I feel like I’ve been running a marathon and I just broke my leg

General CNC CNC Routers
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@Paul_Frederick I’ve been trying to tune the motors. Mach has a on-board steps-per-unit calculator that apparently got the steps calculated correctly, but now my Y axis makes a loud grinding noise. When I increase the steps per unit the noise goes away, but now the units are out of whack. Do I alter this by switching it to microstepping? Oh yes, just between you and me, I just received a new BOB to replace the ST-V2 I had. I think this one might be a bit more reliable, especially in combination with the smooth Stepper and gecko driver, as it was designed to be adapted to them as well as others. I didn’t mention it earlier b/c I didn’t want to answer a ton of questions I really wasn’t prepared to. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the board or the company, but it is a PMDX-126. It was considerably more expensive than the other BOBs, but it seems much more versatile and powerful. It looks like it is powered by AC current, either 125 or 230v. It looks like a motherboard, when I received it. I’ve got to read a little about it before I replace the other BOB. Also, I just received the pre-assembled oscilloscope kit yesterday. I just have to assemble the plastic cover and it should be ready to go.

One frustrating point about my spindle (Er 20 collet), the collets I bought to go with it are all metric and the majority of my endmills are standard (ASM) I think is the term. Anyway, it looks like I’ll have to get new endmills to go with it. But, at least it appears I’m moving in the right direction. I’ve got a fair amount of research to do to get acquainted with Mach3 and this new BOB. And, I still need to get the proper switches put on the machine in the right places.

Have you ever used V-carve? The Makerspace can get a special license for the software at reduced cost. It is much better software for wood signs than fusion. It’s kind of a choice between that and Art cam. Which CAD software do you use for your machines?

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@Paul_Frederick I just saw the cost of Artcam, and that’s out of the question.

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@George_Allen yeah CAM is the crux of CNC. I use free software but it has limitations. I’m in the market for a new CAM package right now myself because my old go to program has issues on my new machine that I cannot resolve. No one working on that project today is either willing or able to help me either it seems. I can only speculate what has happened there. But I surmise that whoever knew what they were doing has moved on and the idiots running that project now don’t know their asses from holes in the ground. That happens with free software.

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@Paul_Frederick I was looking at stuff about Linux and I ran across Mesa Electronics. whose stuff is primarily geared for LinuxCNC. If you are still having issues with your machine you may want to check out their site for suggestions about CAD/CAM programs that work well with Linux. They seem to have a fair amount of info on that. They look like a PMDX equivalent to Linux CNC.

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@George_Allen I hang out in an IRC channel with someone involved with Mesa (PCW). I think he might actually own the company? I never asked him. He knows a lot about his hardware and electronics. I know a fair bit about Linux myself. It has been my only OS that I run for over 20 years now.

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@Paul_Frederick Their 5 axis motion controller looks pretty popular with Linux CNC.

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@George_Allen Mesa is high performance industrial kit. I think it has a 50 MHz bandwidth? So the servo crowd likes it. Plus the support is there. PCW is on IRC all the time helping people get the stuff running. I don’t know if he sleeps.