Speed me up

[Len-Tikular]

I could use some help with my latest piece which is still running after 3 hours.
It's an oval shaped bowl 600 x 250 with horses mapped to the surface of the bowl.
Total depth of cut is 20mm
2 tools are being used, 6mm roughing 2 flute 2mm stepover and 150inches/minute plunge rate 5 inches/minute
finishing, 3mm ball nose 150inches/minute 10% stepover and a plunge rate of 10 inches minute.

Do these figures look OK
How can I speed things up, I know I can change the feed rate ad hock. But what about the plunge rate.
Now the stupid question, is it possible to halt the whole process and come back to it later after saving where you left of,

I'd appreciate any input at all.
Thanks

George

[Rcnewcomb]

In my opinion the plunge rates are way too slow. For a 3-axis move many controllers will move will move at the slowest of the feed and plunge rates.

For 3D work I tend to set the plunge rate the same as the feed rate.

Now the stupid question, is it possible to halt the whole process and come back to it later after saving where you left of,

Depends on your control software.

You can use vectors to control where you want to cut so you don't need to recut the same part of the project. There is a risk that a witness line will show up if the wood has changed moisture content.

[Len-Tikular]

Thanks for the reply, Randal. Thats good info.
I could halt at the tool change and use the editor to change the plunge rate in my code and the carry on as normal yes / no ?

[martin54]

A lot will depend on your machine but with a 3D carve it is often your plunge rate that adds a lot of time, I tend to run my plunge rate for 3D work at the same speed as my feed rate for the finish pass. Never had a problem doing that but I haven't done as much 3D work as a lot of others.
As for stopping a lot will depend on your control software & how you intend to stop, if your machine has limit switches & you have a very accurate way to zero your z axis then stopping & shutting down may be an option but I would experiment on that before using it as a method for any work that is important. With no power on the machine then the z axis can easily drift which is why you need a very accurate method of setting your zero positions especially the z in this case. any difference in z axis height will leave you with a line that is likely to be very difficult to remove
I have left a job part way through & come back to it later but the machine was left powered on all the time to prevent the z axis drifting.

Changing settings on the fly will depend on your control software not the vectric software, some control software will allow you to alter both the feedrate & the spindle speed

Oh see Randal has answered, I do the same as he does

[Len-Tikular]

Cheers Martin, I'm using Mach4 so I can change the feed rate on the fly, but I don't thing I can change the plunge rate. Unless anyone knows different with Mach4.

[martin54]

Cheers Martin, I'm using Mach4 so I can change the feed rate on the fly, but I don't thing I can change the plunge rate. Unless anyone knows different with Mach4.

Doubt you can alter the plunge rate directly you couldn't with mach3 I know that much, even though mach4 is a completely different software I still wouldn't have thought so. It may be that by increasing the feedrate it also increases the plunge rate in the same way but to be honest your plunge rates are so slow to start with you would be very unlikely to see any difference

[adze_cnc]

If Mach 4 uses the lesser of Z plunge and XY travel speed for 3D moves then perhaps it’s time for a change.

For the 3D Finishing Toolpath there shouldn’t be more than a couple Z moves. 3D Roughing much more.

If you really want to speed cuts like this up then use multiple ball-end cutters instead of just the one 3mm. How about 9mm and 3mm? The 9mm will take care of most of the oval dish and the 3mm will clear the rest and then deal with the detail of the horses.

[Len-Tikular]

Hi Adz,

I'm sorry I'm being a bit slow; I'm returning to my wood carvings having been away from it for so long.

