Material Setup

Topics related to wrapped rotary machining in Aspire or VCarve Pro
marju
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Material Setup

Post by marju »

Hi to all of you, I am trying to figure out the toolpath that I should make for gallery post.
My material size is 2.5 inches square (diagonal 5.5355), at the top and bottom I need a flat surface of 4 inches long, I am wrapping between thes two flat parts.
In the gadget wrapping page I input a diameter of 2.5 inches.
In the toolpath window under set up should I write an offset above the material to knock down the corners.
Any suggestions are welcome
Thank you
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POTEAU A RÉMI.JPG

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TReischl
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Re: Material Setup

Post by TReischl »

It would be a good idea to knock those corners off.

After you create a wrapped job setup you can go to gadgets/wrapping/create rounding toolpath to get those corners knocked off.

As much as most of us would like the see the rotary go round and round cause it is sooooo kewl, the linear method actually seems to work best. For me anyhow.
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marju
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Re: Material Setup

Post by marju »

Thank you for the info, I haven't seen that option and that is exactly what I was looking for

gwandad
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Re: Material Setup

Post by gwandad »

I hope this is okay to put it in here. I have just built myself a new machine the sole purpose of doing some rotary work I previously built in Openbuilds OX and have had a lot of fun with that. I'm using Aspire 8, but am having a lot of trouble trying to sort rounding. I go to gadgets and select the wrapped job set up to convert a 17 mm square piece of wood into one 300 mm long and 60 mm in diameter. I select the Z origin in the centre and I'm wrapping Y-axis around X. I finish with a single cylindrical wrap.
I go to gadgets again and then to the same stuff again, basically. I should have said that I am using Mach 3. Now I watch the videos on this several times and I am still puzzled. I managed to sort out the Z-axis okay but I cannot figure out what to do with the A axis. I've tried setting it on the highest point I tried setting on the lowest point but at no stage can I get it to dress the timber. It goes through all the right motions, or at least it looks that way, but I can't get it right. How are you supposed to set home on that axis. Someone help me please.

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Re: Material Setup

Post by garylmast »

When you do the setup, make sure you set the Z Origin at Cylinder Axis (bottom). Save your toolpaths in Post Processor Mach2/3-WrapY2A(mm)(*.txt) Note: if your machine is setup in inches, use 'in' instead of 'mm'. The saved file will be in a .txt file instead of a .tap file.
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IslaWW
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Re: Material Setup

Post by IslaWW »

I am attaching a couple slides from my rotary training showing axis zero locations for a typical blank. Axis designations are for X wrapped around Y. Swap them for Y wrapped around X. To zero the A, use the appropriate Mach command, possibly G92A, not sure. Blanks without flat sides can be zeroed anywhere in the rotation, blanks with flat sides should be zeroed with the flats coplanar and perpendicular to the table surface.

Note: Axis orientation has been rotated to fit the page
XY Rotary.JPG
Z Rotary.JPG
Last edited by IslaWW on Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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IslaWW
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Re: Material Setup

Post by IslaWW »

Addition for the Rotary Axis

A Rotary.JPG
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NormanAlbert
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Re: Material Setup

Post by NormanAlbert »

Hi: Don't forget to go into Mach 3 settings and input the radius of the piece. Norm

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IslaWW
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Re: Material Setup

Post by IslaWW »

Norm...

"Don't forget to go into Mach 3 settings and input the radius of the piece."

Why is that?
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Re: Material Setup

Post by NormanAlbert »

Hi: I re-read your original question and you say you are starting at the axis center of rotation. It might not need to know the specific radius for that method. Most of my cylindrical work is on the surface or into the surface of the work. Mach 3 needs to know in the settings page what the radius is in that method of work. Norm

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IslaWW
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Re: Material Setup

Post by IslaWW »

Norm...
I was trying to figure out how Mach handles feeds on rotary files. I understand that virtually all work is done at the surface, while I zero at least 2 axes to the axial center.

The reason I asked the question is that in the 2 control softwares that I am familiar with, ShopBot and WinCNC, the blank diameter is output in the post processor and that is used to convert a rotary feedrate that will match the given XY feedrate on the surface of the blank. I didn't know that Mach didn't support that feature, or someone hadn't implemented it.
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Re: Material Setup

Post by ger21 »

Gary,
To get the proper feedrate, you need to tell mach3 the diameter or radius of the part. You need to enter it into a DRO on the Settings page. Mach3 uses this value to calculate the proper feedrate, depending on where the Z axis is.
Here's where it get's a little confusing.
Depending on which version of Mach3 you're using, the DRO may be labeled either "Rotation Diameter" or "Rotation Radius".
The reality is that what Mach3 is expecting is really neither. What you need to enter in the DRO is the distance from the center of rotation to Z=0.

So, for a 4" diameter part, with Z zero set to the surface, you'd enter 2.
With Z zero set to the center of rotation, you's enter zero.
However. Due to a bug in earlier versions of Mach3, entering zero may not work. To be safe, enter .001 instead of zero.
Gerry - http://www.thecncwoodworker.com

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Re: Material Setup

Post by IslaWW »

Thanks Gerry. That makes it clear.
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Re: Material Setup

Post by garylmast »

To get the proper feedrate, you need to tell mach3 the diameter or radius of the part. You need to enter it into a DRO on the Settings page. Mach3 uses this value to calculate the proper feedrate, depending on where the Z axis is.
Here's where it get's a little confusing.
Depending on which version of Mach3 you're using, the DRO may be labeled either "Rotation Diameter" or "Rotation Radius".
The reality is that what Mach3 is expecting is really neither. What you need to enter in the DRO is the distance from the center of rotation to Z=0.
Gerry,

I guess I'm not following: When you initially do the Wrapped Job Setup, you have determined the Cylinder Diameter and at the time you save to the Post Processor (shown in the pictures I posted above) it will popup a screen showing what is about to be saved as a "txt" file.

Loading the file into Mach 3, by the picture you can see it shows the Diameter of the material. By clicking in the green portion of the "Z", I will set a positive 1/2 the material thickness. I will center the mill on top of material and zero out the X, Y and A fields in the Mach program. (My machine is setup in millimeters.)

For curiosity, I went into the settings, to see what it looked like after loading the file, but I didn't have to anything. I also double checked the general setup configuration and A-axis motor setup to see how I originally set it up, which shows nothing checked concerning DRO. I determined how fast I wanted the A-axis to turn when I first installed the machine and the initial Mach 3 setup.

Gary
Attachments
mach output.JPG
mach 3 screen shot 1.JPG
mach 3 screen shot 2.JPG
mach motor A setup.JPG
mach 3 general setup.JPG

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Re: Material Setup

Post by dealguy11 »

As near as I can tell, you're setting Z0 to the wrong place in Mach. In Aspire, you've specified that Z0 is the center of the part (which is generally the appropriate thing to do in rotary work). In Mach, you also have to set Z0 to the center of the part, not to anything related to the surface. Your note seems to indicate that you've set Z0 to something else, related to the diameter of the part. It needs to be set to the exact center (both in Z and in X) of your rotary axis.

As far as the Mach rotary DRO, when I used to have a Mach-based machine, it needed to be set to the diameter of the part and would automatically do the conversion from feedrate in inches (or millimeters) per minute to degrees per minute. Perhaps it's been changed as Gary described...that seems like a really weird way for it to function. It always worked the way I've described it when I had Mach.
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