Here's You Sign #98 - Pennsylvania USA

[pblackburn]

Danilo,
I was reading that yesterday, It was set on PS2 but I only have the choice for ecp or epp and I can set the dma mode on the ecp only in the bios. I have tried both. I have also tried using a different port number for the parallel port. I am still getting an audible jitter and at 100% it will eventually overrun the drives and stall. Sometimes it runs as smooth as can be. I love computers but this really sucks. I have some older versions of the same workstation I am using now but I fear they will be the same. I also have an old 733Mhz computer but I do not know if it will work with Mach3. The system requirements are listed as 1Ghz and 512Mb of ram. I must say this is rather frustrating.

[pblackburn]

Found the problem, it was the computer I was using. I had a newer model of the same class processor and it works perfectly. Thankfully I love to repair and rebuild computers and I had some laying around.

[pblackburn]

Problem was not my TP-Link high gain wireless adapter. I just installed it and it is working flawlessly as is Mach3.

Before I tried a different computer I tried all the things listed at mach3 website for xp optimization. I tried different LPT configurations and beat my head off the floor. Strange how one computer can give you such a fit. My kernel speed is 25000 with motor tuning set at 3055.775, 490.25 and 25 respectively. Ran the roadrunner test gcode successfully. I am wiring in the touch probe right after I post this. Most of all to all of you,Thanks for the help.

[pblackburn]

Just upgraded to SP3 and still running good. DriverTest on Mach3 still stays steady on System Excellent and pulse is a steady 25003. Drilling and mounting down the table surface tomorrow.
Getting ready to wire in the dust collector. Have to either make a dust shoe or purchase one. Any suggestions on either direction?

[KenC]

Just make one with your MM

[pblackburn]

Ken, I was leaning that way. Still learning.

[KenC]

I learnt a lot about my MM when I design & make my own with MM. From there one will be aware of all the necessary clearance required to achieve un-restraint movements of the cutting bits.

[pblackburn]

The one thing I am unsure about is whether to make it movable with the head or to have it stationary. I think stationary would be easier because you do not have to engineer around different height bits and allowing easier tool changing.

[pblackburn]

Have Jet DC-1200VX-CK1 Dust Collector tied in. Have it coming on when router does. I do not know if there is an M code that I can use for dust collection. I have another onboard relay on the pmdx-126 available. It probably does not matter either way. Now I need to finish my thien separator I started a while ago. Would like to maintain and extend the life of the filter. Started to look at the dust shoe. I have read a lot here and at other sites. How much space should you let around the head for the adequate air flow? I know you do not want to much but also I don't want to restrict the flow through the brushes either.

[KenC]

Pete,
You need to have contact between the brush/apron & the work piece/surface to capture larger wood chips & fine dust from escaping side ways. I have a sizable clearance between the spindle entry through the dust shoe of about 3" (75mm), this allow a stream of air to the bit from above to help evacuation of chips & add some cooling for the bit. The biggest bit I use is 50mm ball nose.
As for the space, there are a few thing to look into.
1) The size of your bits, diameter to determine the width of the shoe & length to determine your apron height. which you might not know now.
2) height of your clamp. this will determine the height of your apron/brush.

I did not connect my separator to the BOB because its better to let the separator running for about 1/2 hour to get rid of the airborne fine dust. Bill Penz said so moreover, start/stop motor in quick succession (half hour or less interval) is bad for the motor longevity.

[pblackburn]

Ken,
Point well taken about letting the dc run. I will for the time being tie it in with the main line contactor until more money is available. I will instead plan to use a timer and separate relay but still control it with the BOB Spindle On relay and set the TOF to 30 minutes. This way the timer will reset if the spindle is fired again within the 30 minute time off setting and the dc will only shut off when a full 30 minutes of spindle off time has been achieved.

What about the hose attachment for the dust shoe. I have seen a lot of them are perpendicular to the shoe itself. Would not a 45° entry point be better to reduce the amount of turbulence and promote better dust collection?

[pblackburn]

Just made a different mount and location for the Z axis limit switches. Plus move my cable track for the Z. This allows me full access to the area to the rear of the spider for my 4" line.

[pblackburn]

Dust shoe complete. I ran the roadrunner program that came with mach. Tested ok.

[MetalHead]

Did you get stickers on your machine yet?

[pblackburn]

Mike,
Not yet, I was actually thinking about it when I was working on the hold-down portion of the work surface. I will try to get to it this week.

[pblackburn]

Everyone,
Thanks for the help along the way. I will not name any of you above the other because I have gotten great help and information from many. Thanks for the great plans and community that is here.

