[Bubba]

Glad you got it solved, but it sure is weird!

[mhackney]

I'm posting on the Mach forum to see if anyone knows what's up. I located the problem but don't have a working profile at this point. My current profile still fails. I went through it with an XML editor and couldn't see anything strange. I checked a few Mach registry settings and also nothing strange. But yet, I can switch back and forth between the old and current profiles and the old works and the current skews. Very very odd.

Michael

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Micheal,

One of the reasons I abandoned Mach3 was I saw exactly that kind of problem more than once. Mach3 XMLs seem to sometimes get corrupted in ways that cause truly bizarre and irrational behavior, even though they *appear* completely correct, and there seems no recovery other than creating a new profile from scratch. It happened to me more than once. Load the "bad" profile, and go through ALL the menus writing down all the settings, then create a new profile from scratch and make all those same settings. It takes time, but less than you've already spent getting to the root of the problem.

Regards,
Ray L.

[mhackney]

Thanks to the infamous Hood over on the Mach forum, he discovered that the 540B profile (the old one that works) had step pulse & dir pulse (motor tuning) at 20 and 2 and the Millie profile is 1 & 0. When I changed the Mille profile to 20 & 2 it works fine now.

I know I did not touch that setting in the upgrades so I'm not sure how it got reset. But, that's it. It's always the little things right? And it only seemed to affect the Y axis, which is also a bit weird. But it is what it is.

Quick question, the PW field label says 0-5 but when I tried 5, it still skews (although not as badly). Is that just a mislable on the field?

Ray, I've watched your threads on the KFlop. It's a very cool option. Being a software engineer it is also appealing from a personal interest perspective. But running my machines for my business I have to be a little conservative making changes (as I just discovered!). But I like the phased approach you replied in my PM to you. That makes sense and offers the option to changes some cabling and go back to a known "working" configuration. Once I have my G0704 completely operational it will take a bit of the pressure off the X2 to try some new stuff. I had considered a smooth stepper so I can use a laptop and save a lot of desk space. This is another option.

cheers,
Michael

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Ray, I've watched your threads on the KFlop. It's a very cool option. Being a software engineer it is also appealing from a personal interest perspective. But running my machines for my business I have to be a little conservative making changes (as I just discovered!). But I like the phased approach you replied in my PM to you. That makes sense and offers the option to changes some cabling and go back to a known "working" configuration. Once I have my G0704 completely operational it will take a bit of the pressure off the X2 to try some new stuff. I had considered a smooth stepper so I can use a laptop and save a lot of desk space. This is another option.

cheers,
Michael

Michael,

If you're a SW engineer, you'll have no trouble bringing up a KFlop. And once you switch, you'll never look back! It's in a league of its own in terms of performance and reliability.

Regards,
Ray L.

[mhackney]

I should say, I'm a "reformed software engineer"! I am an entrepreneur and have started quite a few software companies. Rarely do they let me code any more! But, I do still keep my coding chops on my own projects.

cheers,
Michael

[BobWarfield]

Heh, as a software engineer you'll want to put your Mach3 config under change control and back it up. Believe it or not, I actually do that any time I get a config that's all tuned up and happy. Each change gets backed up, and I don't make very many changes since it is a hassle.

I just know that given half a chance, I will screw it up, forget what I did, and then be cursing out Mach3 when I could've avoided that hassle. I've done that to myself too many times in the early days. Nice to change one thing at a time and have a backup to the prior version so I can clearly see what I have monkeyed with.

BTW, not at all saying this happened here, just blathering about my own stupid antics. There's a lot of darn parameters to be fiddled with and I play with all of them, much to my chagrin.

Cheers,

BW

[mhackney]

Hi Bob, I actually keep my profiles and other important files on Dropbox where they are version controlled. But, I didn't start doing this until recently so the files from last year were just uniquely named.

Cheers,
Michael

[mhackney]

Well, I figured out how the step pulse & dir pulse parameters got set. Basically, one of the upgrades was to enable Mach spindle control. Somewhere I read that you should configure the spindle in the Motor Tuning dialog. The screen shot showed the step & dir pulses at 1 & 0 so I set them not realizing these are GLOBAL parameters that affect the tuning of all axes. The old profile still had the original values and worked.

So I cut over 100 parts today with no problems. Sheeewwww.

Cheers,
Michael

[BobWarfield]

Congrats, you are back in bidness!

Always a good feeling. My own mill is down at the moment as I prep it for a new flood enclosure. Just installed a set of Tormach way covers on it. They are higher quality than the ones that came with the RF-45. Saw you updated your way covers too.

Best,

BW

[mhackney]

Here's an example of some fly reel parts I'm making on my Hoss Phase 2 converted G-0704. These are German silver (aka nickel silver) (a hard alloy in the brass family). It's a reasonably complex part requiring close tolerances and it is machined on both sides. It is about 3" across the tops of the "ears". The edges are crisp and the flat milled surfaces shine.



To say that I am happy with the performance of this machine is an understatement!

Cheers,
Michael

[hoss2006]

Great looking parts Michael! :cheers:
Hoss

[BobWarfield]

Michael, they look gorgeous like all your reel work.

How do you find the nickel silver to work with? Why did you choose it? What's the most economical place to obtain it? I bet folks would love to see some more of your fixturing work. The article I ran on the blog got a lot of hits.

Inquiring minds want to know!

Best,

BW

[wizard]

Here's an example of some fly reel parts I'm making on my Hoss Phase 2 converted G-0704. These are German silver (aka nickel silver) (a hard alloy in the brass family). It's a reasonably complex part requiring close tolerances and it is machined on both sides. It is about 3" across the tops of the "ears". The edges are crisp and the flat milled surfaces shine.

