The cut does not look bad, some artistic touch to it, I want to agree with Irfan in post #21, if you look at the letters the cut follow a constant contour but at the corners it goes funny, have look at the flexability of the z slide because of the plunging action of the cutter at the corners makes it look like the Z slide, router - collect gives way to the resistance of the material, shorten the distance between the material to be cut and the Y-gantry and try again,
The boys and girls on the Vectric forum are just as nice as our friends on the MM forum, together the problem will be solved.

Pete,
I am with Nils, XP needs min 512M to run nicely. It will limp along on 128M and run somewhat adequately on 256M. 1Gig will give better performance still. Also dont forget that with XP anything over 3G will get you in trouble due to limitations in the OS and some motherboards. 2Gig is a safe max for XP on all motherboards.

Forgive me if I am a little confused:confused:, just flew back to NY and can’t sleep now, “jetlag”, but it’s great to be home.:)

Ok Let me ask this “Tuning the motors” Do you guys mean Mach 3 tuning or setting the trim on the G540?? Because my understanding is if the motors run smooth, they are in tune??? As I have said I have tried changing acceleration and velocity with minimal difference in cut quality. I have not found a GOOD way to adjust trim and have no understanding of what “trim” is. I should probably go on CNCzone but that place scares me. I have read what G says about tuning the motors but I don’t get what I am “feeling” for. And then is it the same on the G540 as the 201’s, 202’s, 203’s??

Now I know 128k is way under the requirements of Mach (I started with256 on that computer but one of the memory slots died). I had planned to buy more memory for it, then found out that 1gig for that computer is $300:eek:. So I bought a much better IBM with 1gig for $124 from Tiger Direct:). So far I have not got that one to work rite with the machine:(. The Kernal?? Speed is too low. I think I have the fix for that now from the Mach forum: run “msconfig” and shutdown all the start-ups.

Nils is there something that someone has suggested that I have not done?? I am pretty confident that the Z has little play, run-out or backlash as I am a heavy equipment and automotive mechanic I am very use to checking mechanical tolerances. When I return to CA next week, with a dial indicator I will post the specs.

My question was dumb, but I was just wondering what the effects on the cut (if any), from too little memory would be.

Tuning the motors. Yes, we mean turning the pot on the Geckos. If you feel the motors are running smooth then it is not necessary to do. You check it by feeling the motor for roughness. Like on a car, you want the motor to run smooth.

If you don't have enough memory, Mach may have a problem running or the computer will spend processing time to swap things in and out of memory because it doesn't have enough to perfrom the tasks it needs to perform. That is not good.

If you are only using the computer for Mach there should not be a lot of start-ups that need shuting down.

If you feel that there is no play in the Z then I am not sure why you are having a problem. The cut looks like it has some chatter.

What does it look like when you cut circles? If you cut a 4" circle is it actually 4"? Are there lines along the edge like you have in your photos? If it is not 4" or what ever size you cut and there are lines, you might have loose pinon gears.

For us software guys, if you don't have enough memory in the computer, the software program may not perform the same way every time. Mach knows how much memory they need to run their software. If you don't want to provide that much then you may not run right.

It is not a great example but lets say you manufacture cars, you tell the users that the car requires 6 quarts of oil. Car owner only use 3 quarts of oil. The additional 3 quarts cost too much. How do you think the car is going to run? It might run fine but evently some thing is not going to work the way you the manufacture knows it will work if it has a 6 quarts. Mach must have a reason for the amount of memory they want. Unlike the oil example, more oil is not better but more memory is good to an extent.

To answer your question, we don't know if having too little memory will effect the cut but we do understand it will have some effect.

Pete, we are just providing some ideas that might work.

Don't get me wrong I really appreciate your input in to my problems. Most of you have been doing this stuff longer than I've been alive:rolleyes:

I just realized that I did not post the following pic's here I put them on the Vectric forum. The square is 4x4 and the circle is 6inches. The sides of the blue carve took a couple of swipes with sand paper to look like that. If you look close at the "bulls" carve corners you will see the same problem.

I'm using Aspire to do most of my work, I had some issues with my Vcarves before I tuned my machine.. I think the key was just slowing down, I tried running some tests at 150 in/min and did not produce very nice crisp vcarves. I'm now running 1/2 that speed and they are looking good.. also been working on some 3d stuff and the same applies. I've been able to knock the job time down by being more "creative" with my cut strategies mixing 3d with pocketing..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlcbTNdODUI

Thanks Rene, But I tried that. I think I went down to 20 ipm at one point. I wish I made a video of it cutting. At the slower speed you can watch the bit rise up to make the angle than the Z stops and moves farther in to the corner as if it is rounding it on purpose.
I hope I can come up with something before I return to CA.

Maybe if I just disassemble the hole thing and put it back together it will work better. IDK it works on cars.