Great news Mike,  I have passed on the remaining issue to the development team.

Graham

I have fixed this error with R type programming Now can you tell me if I need to look at IJ style as well?

Hi Brian,

The machine I have in the workshop is using rev 3.042.040 and this was the one giving the problems at the start of this thread. The computer in the house, with no machine attached, is running rev 3.043.022 and it is this one that is showing the YZ arcs the wrong way round when using the X axis scale factor of -1. After which version was the fix done?

I do not necessarily believe this is a Mach problem as I have already found a problem within my post processor, the missing K token, and I am not dismissing further errors.

I have now re-compiled my post processor to use IJK mode for all arcs. Are you suggesting the R mode is just as valid? BR549 suggests that the R method is outdated and all arcs should be using IJK methods.

As mirroring is working fine in Y, and it makes no difference to the outcome, there is no panic on the X mirror problem.

Thanks,

Mike

Just Tested here with V.022 IJ works fine R reverses arcs with -1.000 scale.

Would be nice if ARCS worked in G18 and G19 mode running 3 d code.

(;-) TP

I have attached the file that gives the problem. When you scale in X to -1.000 you get a mess in the toolpath window but not when you scale to -1.000 in Y. I would be interested to know if this happens to you too.

Mike

Edit: Arcs work fine in the XY plane with the -1.000 scale factor it is just the YZ plane that messes up.

Hello Mike,
I have a rule that save me countless hours of debugging.. the file that you sent IS showing a problem with a - x scale but at .5 MB it is just to big for me to work with.. is there any chance you can show me the trouble is about 10 lines of code. I can hack the file and make an example that is showing the trouble but it takes far to long to do it here.. if you have a post and can make a simple example in your cam program would be great!

Thanks
Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for taking a look and apologies for the last file size - I understand your reluctance to look through mega lines of code .  I have made a simple part that shows the same problem when scaled to -1 in X.

Mike

Hi Graham,

Mach3 will not do 3D arcs, turn off helical/spirals in the post processor and try again.

This had me confused until I realised there is a difference between helical arcs and spirals. As I said before, most of the holes I machine I use spiral cuts so I could.t understand what you meant by turning it off. However, delving a little deeper into Gcode and my post processor, I realised that true helicals need all the IJ & K words and it is this that Mach does not support, yet Mach does support and IJ arc moving down in Z at the same time (is this not a spiral?) As soon as I clicked on the 'Helicals not supported' box in my post processor wizard, I got good code again.

This does not solve the problem of the -1 scale in X but my understanding is getting better

Thanks,

Mike

Still having some problems with Mach and the IJK words so I have reverted to using the R word where possible and everything is now working as it should. Even the -1 scaling in X is working now. In fact, I tried scaling in X and Y and both and all produced good results. This confirms what Brian had said about mirroring and the R word but also confirms that the IJK mode needs looking at.

Cheers,

Mike

Found the trouble that you where having in the example file that you sent and it is all fixed for the next DEV release..

Thanks for the samples!
Brian