Recent Posts

1

Mach4 General Discussion / gouging on rotary axis

« Last post by vetsgarage on November 29, 2025, 10:38:37 PM »

I'm getting a rotary axis dialed in. I'm using VCarve to generate a rotary wrap toolpath. It seems like its not raising the cutter to clear the part when transiting to a new section of the cut. It appears fine in the Vcarve preview with the rotary moves happening at safe Z.
The toolpath preview in Mach appears to have these moves occuring with the cutter close to the center.

Also, the rotary speed is very slow. I understand this is due to inverse time but I can't find clear directions on how to adjust for it.

Thanks in advance!

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Upgrade

« Last post by arturod on November 27, 2025, 05:42:57 AM »

The UC400ETH is just a little more, and it is Ethernet. So much more reliable:
- Not sharing the grounds between the PC and CNC.
- Client-Server connection instead of running as a device on Windows.
- No significant cost difference.

Or even better, go with the Ethernet Smooth Stepper, which is fully compatible with Mach4 so that you can upgrade when you need to.

Arturo Duncan
https://cnc4pc.com

3

Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 26, 2025, 08:59:00 PM »

That's where I left the project 4 years ago. Didn't have time to work on it. My router still needed work, so I didn't need the screenset. Then other things came up and I kind of forgot about it.

Now my router is ready to be used. Also have time again to work on the screenset.

Started the screenset using mach3screen. Found that very limiting. Almost gave up on the project very early.

Then I switched to machscreen. That was much easier to use.

In the last several days I watched a few videos on using machscreen. Found a bunch of information that would have been nice to know when I first started. That would have saved a lot of time aligning and configuring.

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Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 26, 2025, 08:31:59 PM »

Haven't started the probe page. Did find majority of the scripting needed to make it work. Those will need some changes to work the way I want it to.

Didn't do anything with the atc screen. Saw some screensets had it, so I was planning on adding it. Don't have a machine that as it and probably never will. Thinking about eliminating the page. Maybe if I get everything else done, I'll look into it.

5

Mach4 Plugins / Surfacemap

« Last post by thalassa on November 26, 2025, 10:50:29 AM »

Hi, I'm having a problem with Surfacemap. We are using it on a large old CNC machine to probe large pieces of wood to rebuild a 1903 vintage racing yacht (Thalassa). Basically building point clouds which we can then use to cut new wood. Issue is that program stalls randomly, always towards the end of a long (maybe 5000 points, 7 hours) run. We've tried shorter runs, say 800 points, sometimes it works, sometimes not. No warnings or errors recorded, it just stops. When it works the results are good.

I know that it uses Wxwidgets to write to file, but haven't been able to delve further into this. so questions;
1  Is there a limit on the buffer size?
2  Where is the data stored before it gets written to the .dat file at the end? - I've dome dumps of RAM etc. at the end of the long runs when it has failed and could maybe recover data?
3  Any other ideas why it might be failing?
Thanks, Nick

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Upgrade

« Last post by Tweakie.CNC on November 26, 2025, 03:33:50 AM »

Perhaps the easiest (and cheapest) solution would be to use a CncDrive UC100.

Tweakie.

7

Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 25, 2025, 08:53:46 PM »

Started the offsets page. Only started the tool list part of it. It's a series of userlabels and dros. It's read only as there isn't a way to write to the tool list.

A vertical slider will be used to switch through the pages. Haven't started that yet. Can copy what I did with the feed sliders. It will just need a little changing of the scripting and values.

Need to setup the tool setter probing. Found some scripting that I should be able to make work.

Going to add a work offset sub screen. Those dros will be editable.

8

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 Upgrade

« Last post by ROTex on November 25, 2025, 03:34:22 PM »

I have an ancient system running Mach 3 on a Windows 7 pc through parallel ports to a motion control card driving servos.  I want to change the hardware to a USB interface motion controller card.  I'll get a new laptop and run Mach 3.  What are the recommendations for a motion controller card and BOB?

9

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 and CSMIO/IP-S inputs LOW>HIGH>LOW issue

« Last post by henri on November 25, 2025, 05:35:13 AM »

Hello

I have Mach4 (version 4.2.0.5036) and CSMIO/IP-S (plugin V3.501) lathe setup.
At startup and mainly when exiting the Config > Control window, all inputs are forced to LOW, then changed to HIGH, and then again to LOW.
The error log is attached.

Is this normal functioning with Mach4 and CSMIO/IP-S controller?
What could be the reason for that?


In general, all features in Mach4 are working well, but this strange behaviour is a bit inconvenient.
For example, I have some functions under physical buttons (Program Run, Turn Cycles, MDI, ToolTable, etc) and all of them are triggered for a moment.

Hope somebody who knows Mach4 more deeply can answer.

Thank you for your help!
henri

10

Works in progress / Re: NoPIlot

« Last post by Punisher on November 24, 2025, 08:02:52 PM »

Started the conversational page. Mostly got the facing page done.

Stated the drill page. That took a little bit of hackery to make an editable drill list. It's a set of 10 userdros. There's page up and down buttons. Those cycle the list to the set of 10.

Most of the conversational scripting is from the wizards. It is modified a bit to use the dro's from the screenset.

Was going to skip the engraving part. After looking at it again there's a chance I can make it work. That's at the very bottom of the list of things I want to implement.