[cordvision]

Mach has been pretty stable for me for the last year. However, after I replaced the hard disk of the controller because the original one broke, and started using Mach in metric mode, it hasn't been very stable anymore. Not sure if the new hard disk or the metric mode have anything to do with it.

Today, I was milling the large outside chamfer with a ball endmill (don't have a holder for my large chafer tool at the moment, so this was just a work around). The x/y zero is in the center of the part. All of the sudden, in the middle of the operation, half way through the chamfer, the ball mill starts moving into the part! By the time I stopped it, it already destroyed the part as you can see.

Trying to trace down the issue, I quickly realized that x/y zero is no longer in the middle of the part. It moved by about one inch. In other words, if I moved the head to the position where the DRO in Mach would read X 0, Y 0, I was by about one inch of the center of the part. Therefore, the tool path just went right into the actual piece.

After setting the zero again in the middle of the part, I just hit program reset and ran the same code again with no issues. I can therefore definitively say that there is no problem with the actual code. Mach just randomly lost the x/y zero.

Any clue what the issue could have been? Anybody with a similar experience?
This is super scary. I sometimes leave the mill running unattended for hours.
(time to take a closer look at path pilot)

Attachment 277044

[wildwhl]

Just throwing this out there-did you rehome the axis after this? I'd be curious if you rehomed them and then went to your x/y zero point if it was then accurate. Point being is it possible you lost steps on the Y as opposed to a hard-drive/software issue?

Otherwise I've no idea

WW

[cordvision]

Hmmmm, I should have thought of re-homing the axis, but I didn't. The x and y were both off by a lot so I would have lost a lot of steps on both. Not sure what the cause of loosing that many steps on both axis could be? The load on the spindle was near zero as I was stepping down only 0.002" for each pass.


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[Steve Seebold]

Mach has been pretty stable for me for the last year. However, after I replaced the hard disk of the controller because the original one broke, and started using Mach in metric mode, it hasn't been very stable anymore. Not sure if the new hard disk or the metric mode have anything to do with it.

Today, I was milling the large outside chamfer with a ball endmill (don't have a holder for my large chafer tool at the moment, so this was just a work around). The x/y zero is in the center of the part. All of the sudden, in the middle of the operation, half way through the chamfer, the ball mill starts moving into the part! By the time I stopped it, it already destroyed the part as you can see.

Trying to trace down the issue, I quickly realized that x/y zero is no longer in the middle of the part. It moved by about one inch. In other words, if I moved the head to the position where the DRO in Mach would read X 0, Y 0, I was by about one inch of the center of the part. Therefore, the tool path just went right into the actual piece.

After setting the zero again in the middle of the part, I just hit program reset and ran the same code again with no issues. I can therefore definitively say that there is no problem with the actual code. Mach just randomly lost the x/y zero.

Any clue what the issue could have been? Anybody with a similar experience?
This is super scary. I sometimes leave the mill running unattended for hours.
(time to take a closer look at path pilot)

Attachment 277044

How did you input the program and what did you ust to create your program? Looks to me like instead of Mach shifting zero points you might have an error in an I or a J movement.

[cordvision]

No, definitely no program error. Just hit program reset an ran it again and it ran fine. The actual zero point was completely off after the mishap.


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[TurboStep]

I've been working in full metric mode (not just G21) for about 3 years without problems. The only time I had a problem like yours I had a stray G55 in the code !
Step

[mactec54]

cordvision

Post your full program, there may be something before that operation that gave you the offset

[popspipes]

Mach has been pretty stable for me for the last year. However, after I replaced the hard disk of the controller because the original one broke, and started using Mach in metric mode, it hasn't been very stable anymore. Not sure if the new hard disk or the metric mode have anything to do with it.

Today, I was milling the large outside chamfer with a ball endmill (don't have a holder for my large chafer tool at the moment, so this was just a work around). The x/y zero is in the center of the part. All of the sudden, in the middle of the operation, half way through the chamfer, the ball mill starts moving into the part! By the time I stopped it, it already destroyed the part as you can see.

Trying to trace down the issue, I quickly realized that x/y zero is no longer in the middle of the part. It moved by about one inch. In other words, if I moved the head to the position where the DRO in Mach would read X 0, Y 0, I was by about one inch of the center of the part. Therefore, the tool path just went right into the actual piece.

After setting the zero again in the middle of the part, I just hit program reset and ran the same code again with no issues. I can therefore definitively say that there is no problem with the actual code. Mach just randomly lost the x/y zero.

Any clue what the issue could have been? Anybody with a similar experience?
This is super scary. I sometimes leave the mill running unattended for hours.
(time to take a closer look at path pilot)

Attachment 277044

I had a similar issue where it lost steps in x, or something happened that made it appear that way. I also have had a couple issues in Z where it swould finish the program and as the Z was going up it would release and the head would free fall back to the part. I found that if while running the program it makes any noise that isnt quite normal, I would shut the program down, reload, and restart it.
I had occasional problems with Mach/Windows, enough that I didnt let it run unattended.

Path Pilot has been perfect so far as the program goes, I have made a stupid mistake or two though...............
The soft limits are really nice, when the soft limit is hit, it will stop and not lose the machine reference