Mach3 problem?

[Paul Mills 4Participant @paulmills4]

Trying to convert a proxxon mf 70 to cnc

Have the steppers of the machine while sorting the electronics, everything looks to be working as it should, ran a short program, to move the 3 axis,using both in rapid and  feed commands, in both directions,  and motors rotate,obviously will need to tweek the settings to get the right scale of feeds, but think that should be ok.

However if I try to move the motors manually as you would to set the axis, workshift  then I get no response, I can get the x axes to move buy clicking on it then resetting feed and then using the left and right arrow keys but feed rate seems to be quite high and not adjustable so wouldn’t want to use it on the machine with a tool and workpiece mounted , but  no matter what i try i cant get get the  y an z axis to move manually

The version of mach3  is  the demo version, so was thinking the required movement may not be supported or is there some odd combination of keys I need to press to get the other axis two axis to work

Is there a user manual any where for mach3 ,been to artsoft website and could not see one.

Thanks

Paul

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

The manuals are available at

https://www.machsupport.com/help-learning/product-manuals/

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

It’s not clear what you are trying to do but if you mean jogging you can open and close the jogging pane by hitting the tab key.  That allows you to select incremental or continuous movement and set the increment and rate. Once you have the manual things should be clearer. I’ve used Mach 3 on lathe and mill for a decade with no great problems.  More details on your set-up would be useful if you need more help.  Incidentally the Mach support forum is probably the best place to ask for help, there’s a link from the NFS website.

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php

[Paul Mills 4Participant @paulmills4]

Odd thing just happened used an android tablet to search for a manual and found several, none showed up on pc that I’ve been staring at most of today, different browser so assuming thats the problem either that or it was me having some sort of mental block

Found some of what I needed at a quick glance so will have a play with it tomorrow, and try to find the rest when actually looking at the programme

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If you are using the arrows bottom right of the standard screen to jog say an edge finder into position you can set the speed to be a percentage of your max movement rate, I tend to have mine on 45%. (of 1000mm/min)

When you get close to the edge you change to jog mode and then the arrow will only move the table/head in increments not continuously, these can be scrolled through a s1mm, 0.1mm, 0.001mm, etc so you can gently work your way upto an edge.

[BazParticipant @baz89810]

Shouldn’t matter if it is a demo version or licensed, from memory the mill demo version was limited to 1000 lines of code and the lathe demo version had screw cutting blocked, apart from those restrictions everything else worked as it should.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

…..

When you get close to the edge you change to jog mode and then the arrow will only move the table/head in increments not continuously, these can be scrolled through a s1mm, 0.1mm, 0.001mm, etc so you can gently work your way upto an edge.

Just to be pedantic, both are jogging, one continuous the other incremental.  A very useful accessory is a remote handset for jogging, and there are free Mach3 plugins available that support Xbox wired and wireless controllers.

Once you get going it’s well worth making a touch plate or button for tool height setting and a simple probe for edge finding, there are a number of macros to automate the process available through the support forum.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I agree a remote handset/pendant is a very useful accessory. The dedicated type allow easy selection of continuous or incremental jog and easy selection of increment to use. As Jason says the jogging % rate is something to check both when setting up and later if something seems to have changed in the way jogging works. I had a random reset to 0% once and it took a while to figure what the issue was. An other thing that can cause failure to move is if you have feed per rev set (G95) when you either do not have a revolution sensor fitted or you have not realised that it is in feed per rev and not feed per minute (G94) or the spindle is not rotating.

Martin C

[Author]

Posts