Nice! Did those parts have any secondary finishing work done on then or are they straight from the mill?

To say that I am happy with the performance of this machine is an understatement!

Cheers,
Michael

It is always great to see what people are making with their machines.

[Starleper1]

It is always great to see what people are making with their machines.

I agree, builds are fun to follow but what is really interesting, is what can you do with what you built.

[mhackney]

Thanks Bob. Before aluminum metal became affordable and widely available prior to the Hall-Héroult electrolytic process (1886) earlier reels were made in either brass or "German Silver" aka nickel silver. Of course they were also made of wood and other natural materials and even iron on rare occasions.

Nickel silver has NO silver in it! It is an alloy of copper and nickel and actually in the brass family. Various % of nickel provide different properties. 18% nickel is typically the German Silver alloy and what watch makers and reel makers used. It has a dull shine like silver but is much harder and stiffer. That's why it was favored for high end items (brass being for the utilitarian products). It used to be widely available in many shapes and it can be cast relatively easily. It was used in scientific instruments though the 20th century because of its mechanical properties. It takes on a beautiful patina after many years of use, unlike brass which starts to darken almost immediately.

So, knife makers continue to use nickel silver in their work and their suppliers (Jantz for instance) were the best sources or you had to buy large quantities. Then, last year I believe, OnlineMetals started carrying sheets of 18% alloy. Don't choke at the cost - it isn't cheap. It is still a challenge to get rods and tubes but they are around if you google a lot.

I am planning to do an article and some videos on my fixturing on my YouTube channel. I actually videoed one yesterday on installing threaded inserts on the fixture. I've been using small prototype fixtures (i.e. POCs!) but now with the G0704 plan to scale up and I'm redoing everything, pinning my table, etc. John over at John Grimsmo Knives has been very helpful sharing his work with me and does a great YouTube channel.

My biggest "conceptual" challenge is the table pinning. I know how to do it but figuring out exactly what will work best for me is the challenge. For instance, I know I will extend my Y travel in the next month, so if I install the inserts now with my existing home location (vi home switches) and then change that later, it changes the locations of the bushings installed in the table.

My original thought was to not use a large (table size) fixture sub-plate and mount the individual fixtures to that. Instead, I thought I would install a set of bushings in the table so I can have 1 to 3 "stations" where fixtures can be mounted directly. But when my home positions change, I will not know precisely where they will end up. My current idea is to make a dummy plate that has a 1/2" deep hole - maybe 1 1/2" D bored in it that I can use with my probe to reference it. Since the hole will be bored as an offset from the pin positions, I will then know where the pins/bushings are located. I'd love feedback on this. The primary reasons for not installing a large sub-plate are to minimize the inevitable corrosion that occurs (and I have on my X2) and to keep things simple. I also want to get started now - before I extend my Y travel - and don't want to make 2 sub-plates!

cheers,
Michael

[mhackney]

Wizard, those are straight from the mill. I'll try to take some macro photos of the surface finish with my next batch. Like I said, I am thrilled by this machine!

cheers,
Michael

[mhackney]

Thanks Starleper1. I agree too but I wouldn't be able to get here without the other! Plus, for many people building the machine (with the machine) is the goal. That's where those of us making other things really learn a thing or two and save a lot of time. Hoss in particular has inspired and helped a lot of us here and truth be told, probably a lot more lurkers.

cheers,
Michael

[BobWarfield]

Michael, on the issue of the threaded inserts moving, here is a thought:

Provided you can accurately measure their position in a way that is meaningful to what you're doing (and you can), just stick them in as work offsets as needed.

For example, let's say you're going to build some standardized (modular?) fixturing with the system. Further, I will pull some numbers out of the air, and say each fixture is 6" by 6", and these are laid out in a line on your table.

When you go to build the fixture, include a feature on the fixture that you can use as the datum for that fixture. You build the sub-plate with the datum first, then add the guts of the fixture. The datum feature is whatever is convenient for you to measure. It can be a hole, a corner, a raised boss, a dowel pin sticking up, or whatever. You just want something you can accurately measure and zero against that will not change relative to the rest of the fixture.

You can use a probe, edge finder, touch-off, 3D taster, or whatever your pleasure to measure the datum's position.

When you zero against that fixture's datum, enter that as a work offset. If you do something that would change the position, re-measure. Otherwise just drop it on the table and use that work offset with that fixture and you're good to go.

It's probably ideal if the datum position makes some kind of sense, i.e. it is 1/2" up and to the right of the lower left corner of the plate, and the fixtures will be set up to use 1" up and to the right as part zero, or some such. You can measure the datum and enter the offset so part zero is zero when the work offset for that fixture is selected.

You should have enough work offsets to keep a catalog of them corresponding to your fixtures online. Or, if you prefer, you can load the work offsets using G10 from your part program or other program.

Just an idea,

BW

[mhackney]

Thanks Bob, that is basically what I had in mind. But, I was thinking I could have a dedicated fixture that has the feature to use for the datum. This would be one of the smaller fixtures (6"x6" is right on). Let's say I have 3 sets of bushings in the table for three 6x6 fixtures along the X axis. When I install those bushings I know what their offsets are in relation to the first set (say the one at the far left of the table). So, once I have the datum for any one of these, I know the offsets to the others. I could build the feature into each fixture but was thinking it would be simpler and maybe more reproducible to just have a dedicated "datum fixture"?

cheers,
Michael