Welcome Dale, post any questions you have in the proper board of this forum and you will usually get some very good help.  Lots of talented people hanging around here!

Brett

Hi Dale,

Welcome to the forum.

Many of the forum members here also use Vectric software so this is a good place to be for any assistance you require regarding the use / operation of Mach3.

As mentioned previously, post your question in the General section under a new topic and you will receive the necessary suggestions, advice etc. We all started out at the beginning so realise that there is a lot to learn.

Tweakie.

HI, I am pretty new. Registered a while back but never visited the Forum. Not sure how I got started in building a CNC machine. Found a book on Ebay and got hooked. So far I sort of got the machine to work but am having problems as of last night. I have no CNC experience but want to learn. I am 72 years young and always want to stay busy. Well I went from a 1/2 13 drive screw on the X and Y axis's to a #25 chain drive and it worked really good, smooth and hope it will be strong enough to do some light routing in wood. Not to ambitious about heavy stuff, just tinker around. I try to follow the videos on the web and they seem to be geared for someone that has more experience than I. So just plod along. I am having problem setting the softstops so I devised my own electro-mechanical stops, just the X axis for now. It worked well last night but then shut down the program and then started back up and no jog at all. Again tonight I am trying to get it to jog and no response. I did try using a Xbox 360 joypad and got response on the screen with Numbers but no movement on the tables/gantry. I set the active limit on X at port 1 pin 10 to enable and active low and it seems to be OK. If I set it active high it will trigger a alarm and I can't reset. Go back to active low and I can reset the Alarm but the limit switches have no effect since the first time I got it assembled. I mean it worked the first few minutes, the X switches are in series so either would stop the X travel. HELP.
Darryl

I have one other question at the moment. I have a older IBM ThinkPad with a parallel port but it only runs at 900 Mhz. Will it work or is the absolute minimum 1 Ghz?

Hi Darryl,

Welcome to the forum - no worries about being that young, it's a fascinating hobby, just take it one step at a time and it will all start to become simple.

You need to post your questions as a new topic in the general section in order to get reasonable exposure - this section is really just for introductions.

In my opinion you will be unlikely to successfully use a laptop computer without an external motion controller (such as the Warp9 Smooth Stepper).

Some breakout boards incorporate 'pull-up' resistors on their inputs (they go to +5Volts when open circuit) so 'normally closed' limit switches will only operate in the 'active high' mode.

Hope this helps a bit.

Tweakie.

Hi I am new  here I hope i can get help and be some help I am a welder with  35 years experience a have  machine shop at my shop CNC and Man.

Hi All,

I've been lurking here for a short while now and trying to understand as much as I can.

Thanks to all those posing questions and and especially to those who have provided answers

At the moment I'm making a CNC router specifically for cutting model helicopter sideframes out of G10 epoxy fibreglass sheet.  The router is around one year in the making so far - not many of my projects proceed quickly!  I've just purchased Mach3 from Holmann Designs here in Australia.  Just waiting for the licence file to "upgrade" from the demo version of the software.

Just sorting out travel limit and home switches before tuning the stepper motors.

Shouldn't be long before trial cutting (famous last words).

HI ALL   I just found the forum and have just started.

 I'm Kurt and I just got into CNC work. (well not yet I still have to finish my cnc machine) and am in central Florida. I'm retired  and was working on my 1966 dodge dart convertible  modern style restoration when I discovered that no one made many parts for my car. Hence (hey that is a word isn't it?) the CNC interest. I plan on making replacement plastic pieces and molds to make 2 part pieces for my car along with a later style digital dash board housing that will replace the stock unit. that is after I get done building the first cnc to build the second (more rigid, larger and advanced with better parts) CNC. I looked at a couple of ways to go and decided that for my needs I can use Auto cad r14 (which I've had for years and rarely used before and after I retired) , (new to me) Cambam and of course(again new to me) Mach3. hopefully the learning curve won't be too steep. I've already got it talking to the gecko g540 and motors. that are on the Kitchen table and have loaded the road runner so I could see how, what , why of things. now I have  to go out to the garage and finish up the cnc.

thanks have a great one

Hi Kurt,

Welcome to the forum.

I am looking forward to seeing some pictures of your build and of course some pictures of the things you make with your new machine.

Good fortune with your project.

Tweakie.

Hi, my name is Garett and I am a total newbie here and to the cnc world. I did a little bit of cnc plasma cutting in high school and went on a limb to buy my own little set up..... and have no idea what I am doing. so I will be reading a lot and hope to find some good info here!