Taking the CNC Plunge

[TomS]

I noticed a growing oil puddle under my mill so I decided to find the source. Checking all of my one-shot lube fittings everything seemed good, no leaks. I pumped up the system and it became evident that there was an excessive amount of oil flowing out of the ball nuts. So what to do? I looked on-line at Bijur restrictors. Not wanting to wait or pay the steep price I decided to make my own. I had a piece of 3/8" round aluminum in my scrap bin that would work. I turned the OD to .175" which is a snug slip fit in 1/4" Tygon tubing. Then I drilled a 1/16" hole 1/4" deep then followed with a 1/32" drill another 1/8". Parted the piece off at 3/8" long. My drill chucks won't hold a drill smaller than 1/32" so that's how I ended up using that size. No high tech engineering analysis necessary. Put the restrictors in the X, Y and Z axis feed lines and reconnected everything. Pumped up the lube system and noticed a significant reduction in excess oil running out of the ball nuts. This mod should at least make less of an oil mess and force more oil to the ways instead of the floor.

Here's a picture of two restrictors. The Z is already installed.

 

[TomS]

Been playing with Mach 3 and learning how and why it works the way it does. All good stuff and enjoying the learning experience. What I don't understand is I set the Distance Mode and IJ Mode to Absolute and do the same in D2NC. Mach 3 starts OK and randomly the Normal/Abnormal Condition button starts blinking. I can correct this by manually changing the IJ Mode setting but am curious why this is happening. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tom S

 

[TomS]

As time allows I've been working on setting up my home switches. It has been a bit frustrating because I am not able to zero the machine coordinate DRO and lock in the machine home position. I've got the X, Y and Z axis home switches enabled and the limit switches disabled on the Input Signals
screen (also tried it with the limits enabled). On the Motor Limit/Home screen X axis Soft Max is 20 and Soft Min is 0, the Y axis Soft Max is 7 and Soft Min is 0, and on the Z axis the Soft Max is 0 and the Soft Min is -15. Slow zone for the three axis is 1.00 and Auto Zero is checked for each axis. Each axis is jogged onto their respective home switch until the M1, M2 and M3 home switch indicator lights up. When I press the Ref All Home button the machine blasts right through the home switch and keeps on going.

I've spent a lot of time searching the internet on how to set the home position for each axis and have found an overwhelming amount of information on the subject. After several hours of experimenting I haven't been able to successfully lock in the home settings home my machine. I have to believe I'm missing a critical step but don't know what it is. I could forget about using home switches but my goal is to learn as much as I can about Mach 3 so that when future problems come up I'll be able diagnose them. Not there yet.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom S

 

[jbolt]

As time allows I've been working on setting up my home switches. It has been a bit frustrating because I am not able to zero the machine coordinate DRO and lock in the machine home position. I've got the X, Y and Z axis home switches enabled and the limit switches disabled on the Input Signals
screen (also tried it with the limits enabled). On the Motor Limit/Home screen X axis Soft Max is 20 and Soft Min is 0, the Y axis Soft Max is 7 and Soft Min is 0, and on the Z axis the Soft Max is 0 and the Soft Min is -15. Slow zone for the three axis is 1.00 and Auto Zero is checked for each axis. Each axis is jogged onto their respective home switch until the M1, M2 and M3 home switch indicator lights up. When I press the Ref All Home button the machine blasts right through the home switch and keeps on going.

I've spent a lot of time searching the internet on how to set the home position for each axis and have found an overwhelming amount of information on the subject. After several hours of experimenting I haven't been able to successfully lock in the home settings home my machine. I have to believe I'm missing a critical step but don't know what it is. I could forget about using home switches but my goal is to learn as much as I can about Mach 3 so that when future problems come up I'll be able diagnose them. Not there yet.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tom S

Not sure about your D2NC issue. I have the program and have used it in the past with no issues but do not use it now.

I don't recall how you have your home/limits setup but here are screen shots of my settings. I use a single switch for each axis for home and limits. My home position is left rear.

 

[TomS]

Not sure about your D2NC issue. I have the program and have used it in the past with no issues but do not use it now.

