MACH 3 SOFTWARE ON A PATROIT
Hey guys been a while and I am finally getting back to working with my patriot VFD machine.
I am guessing most of you are like me, having to come up with the programming of mach3 to work with our machines.
My Patriot had nothing with it other than the software. I got an early version to where I had to install the sensor to enable spindle speed in mach3.
I have finally gotten my limit switches hard wired and working. And I am now trying to wire and program Mach3 to control my VFD drives (nowforever).
Has anyone done this and if so do you have written down the things you configured in mach3 to make it work properly?
That would be 90% of the work is programming the software to work with our machines. The hardware is the easy part. Getting the software of mach3 configured takes a lot of time, trial and error to get it working.
I am not faulting John at Shoptask he has been good to deal with, but it would have saved me months of aggravation to have the preconfigured mach3 file to work with our machines already done.
What we need is a thread here where we can post our XML configuration files for our machines.
Bowman1964
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Bowman,Originally Posted by bowman1964
E-mail JT- he has a series of files he calls the " advanced setup". He prefers the customer become familiar with all the regular features of Mach III and the VFD before stepping up to the spindle control, tapping etc.
had already tried emailing him, his email got returned. he must have changed his email from what he had.
JT's Email
No, Sunday I had was what seemed to be an email glitch, returned by a Mail Server and it eventually went through automatically. I guesses it was some sort of DNS glitch. the error was:
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of
its recipients. The following addresses failed
Suggest you might try it again.
i got a second email to go yesterday. John emailed me back, and within 30 minutes I had the machine spindle being controlled by mach3. It took some tweaking to get my rpm’s and spindle speeds to match but I have it now working.
Now I have to purchase the full copy of mach3 since it seems you cannot cut threads without the paid version.
By the way, what software would you guys recommend to go with the mach3 software? I know I have to have cad and cam software. I am just making simple parts.
Thanks
I would like to learn how to let Mach3 control the spindle speed on my patriot. Right now I am all manual there. If you could point me in the direction to understand how to do this I would sure appreciate it.
I took the dive into using BobCAD CAM with Mach3. For a while I was certain not to use Windows software of any sorts. I caved everywhere. Pretty uncharacteristic of me. But anyway, after pounding my way through it, I am not disappointed. There is just a good reason people make a career out of it and to expect do do it in a few months time goofing around after a work day/night is unrealistic.
the biggest problem i had to overcome was wiring the VFD to the Gecko g450 board. i had to email JT and he sent me the correct manuals for my unit and then i wired them together. once wired together you have to program the VFD to accept input from the computer. i printed off the manuals and every evening i sat down and did some reading. there is a configuation file JT will send that will help. i have modded my file alot. and you will need to get in the habit of backing up your mach3 file every so often. it is a huge pain to remember all the little things that have to be set if it crashes. i found out the hard way and had to redo mine.
i had some bad luck and lost my power supply only days after i had mach3 controlling the spindle. it may have been just bad luck but i am going to wire a disconnect switch between the VFD and the Gecko board, incase there is some type of feedback that caused the power supply failure.
i switch back and forth between Manual speed control and mach3 control. to be honest i dont let mach3 control it at the moment. until i can cough up the money for dolphin lathe.
here is a couple of parts i have made under cnc control. i made a couple of spanner wrenches to allow me to easily work on the machine. and a set of 22 scope ring mounts. both came out pretty good. i have some tool chatter marks in the scope rings. but i am hoping i have that fixed now.
I have control, just not accuracy at mach3 m3S500 gets me 654rpm at the spindle it is not linear.
Do anyone have a tuning procedure?
Is your error consistent? I.E. At MS1000 are you getting 1308RPM? If yes, then just adjust the pulley ratio numbers until they match.
The spindle ratio just changes the multiplication ratio of the returning index pulse it doesn't change the pulley speed.
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