO's the axis where it is. There is a video tutorial on the Mach site that is very infomitive on this subject.

Darek

Thanks Darek, gotcha. I was just wondering about this. I have always used the mechanical counters to mark machine coordinates. I will set it at what ever is convienent. The large machines I have run over the years, when they loose their machine coordinates you have to align them or home them before they will let you do anything else. I guess a guy could install a home switch on x and y if he knows what he is doing. Thanks, Pat

Matt, do you use Mastercam 9 ? If you do could I have a copy of your post processor. I would also like to see your code for that car body surfacing. Thanks, Pat

do you even need a special post processor?

I'm running Mastercam X (well now X2) and have posted with the generic 3-axis VMC machine profile. Shows up as fanuc in the description. But then again, a lot changed from 9 to X, so that might not be an option.

I posted the car g-code with freemill.
Do you want the code for the roughing passes, finish pass, snipet of code to see what it looks like?
I have mastercam X now but have not figured out how to get it to do what I want yet, plan on using the generic g code post though.

Matt

Matt, I would like to see it all. rough, finish , all. How long is it 5megs? Have you ever used mastercam 9? Pat

I am able to get a series 1 for free, good iron and steppers, the controller would be nice to be replaced. then i ran across this thread and got really happy. anyway the question i have is this, could you possibly put a grex before the board mentioned here and get some serious steps out of this machine?

You can't beet that price!

The original drives and steppers rapid at about 60 IPM. The resolution is either 1000 or 2000 pulses per inch. This puts you well below the 25K pulse rate of printer port Mach.

Darek

cool, thanks

Yea Matt, my email is psmith1179@voyager.net Try to send me the code please if you can. Pat

sorry Pat I have been meaning to but its the end of the semester and I am buried right now.

I'll get it to you.
Matt

HillBilly, one quick question, you say that the steppers rapid at 60 IPM, wouldn't that only count as one axis. if you wanted x+y+z all to move at once (for whatever reason) would it still be below the mach 3 specs or would it go over? anyway i'm just thinking out loud on this one.

It can move all three at once, at rapid speed and still have plenty of overhead.

At 10,000 pulses per inch you could still achieve 200IPM rapids with the printer port.

Darek

Here is the code for the top half of the car.
The three pictures show the three steps I machined it in.

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!!
The speeds and feeds are probably wrong.
The zero it the bottom left of the block, on the top surface.
No guarantees on anything.


Have fun
Bottom half coming soon

Matt

Thankyou very much Matt. Very nice work. Pat

i'm getting ready to do this exact thing. just waiting for payment and shipping info on the board. in the mean time, should i keep an eye out for anything that might cause problems in the mach3 conversion?

thanks

I promised to send a pic of our completed setup and here it is. We ripped out the BOSS 5 controller and powersupply, as well as the tape reader and MDI Panel.

We installed a PC inside the cabinet and mounted the BOB Controller and a 15" LCD screen. We still need to run the mouse and USB cable (for using a flash drive to load Gcode) at the LCD screen as well as a plexi cover to protect the screen from debris and fluid.

Oh we even got the BIJUR pump working!!

Oh, and when I say we, the entire project was retrofitted by high school students from our robotics team www.westisliprobotics.com

Thanks again to everyone who helped!

We haven't cut anything too crazy yet, just some 2D parts (brake caliper mount for a 66 camaro, #35 36t aluminum sprockets, and some bearing blocks for the robot). But now we can spend mor etime machining and less time figuring out how can we get the machine to work :-)