Australian Mechmate transforms to Acorn

[martyscncgarage]

Nice work Bruce!
Marty

[Racedirector]

Thanks Marty!

Heres what it is air cutting, a Mayan Calendar. This one was cut with Tormach Pathpilot (heavily modified to run a Gantry Router) under Linux, it took about 2.5 hours.

I am letting tonights run until the end to see if there is any improvement, I hope so

Cheers

[Racedirector]

Well I am suitably impressed..... that air cut just took 1:41, 50 minutes faster than LinuxCNC using Mesa 5i25 and 7i76 cards. With a little more tuning I'll probably be able to better that.

Once the WHOLE machine is being controlled I want to make a 4 foot Mayan Calendar for my wall, that'll test Acorn

Cheers

[martyscncgarage]

Well I am suitably impressed..... that air cut just took 1:41, 50 minutes faster than LinuxCNC using Mesa 5i25 and 7i76 cards. With a little more tuning I'll probably be able to better that.

Once the WHOLE machine is being controlled I want to make a 4 foot Mayan Calendar for my wall, that'll test Acorn

Cheers

Make sure you do a timelapse video of it Bruce and put it in the Success Stories Section of the forum's main page!
Marty

[Racedirector]

Today was another good day.... spindle is now being controlled by Acorn as is the Coolant pump. Oh, and touch off is implemented by using one of the mfunc6 macros available here, very happy with that too!

The only down side is with the spindle. It is not fully up to speed when the cut starts, is there anyway of stopping the start of code until the spindle is up to speed? The X200 does have an arrival signal but I am not sure how to wire that in, any ideas anyone?

Cheers

[Racedirector]

Finally got my steps worked out in mm mode, the ole divide steps per mm / steps per rev didn't work. Probably did that wrong. Anyway, I managed to use Marty's spreadsheet (thanks Marty!!) and now it is much better. Instead of my calculation of 135.812 / 3200 = 0.0424413 the correct number is closer to 23.49262933, that's with a quick measurement with a ruler. I will get that closer by using my Wixey measuring tool but I am much happier working in mm's

[swissi]

The only down side is with the spindle. It is not fully up to speed when the cut starts, is there anyway of stopping the start of code until the spindle is up to speed? The X200 does have an arrival signal but I am not sure how to wire that in, any ideas anyone?

I can't help you with wiring the arrival signal but the easiest way to let the spindle speed up before the job continues is to add a G4 Dwell command. If you are using Fusion 360 you could use my Post Processor that has that functionality built into the Properties. If you don't use Fusion 360, you could add the Dwell command into your mfunc3.mac and mfunc4.mac macros like this:

Code: Select all

;-------
;M3 macro
; Displays message to select auto spindle mode if it is not set
;-------
IF #4202 || #4201 THEN GOTO 300
#102 = .0005 ;Spindle Delay Factor, Spindle RPM x SpindleDelayFactor = DwellTime in Seconds (Adjust this factor to your spindle)
#103 = 0 ;Dwell Time in Seconds

M95 /2
M94 /1
IF #61058 THEN GOTO 200 ;skip the check if AutoSpindle is on
G4 P.1
#140 = 1.5 
N100
IF !#61058 THEN M225 #140 "Please Select Auto Spindle To Continue!" ;61058 = JPO2/SpindleAutoManualLED
G4 P.5
IF !#61058 THEN GOTO 100
N200
#103 = #4119 * #102 ;Spindle RPM x SpindleDelayFactor = DwellTime in Seconds
G04 P #103 ;Dwell Time to let spindle speed up before job continues
N300

Hope this helps.

-swissi

[Dan M]

Today was another good day.... spindle is now being controlled by Acorn as is the Coolant pump. Oh, and touch off is implemented by using one of the mfunc6 macros available here, very happy with that too!

The only down side is with the spindle. It is not fully up to speed when the cut starts, is there anyway of stopping the start of code until the spindle is up to speed? The X200 does have an arrival signal but I am not sure how to wire that in, any ideas anyone?

Cheers

Like swissi said you can change the dwell time in the PP. I'm using Vectric and did the same thing that he did in Fusion. I changed mine from 2sec to 5sec so if you're using Vectric the PP can be modified as well.

You can also do what I did before I modified the PP and just hit the space bar on the keyboard (feed hold) until it gets up to speed then hit cycle start again to release the feed hold.

Dan

[Racedirector]

Thanks guys

That looks far easier than using inputs to figure out if it is up to speed I will mod all posts I have that I use, Fusion 360, Aspire and Artcam I was modding the gcode before I ran it and 5 secs looks ample.

Cheers

[Racedirector]

Wow, last update was April. In-between then and now we bought a house and moved all my equipment into a single garage and suffice to say nothing worked due to space limitations.

Last weekend I swapped ends with my laser and CNC so I could connect it back up, fired up the NUC and Acorn didd it's thing very well. I forgot how quick I had G0 set to

Anyway, successfully upgraded to 4.18 last night and the MPG works now as well. Until I get my new garage built (our local council is taking forever for approval!) I am going to see if I can produce a few things in the meantime.

Cheers