Using 2 roughing tools is something I'd never even considered but it makes good sense. How to call up another tool I'm not sure how to do unless we modify the code manually??
I'm using Mach4 and saved my file as all toolpaths to one file. with Mach 2/3 ATC Arcs MM. Well, that didn't work!! my machine never stopped for a 'tool change' roughing to finish. I just carried on. The end result was 8 wasted hour and a lovely piece of wood ruined.
Now I know that I have done this many times before, my machine always stopped and asked for a tool change, so when I inserted the new tool and Zero'd it I would just continue with the run. Somehow somewhere something changed. there must be another post processer that allows for changing tools without an automatic Tool changer being installed.
My step-over on the 6mm tool could be increased from 2mm to say 4 or 5mm that should save a good deal of time.
MY feed rate of 150"/minute I'm comfortable with but I also feel I could go faster. My plunge rate I will change to match my feed rate.
My elliptical bowl was 600 x 200 approx. and almost 20mm deep.
Maybe you add some more input and let me know what you think the total cutting time ought to be. If I hadn't stopped the machine last night, it would have run for nearly 10 hours!!

[martin54]

Have you changed the post processor that you are using? You would need to be using a post processor with ATC in the name to be able to use the tool change feature that you previously used. At least that was how it worked with mach3 when I used it some time ago
As well as using the post processor with ATC at the end you also had to have things set up correctly in mach3 control software.

adze_cnc is talking about using multiple tools for the finish pass I believe, I don't think 10.5 does rest machining automatically so you would need to look at how to do rest machining using V10.5, with 11.5 it is automatic, you just select the bits you want to use when creating the toolpath & Aspire does all the work

[Len-Tikular]

I obviously change the PP at some time Martin, maybe on the upgrade from Mach3 to mach4?? But I do know it did work with my machine.

[martin54]

I obviously change the PP at some time Martin, maybe on the upgrade from Mach3 to mach4?? But I do know it did work with my machine.

What post processor are you currently using? I can't see a dedicated mach4 post processor on the Vectric list. I have read that mach3 post processors work with mach4 but as I have never used mach4 I can't confirm that. If you are using a mach3 post processor then try using the same inch of metric post processor you are already using but the one with ATC at the end. Mach4 will also need set up correctly for it to work but if you have previously used the tool change feature with mach4 then selecting the correct PP should give you back that functionality
If it doesn't then you are going to have to look at mach4 settings, you can probably get help doing that on the mach support forum

[adze_cnc]

Using 2 roughing tools is something I'd never even considered but it makes good sense. How to call up another tool I'm not sure how to do unless we modify the code manually??

Multiple tools for 3D finishing.

[martin54]

OK when I read through before I missed this:

I'm using Mach4 and saved my file as all toolpaths to one file. with Mach 2/3 ATC Arcs MM. Well, that didn't work!! my machine never stopped for a 'tool change' roughing to finish. I just carried on. The end result was 8 wasted hour and a lovely piece of wood ruined.
Now I know that I have done this many times before, my machine always stopped and asked for a tool change, so when I inserted the new tool and Zero'd it I would just continue with the run. Somehow somewhere something changed. there must be another post processer that allows for changing tools without an automatic Tool changer being installed.

So from my understanding you use to do this when you were running mach3, you have never done this since changing to mach4 is that correct?

It is not the post processor that is at fault, you are using the correct post processor, the problem is that you have not set mach4 up to allow you to do this, you will need to make some changes to the mach4 settings At some point in the past when you were using mach3 you must have made those changes as it's not a default setting if I remember correctly

[Len-Tikular]

Thanks guys, I discovered today I have no Macros loaded. The directory for the macros doesn't even exist.
The directory should be Mach4hobby/profiles/workshop router/macro but that's not there, I can easily create it and insert a macro.
Is there one I can download?

Should there be other macros???

Silly me, I may have screwed up when I was playing around with new screens.

[martin54]

Doubt you will find anything here as it has absolutely nothing to do with the Vectric software

If it were me then I would try the mach support forum (think I linked to it earlier) there are macros for all sorts of things but what comes with the software or can be downloaded I have no idea about & which ones you use will depend on what you want to do & what other hardware you are using with the CNC

I know that mach 3 use to make back up copies of your profile but I don't know if these contained what macros were installed & used with that profile or if mach4 even has that functionality, again best place would be mach support forum.

Have you bought an additional screenset for mach4 ? If you have then there may will be macros included with the screenset you purchased,