Hi, I am messing with mach3 lathe right now on my lathe, just got it up and running. the first thing I wanted to do is thread, I used the wizard and it makes some odd moves, then messes with my position coordinates and moves it off of the part, not where I told it that it is.

the first move it does is move to .5,.5 like I told it, then it goes somewhere like .875,4.5 or something like that, no where in the code does it say to do that.

Anyone else use this program yet and have any suggestions?

Jon

I tried using a threading wizzard and it just made a mess of my peice. it really didnt cut right at all.

Ill try the spindle calibration thing later.

Jon

There is more activity at the Yahoo forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mach1mach2cnc/

I figured there would be, dont really like how those are set up and hwo they work. I looked through the files and found a little bit, when it wrot G0 G53 X.5 Z.5 it would go just to some random Z way far away, I moved the G53 out and it was ok.

Jon

For whatever reason, it seems the majority of Mach2 users prefer the Yahoo group. If you can't get your questions answered here, ask a question there, and it usually gets answered fast.

I figured out what my problem is for the most part, I have lots of cross communication. its like Im loosing steps and stuff, I not gaining anything, just loosing. I stuck a chunk of steel partially around my transformers which are probably too close to the breakout board and I managed to start cutting a nice thread, first 4 passes or so, then it moved a little and almost finished and moved a little.
Before I would have it take the first pass and move almot 1/4" down the bed each pass and sometimes the X axis wouldnt advance any farther into it or maybe even go farther away. I had no problems with X axis this time, just the Z axis.

Jon