mach3 sherline set up

[TOTALLYRC]

Originally Posted by Fixittt you have to practice to understand it. Floral foam and MDF are your best friends in this type of learning. Floral foam (that green foam the use to arrange fake flowers in) is very forgiving on toolings for that opps that sends Z-1 instead of z-.1

Hey Fixxit, you mean I am not the only fool who does that

[Fixittt]

Originally Posted by TOTALLYRC Hey Fixxit, you mean I am not the only fool who does that

Depends are you meaning uding floral foam or forgetting the "." ????? LOLOL

[TOTALLYRC]

I never thought of floral foam, As I have a bunch of blue foam from other projects. I meant forgetting the decimal point.

Makes you feel like a total loser when a bit snaps just as you hit the e-stop

And yes for the rest of you out there I have learned to go slow the first few times or just cut air to make sure it works. I just forget when doing a quick little something in MDI.

Sounds like the making of a good poll.


How many bits have you ruined by rushing that quick little job?

[roadhog]

thanks all

could any one please tell me how long the project below, what im trying to make would take to make with good code.as my program keeps estermating 9hours.


allso as any one got any good g code that i could look at to get a better idear of what can be done and how quick.

and last but not least is there a simple guide for cutting depth to size of cutter in diferant materials.

hope this all makes sence.

[TOTALLYRC]

Originally Posted by roadhog Hi all Ok ill try and explain this a lttle more clear but please remember im new to this. ok i loaded mach3 onto the com after changing it back to windows and i could load the g code that was produced by solidcam and it loaded fine but my sherline unit with the suppliyed controll unit would not operate. so i inported the xml file into mack3 wich was grate my sherline mill seems to do what it should do with this program. The next step was to reload the g code and guess what it was all messed up. ive tryed to attach the code hope it works.

Originally Posted by roadhog thanks all could any one please tell me how long the project below, what im trying to make would take to make with good code.as my program keeps estermating 9hours. allso as any one got any good g code that i could look at to get a better idear of what can be done and how quick. and last but not least is there a simple guide for cutting depth to size of cutter in diferant materials. hope this all makes sence.

If you were talking about the file from the first post I quoted, I come up with 10 hrs 5 min 29 seconds. My Deskcnc program didn't like your file because there isn't an m02 at the end, and g42 and g43 are incorrectly used.

However if it runs on your machine don't change because different software does it differently.

I just ran it thru Mach3 and it ran fine 10hrs 4 min 58 seconds.

Remember . That program is almost 12k lines long. On top of that You are using a 1.5 mm cutter.

TRY THIS. load your program into Mach3. Go to the tool path tab ALT-F4.
Then click on the G-code window. Then click and hold the scroll button and watch the tool path display. I found that not only are you cutting out the shap of the turbin wheel, you are also machining the square portion of the blank also.

I would rough out most of this part with a much larger cutter, as large as your machine will swing. The cam software will not allow gouging in most cases. If you have a 2mm radius and you use a 10 mm cutter it willl stop short of going all the way in. Then you can do a finnish cut with the small cutter.

If I were you, I would do a test cut in blue foam or wax or something to get a feel for where the cutter is going.

If you want to, post the dxf file, or PM it to me and I will see what I can do from there.
I would use a 50-75% step over and a depth of cut 1x to 2x the tool diameter. But it will be trial and error based on you tools rigidity and power.
This is why you should use a bigger roughing tool and then finnish with a smaller one. Bigger tools can go deeper and have a wider path. Many people think a cnc tool will solve all of their problems. It takes time for the operator to learn all the tricks to cut down on machining time.

On my router is was getting times in the 1 hr range for a part that I was cutting. Just by reducing the distance I was bringing the z out of the part when drilling and for rapids to the next work area, I cut 10 minutes off of the machining time.

If you were to make 50 of your parts, the machining time would get silly?

[roadhog]

Hi all Please find attached i hope two screen clips one of mach3 with its origanal XML and the second one with the sherline XML loaded in just wonderd if anyone new what was going on and how i fix it.

Thanks all

[GeneK]

Originally Posted by roadhog Hi all Please find attached i hope two screen clips one of mach3 with its origanal XML and the second one with the sherline XML loaded in just wonderd if anyone new what was going on and how i fix it. Thanks all

Roadhog, what you see is called 'crop circles'. sometimes a CAM program produces these when it tries to cut a circle from one point to another and the algorithm makes a large circle in the opposite direction than it should. CCW instead of CW.

From what I can make out of your tool path it looks like they are part of a circular pocket. I use BobCad and it will do this at various times. The frustrating thing is that I develop on one computer and run a separate computer in the shop to run the code. One has a true Intel processor and the other AMD. The same code will give different results on each computer at times.

BobCad will not show these crop circles at first but if I back plot the file in BobCad it will show problems. So I just edit untill everything is OK.

I wish that everything in CNC would behave but there seems to always be something to crop up.

I have got the tools that I use and can't afford to change to others so I find what works with what I have.

GeneK

[roadhog]

Hi Genek

thanks for the info seems strange that if i put the origanal xml in the same code loads fine but load the shirline xml in it messes up there must be somthing in the configs thats diffent wouldnt u think.Or is that just me being optermistic.

[GeneK]

Originally Posted by roadhog Hi Genek thanks for the info seems strange that if i put the origanal xml in the same code loads fine but load the shirline xml in it messes up there must be somthing in the configs thats diffent wouldnt u think.Or is that just me being optermistic.

Roadhog, I just found two pictures, one on the intel and the other on the AMD. Both have the same version of Mach3 and Windows XP.

[Fixittt]

one way I can think of, is to copy the first XML..... and then change it one change at a time to match the sherline XML. each change, load and look at the toolpath. chances are there will be one change that shows the "WACKY" toolpath. and Poof. there is your setting. might actually work.

[roadhog]

Hi all
mm that’s a totally weird one genek I’m getting the same problem on both systems though I also have a Pentium and an amd and both give me the same problem so I’m now working through the xml to see if I can solve it.

man this place is grate u get loads of help.
Thanks allot all, hope i can give something back soon.