I don't recall how you have your home/limits setup but here are screen shots of my settings. I use a single switch for each axis for home and limits. My home position is left rear.View attachment 104624 View attachment 104625 View attachment 104626

Turned out my D2NC issue was a screen resolution setting. Changed the resolution and problem cured.

My switches are the same as yours; one limit/home switch for each axis. Looking at the screen shots your ports and pins and home/soft limits are similar to my settings. I'll have to compare your general logic configuration screen to mine and see what differences there may be. I'm going to adjust my settings to exactly as yours and see what happens. If it works for you it should work for me.

If I understand the process correctly, and the settings are right, Mach 3 recognizes each axis home position once the switch is activated when you ref all home or ref each axis on the diagnostics screen. Have I got this right? How do you reset the machine coordinate DRO to zero's? I'm getting this sloooowly!

Tom S

 

[jbolt]

If I understand the process correctly, and the settings are right, Mach 3 recognizes each axis home position once the switch is activated when you ref all home or ref each axis on the diagnostics screen. Have I got this right? How do you reset the machine coordinate DRO to zero's? I'm getting this sloooowly!

Tom S

Mach3 only recognizes the home position when asked to reference home otherwise it treats the switch as a limit. It will home the Z, then Y Then X one at a time in that order.

In the Home/Limit settings check the auto zero for the Machine coordinates to auto zero on home.

Mach3 by default does not display the machine coordinates on startup, it displays the current offset coordinates, you have to hit the toggle button to see them.

 

[TomS]

Mach3 only recognizes the home position when asked to reference home otherwise it treats the switch as a limit. It will home the Z, then Y Then X one at a time in that order.

In the Home/Limit settings check the auto zero for the Machine coordinates to auto zero on home.

Mach3 by default does not display the machine coordinates on startup, it displays the current offset coordinates, you have to hit the toggle button to see them.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll set up my machine like yours and report back.

 

[TomS]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll set up my machine like yours and report back.

Well that didn't work! When homing the machine still travels past the switch and keeps going. If I don't press stop or activate the e-stop the machine will run out of travel and crash.

I set my general logic configuration exactly like yours. The motor/home screen is just like yours with numbers in the soft max column and zeros in the soft min column. Auto zero is checked for each axis. On the input signals screen all of the X, Y and Z ++, --, and home signals are enabled, all assigned to port #1, pin numbers are set like yours and confirmed on the diagnostics screen. If I check the active low buttons and push the ref all button or the individual axis ref button on the diagnostic screen I get the "requested home switch is active" error message.

Literally I've read hours of forum threads and it appears I'm executing the homing sequence correctly. I'm almost at the point where I'm going to disable homing and play with making chips.

Tom S

 

[jbolt]

Well that didn't work! When homing the machine still travels past the switch and keeps going. If I don't press stop or activate the e-stop the machine will run out of travel and crash.

I set my general logic configuration exactly like yours. The motor/home screen is just like yours with numbers in the soft max column and zeros in the soft min column. Auto zero is checked for each axis. On the input signals screen all of the X, Y and Z ++, --, and home signals are enabled, all assigned to port #1, pin numbers are set like yours and confirmed on the diagnostics screen. If I check the active low buttons and push the ref all button or the individual axis ref button on the diagnostic screen I get the "requested home switch is active" error message.

Literally I've read hours of forum threads and it appears I'm executing the homing sequence correctly. I'm almost at the point where I'm going to disable homing and play with making chips.

Tom S

Bummer!

Do the switches trigger on a limit?

Can you post your screen shots of the config and diagnostic screens?

 

[TomS]

Bummer!

Do the switches trigger on a limit?

Can you post your screen shots of the config and diagnostic screens?

Yes, the switches trigger on limit. It's safe to run the machine but I'd still like to figure out this homing problem.

Here's my diagnostics screen. When I manually trip the limit switches the ++, --, and home indicators light up.

This how I set up the input signals. Z home settings are the same as Z++ and Z--. I tried enabling active low but when I pressed the ref all button or the individual axis ref button on the diagnostic screen I get a "requested home switch is active" error message. I unchecked them and the error message went away.

On this screen I had the Z soft max set at -15.00 when I tested it this morning. Trying different settings I changed it to what you see here.

This is my general logic config screen. Same as yours.