Author Topic: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine  (Read 8415 times)

Offline Jane

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 5
CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« on: November 01, 2016, 09:25:29 AM »
Hi,

Could anyone recommend an engineer to service my home CNC machine (I have searched for this but just seem to bring back generic CNC jobs). Its a new hobby that I've started and wanted someone to check that I've set the machine up and how to maintain it, for example when trying to machine plain circles (starting the centre and gradually enlarging), it just seems to make spirals going off to one side (I'm using Mach3 and ArtSoft Software), to me, altering the stepacross and feedrate shouldnt really affect the coordinates for creating a circle? So i would like an experienced engineer to check out the machine I've set up.

Thanks for any help and I hope what I've described makes sense.

Offline awemawson

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8966
  • Country: gb
  • East Sussex, UK
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2016, 09:28:26 AM »
Jane,

Welcome to the forum, and I hope you manage to contact someone.

It would help enormously, I suspect, were you to give us a clue where in this big earth you are  :scratch:
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline Merlin201314

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 121
  • Country: gb
  • London
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2016, 10:05:48 AM »
Hi,
In "general Logic configuration" in Mach3, check the box "ij Mode, Absolute or incremental", That should affect the arc from the origin.
Which Cam are you using?

Offline Jane

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 5
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2016, 11:08:33 AM »
Apologies, I thought my profile might show that information, basically junction 28 on the M1, north of Nottingham.

Thank you I will check those settings. Its the Artsoft jewellery software that accompanies the Mach3 machine control.

Offline Merlin201314

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 121
  • Country: gb
  • London
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2016, 11:19:49 AM »
So, you have a small CNC for jewlery?
Or is the classic router?

Offline John Stevenson

  • In Memoriam
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1643
  • Nottingham, England.
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2016, 12:02:38 PM »
Jane,
PM sent.
John Stevenson

Offline Brass_Machine

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5504
  • Country: us
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2016, 05:22:27 PM »
Jane,
PM sent.

Jane needs to get 5 posts to send PMs.

Jane, go do an intro post to get those extra posts under your belt.

Thanks
Eric
Science is fun.

We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

Offline John Stevenson

  • In Memoriam
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1643
  • Nottingham, England.
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2016, 05:35:41 PM »
Eric, no problems as I left my phone number and Jane has been in touch and we'll hopefully get it sorted. I'm only 1" away on the map.
John Stevenson

Offline Brass_Machine

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5504
  • Country: us
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2016, 07:26:50 PM »
Eric, no problems as I left my phone number and Jane has been in touch and we'll hopefully get it sorted. I'm only 1" away on the map.

Awesome John! Glad to hear it.

Eric
Science is fun.

We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

Offline Jane

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 5
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #9 on: November 03, 2016, 03:23:45 PM »
Thank you so much guys for your help. Its very much appreciated, I'm sure its going to be the first of many whilst I get the hang of things!

Offline awemawson

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8966
  • Country: gb
  • East Sussex, UK
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2016, 03:30:02 PM »
Glad your'e sorted Jane - if anyone can John S can  :thumbup:

How about starting an introduction thread in the relevant section of the forum to tell us a little of what you are doing (or going to do ?) with your CNC machine.

BTW we like pictures here  :worthless:
« Last Edit: November 05, 2016, 12:41:50 PM by awemawson »
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline Jane

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 5
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #11 on: November 05, 2016, 11:52:29 AM »
Will do, once I get something that vaguely resembles anything but lines  :palm:

It starts off drilling at the correct depth but then seems to gradually work its way up the z axis, even though the mach software is still in the negative range. Must be some settings somewhere, just trying to figure out what they would be.

Offline DICKEYBIRD

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 229
  • Country: us
  • Collierville, TN ya'll
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #12 on: November 05, 2016, 02:53:37 PM »
Sounds like you're losing steps on the Z-axis.  Try slowing down the feed rate in your G-code or slowing down the stepper motor Velocity in the Config>Motor Tuning setup screen.  Just click on the Z Axis button on the right side of the box then drag down the Velocity slider to about half of where it was, click"Save Axis Settings" then OK & try your code again.  If it then behaves OK, try tweaking the Velocity up a little bit at a time 'til it starts skipping & back off a bit from there.

Drilling's hard work & if the machine is a bit weak, the drill dull/too big or the plunge (feed) rate too fast it'll just stall or skip steps.  The DRO keeps merrily rolling along & the motor just misses a few (or a lot) of steps.  When it goes back to zero when it's finished, lord knows where it'll be.

Keep trying, you'll get it! :beer:
Milton in Tennesee

"Accuracy is the sum total of your compensating mistakes."

Offline Jane

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 5
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2016, 03:27:17 AM »
Thank you so much :)

I tried adjusting all velocity settings, feed rate and acceleration but it just didn't seem to have any affect (though that's not to say it's taught me a great lesson in what they should be set).

John (my CNC knight in shining armour) came to my rescue and spotted that it was the 'low active' setting within the config, basically they were ticked and shouldn't have been... no more partial lines for me!

Thank you guys so much... saviours of my sanity!

Offline awemawson

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8966
  • Country: gb
  • East Sussex, UK
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2016, 05:39:19 AM »
 :mmr:

Excellent  :thumbup:
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline Pete.

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1075
  • Country: gb
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #15 on: November 07, 2016, 08:22:24 AM »
Great result!

John's real handy with that big hammer of his :lol:

Offline DICKEYBIRD

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 229
  • Country: us
  • Collierville, TN ya'll
Re: CNC Maintenance Engineer required to service my home machine
« Reply #16 on: November 07, 2016, 10:49:34 AM »
Thank you guys so much... saviours of my sanity!
Sanity, what's that?  I lost mine years ago!  You won't need much of that stuff with Mach, mostly luck & sorcery.  :bang:

(Glad you got fixed it.)
Milton in Tennesee

"Accuracy is the sum total of your compensating mistakes."