Anyone,
I saw a long time ago when I was first planning to build a diy cnc, long before I came here, that one of the postings on one of the sites I was at that they had a gantry router and added a C axis and live end at on end of the table. The carvings were amazing to say the least. Has anyone done this here? That is where I would like to end up in a couple of years, but with anything comes research and willingness to ask for help. Any pointers are appreciated.

Pete

[smreish]

A few of us have added a 4th axis. Some on small scale, some large.

The first MM in the USA was by DocTanner, and he uses his machine exclusively to turn columns and really pretty stuff.

Can someone help me here....I can't find Don's website address?

[danilom]

http://turningaround.org/MechMate/Mechmate.htm

Here it is

[danilom]

and here

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...postcount=1551

here:
http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...&postcount=152

here:
http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...hlight=indexer

Pete search "indexer" and you will find a lot more

[pblackburn]

Thanks for the starting point. It is amazing what you can stumble upon while trying to find out what you want to do (ie build a cnc router not the indexer) but equally amazing how you can't find it when you want to. Story of my life.

I vividly remember the column I saw before and that is why I thought it to be so intriguing. It was a column with a dragon wrapped around it from bottom to the top. I was blown away. I have worked on many machines (I am an industrial maintenance technician by trade); I have repaired and programmed some of the following: robots, cnc mills and lathes(with every option and axis you can imagine in sizes from small to enormous proportions), indexers (of a different generation), co2 lasers, rotary punches, press brakes, shears, presses, furnaces (induction and conventional), welders... the list goes on. The point I am making is I always assumed that to build a machine to perform should an action would be beyond any amount of money I would earn. I know the amount of money industry dumps into these machines and it is sickening. Now I have build an amazing machine at a faction of the cost. I hope to learn more about adding an indexer to the machine or maybe a machine on its own. Thanks again.

***The steep learning curve has only begun***

[pblackburn]

Tattoo is applied. Ordering led surface mount boards to work off my 24VDC power supply to illuminate the work/cut area. They will be mounted to the bottom router clamp.

[domino11]

Turning around is Art's website though, not Doc Tanner.

[MetalHead]

Great job on your build. We have a few machines in the pipeline and ready to get their numbers and that is great !!! I hope this gives everyone motivation to jump in or get back into their builds.

You get #98. Again Congrats on your build !!!

[domino11]

Congrats on #98 Pete!

[smreish]

Pete,
Nicely done. May you have many years of frustrating fun cutting "stuff"!
Best to you.
Sean

[jhiggins7]

Congratulations, Pete, on completing your MechMate and earning Serial #98.

Here is your Builder's Log Entry.

When you get a chance, please let me know the cutting dimensions of your MechMate so that I can add that information to your Entry.

[pblackburn]

John,
It was designed for 48"(1219.2mm) x 96(2438.4mm)". Actual usable area is 53" (1346.2mm) x 103"(2616.2mm). Work Surface is 49"(1244.6m) x 97"(2463.8mm) Z height from collet to work surface is 8.7919"(223.31426mm)

[jhiggins7]

Thanks, Pete. I used the "usable area". I assumed the "work surface" dimensions are for your "current" spoil board.

Here's the update.

[pblackburn]

Still learning Aspire but here is my first completed sign for a friend who did some of the fine tig welding that I needed done for machine. I learned a lot from this, do's, don't's and mach frustration. Since I have only limited time in the evening to run the machine this was a 4 night project. This is where the mach frustration came into play. Since I am using limits for home switches I did not have any problem with exact position however restarting mach is a pain if I did not start at a tool change. If I did it from a tool change it would be fine because I use the big tex blue screen and a touch off probe with a plate for zero on my tool height (zero in my projects is the table surface) however if I restarted in the middle of a section of code it would always want to do a preparation move to a point then go to zero and then restarts. I had some plunges I had to repair. Until I figure it out, I just put a m6 and safe z to continue. Anyways, below is a link to the project. I did not want to reduce the image size to post it here.

First Project Photo

[pblackburn]

Well I am having fun making signs, plaques and different things. My biggest problem right now is with PhotoVCarve. For some reason the parallel lines that make up the picture are not evenly spaced. I have plotted out the gcode start and end points of each line and the lines are evenly spaced in the gcode. When it cuts X+Y+ and then X-Y-, the lines are grouped close together but when it moves to the next X+Y+ it leaves a wider gap between the lines. I am beating my head off the wall on this one. You can see an example at our photostream. I am not that familiar with gcode but the code is slightly different between the gcode that photovcarve generates and what Aspire generates. I have only run the code with programs from Aspire with the photovcarve imported into the project. I have not run it with the code only generated by itself. I will have to do this tomorrow. Has anyone here run into this problem?