straight grooves intstead of spirals arrgh

[sawmiller]

hi all, again, im using mach3 with a homemade 4th axis rounded the piece, then trying to cut a spiral on it
use spiral layout, aspire shows me the toolpaths right.
i use the Y to A pp
it cuts straight lines down the piece instead of spiraling
heres the file, i suspect that mach 3 doesnt know what to do with the command A960.0000 ?
or A1139.9999.
is there a command on mach3 that i should have so it knows to go 3 times around the piece ? and not to A1139.9999?
thanks.
need to make spirals, not straight lines
dan

[820]

I loaded your file and got the same results, until I unchecked 360 rollover in the general set-up screen. I'm watching it right now run in Mach3 on my laptop.

Good Luck,
820

[sawmiller]

yup thats what it was... just came in from the shop...
360 rollover was checked.
thanks for looking
dan

[820]

No problem, glad I was able to help. I'm still watching it run even though I set the velocities on all axis's at unreal values. The toolpath is kinda cool to watch.

820 (Ron)

[820]

Well, it took 42 minutes to run this even with the velocities set at 200 and the over ride at 300%. I can clearly see the rope shape in the finished tool path. Too bad that I don't have a bit for this. Besides, it's way too hot (94°)in my uninsulated, non- a/c shop to run the computer or the machine. It's best that I stay in the house where it's cool.

820 (Ron)

[rrrevels]

If the Mach rotation is slooow look in the general configuration for the rotation speed by circumference or something like that. I don't have Mach handy at the moment to check the exact wording. Rcnewcomb has a post recently regarding the rotational feedrate that shows the detail. I was experiencing the same problem until I saw his post.

Russ

[Greolt]

Just to add to what Russ has said about rotation possibly being SLOOOW,

If for example the set feedrate is 360 units per minute. The rotary axis which is in degrees will want to turn at 360 degrees per minute.

That is 1 rpm, which when cutting at 2" diameter, translates to 6.3 ipm. Much slower than the intended 360 ipm.

Mach3 has a feature which will adjust the speed of the rotating axis to make the feedrate of the tool match

more closely to what it would have been on a linear axis. All within the constraints of axis max velocity settings of course.

But it has to be told to do so. If not sure how to set this, then please ask.

Greg

[sawmiller]

did a rounding today for a 4" cyl 13" long.
started with a 4.5" square used a 1" ball nose .1" depth of cut, opimized raster took 1 hour at 200 ipm.

should have taken a slightly bigger cut but it was in red cedar, didnt want it to splinter.

the rotation looked ok. sped it up to 400ipm for a few min but chickened out

need to add to the mach3 setup docs NOT to check that 360 rollover, does wierd stuff
dan