Help! how can I make my Smithy 1240 faster?

[ryansuperbee]

Hello! I bought a Smithy CNC 1240 milling machine. The machine comes with it's own computer and has EMC2 software in it. When I program a part in the mills computer (only cabable of simple shapes) it ask we what size bit I'm using and what material I'm cutting into. This is EMC2 asking these questions. When I program a part using my bobcad software it bypasses the EMC2. So it doesn't ask me those previous questions. When I start to cut into aluminum I max out the speed and it goes slow. Do you think that this is because of a Default setting? Since I'm not telling the EMC2 software the material and tool, does it automatically assume the worst case scenerio and slow my speeds down? I know that the motors are cabable of much higher speeds. I can tell that when I jog the machine. In the end, I need the machine to move faster. Please help

[jalessi]

Ryan,

Welcome to the Zone

I don't have Bobcad however you should be able to set your feed rate by right-clicking on Milling Tools, and selecting Tools. There should be a feed rate setting option.

P.S I had a 69 SB

Jeff...

[LeeWay]

Not too familiar with EMC, but there should be a setting somewhere that will let you set maximum speed of each axis. Then the Gcode that comes in gets run either at or below this speed depending on the code.

Say you have max machine speed set at 100 IPM. The Gcode calls for a feedrate of 125 IPM. The machine will only do 100 IPM by default back to max allowed machine speed.

It gets a little trickier too if you have a slow axis with a fast one. The slow axis won't be able to keep up with the faster one, so the machine controller slows down the faster axis so that they can work together.

[cyclestart]

Originally Posted by ryansuperbee Hello! I bought a Smithy CNC 1240 milling machine. The machine comes with it's own computer and has EMC2 software in it. When I program a part in the mills computer (only cabable of simple shapes) it ask we what size bit I'm using and what material I'm cutting into. This is EMC2 asking these questions.

This must be something Smithy has added to the software. It's not part of the linuxcnc released version of emc.

When I program a part using my bobcad software it bypasses the EMC2. So it doesn't ask me those previous questions. When I start to cut into aluminum I max out the speed and it goes slow. Do you think that this is because of a Default setting?

Is the interpretor (emc) overriding the feed (F#) in the BobCad created code? Maybe you simply need to increase the F# in the gcode file? If that doesn't work contact Smithy. There must be a way to bypass the addons and run a straight gcode file without the nonsense.

Edit/ Also ask Smithy where the default settings are located. Maybe the material defaults to SS or the like. Unless someone running a similar machine chimes in.

[cyclestart]

Out of curiosity I went to the Smithy site. That's a nice (not so) little mill

While they don't deny running modified Emc2, they don't exactly talk it up either

Normally emc at startup calls a someword.ini file. This file contains the velocity and accelerations settings among other things. Since this file has been created by Smithy don't mess with it. It's interesting if Ez-Trol is capping the feedrate while maintaining the rapids. My gut feeling is the gcode simply was created with low feedrates.

[highspeedmazak]

Change your speeds and feeds in bobcad it should do automatic rapids.

[cyclestart]

Originally Posted by highspeedmazak Change your speeds and feeds in bobcad it should do automatic rapids.

I'm not familiar with BobCad but would assume most posted files contain some G00's.

The reason for mentioning "while maintaining the rapids" is the override in Emc2 is total. If a user were to deliberately or accidently have the override set to lowspeed both the feeds and rapids should be noticably slower

[highspeedmazak]

I didn't think about checking your manual overide, would be a good idea I just never change that myself.

[ryansuperbee]

I will have to try changing the speed in the G code and see how that works. Normally I let the bobcad auto generate the code. I think that it may still cap me off though. I just may have to call smithy on monday and see if there are settings that I can change in the "definitions file" And see if that gets me anywhere. Until then I will play with the G code some more. There is an ".ini file". Are you familiar with this system? If you are I can give you my number, and tell you on the phone what settings I have to play with.

[samco]

what type of program is it? Is it a bunch of short line segments? If it is - and smithy modified the normal emc2.. You may just need to add a G64Px.xxx where x.xxx is how close you want emc to follow the programmed path. If you run normal G64 (no tolerance) emc touches every line segment. with tollerance it blends segments togather that are within the x.xxx tolerance.

Hope that made sense.

sam

[ryansuperbee]

I'm at my machine right now. I will give you guys updates in the .ini files

[ryansuperbee]

From my main screen, >places
>home folder
>EMC2
>configs
>smithy1240
>smithy1240.ini
From here it opens a page where I can change all sorts of varibles. The ones that I think pretain to me are:
max feed override= 1.5 ( is this my max speed for programed parts?)
max velocity= 20.0 (is this my max jog speed?)
max acceleration= 1.5 ???
Please help me decide what factors to change I can get more info if needed.