Converion based upon my old Deckel Mill

[John11668]

Have had an old Deckel FP 1 mill in my shop for years and it still does good work. (Pics attached ) but I have been tempted for some time to use it as the base for a CNC conversion

Rather than interfere with a classic, I have planted an Axminster compound table onto it https://www.axminstertools.com/axmin...d-table-400385 and converted that table with stepper motors and Chinese ballscrews.
I built my panel and with all sorts of problems along the way. I then downloaded a licensed version of Mach 3 and with a few more problems managed to get the table moving in X Y plane. That is a very abridged version of what went on, but with a simple routine I managed to cut a pocket.

Clearly I needed a Z axis ( not easy on a Deckel where the usual Z motion lifts the whole table)
The quill has very little backlash, so I have added a Heath Robinson drive to give me the Z motion and it all seems to work fine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpDV7Lj5mTY
Sooooohh, I know this is a rough project, but If I can get an understanding of the processes then I will move to building something a little more refined .

So I now want to make the machine loop through the same repeated routine to a given depth.
I am told that IF and GOTO instructions are not supported by Mach3 and if I try to use a parameter to define the depth , increased at the start of a subroutine I get a vague error message which tells me it does not understand the word .

How would others program this to cut progressively down to say a depth of 6mm
Please go easy on me . I am a total newbie and struggling with the tutorial manuals .

[Doddy]

Heath Robinson?, hey it works. Actually the ball-screw adaptation of the XY table would be an interesting write-up for anyone here looking to produce a CNC mill on the cheap.

I guess you're manually writing the G-Code?, many/most here will use a CAM processor (e.g. CAMBam on PC) to generate the tool paths, including the decreasing Z depth, and the output from the CAM processor will be the G-Code to feed into mach3,or similar. I'd be going this route, personally.

To answer your question - I've never tried this with Mach3 (though have done similar with LinuxCNC), you *could* (many ways to skin a cat), use a subroutine to perform your pocket operation at a single depth, and use a loop and G-Code incremental mode to create the increasing depth.

Something like (and this will be full of errors - so use it to understand the concept, not to test, -- prefix = my comments, not valid G-Code) It's nasty, it's probably naughty but it might give you ideas. But see (a) above - look at CAM processing instead! Again, don't run this at all!!


O0001
G90 -- Absolute mode
G0 X0Y0Z10 -- Move to 0,0,10mm
M98 P02 L60 -- 60 Loops, (60 x 0.1z = 6mm) ... Z will start at 10mm and ultimately drop to 4mm safe clearance height.
M30 -- program end



O0002 -- subroutine to perform one pass on the pocket
G0 X0Y0 -- reset to X=0,Y=0 - if your G-Code returns the spindle to the start position of the pocket then you don't need this, but you must be positioned to XY that's safe to plunge into the work piece
G91 -- incremental mode
G1 Z-10 F100 -- plunge down 10mm
G90 -- absolute mode

-- << do your pocket stuff here... NO Z movements!!!! >>

G91 -- incremental mode
G1 Z9.9 -- retract 9.9mm, the difference between this and 10mm is your plunge depth, here, 0.1mm
G90 -- absolute mode

M99 -- return from subroutine

[John11668]

Thanks for the reply Doddy.
Late now so will look at it in the morning to see what i can make of it

John

[John11668]

Heath Robinson?, hey it works. Actually the ball-screw adaptation of the XY table would be an interesting write-up for anyone here looking to produce a CNC mill on the cheap.

While I spend a few days (weeks) getting into Cam Bam I will put together a thread about the alterations to the compound table and my thinking in going this way.
Will start a new thread to avoid polluting this one further and hopefully will come back to this point when Cam Bam sinks in a bit

[Kitwn]

Don't be afraid to ask questions about CB if required. I don't claim to be an expert, but I've been using it to make things for a few years now.

[John11668]

Had a play today and managed to do a rudimentary drawing (keeping it simple ) Managed to create a toolpath and a bunch of G code on my office machine .
Then tried to email the Gcode to my workshop machine so i could try it out on Mach 3 .
What is the process. I can save a *.cd file . but cant seem to attach it to an email.
Cant copy and paste cos the code is tens of pages and i cant copy all at one go. What is the best way to send a Gcode file to another machine ?

Are there off the peg bits of code to play with while I am getting the hang of Bam Bam?

[driftspin]

Had a play today and managed to do a rudimentary drawing (keeping it simple ) Managed to create a toolpath and a bunch of G code on my office machine .
Then tried to email the Gcode to my workshop machine so i could try it out on Mach 3 .
What is the process. I can save a *.cd file . but cant seem to attach it to an email.
Cant copy and paste cos the code is tens of pages and i cant copy all at one go. What is the best way to send a Gcode file to another machine ?

Are there off the peg bits of code to play with while I am getting the hang of Bam Bam?

Hi john,

Try rightclick zip and email.

When it is still over 10mb orso zipped.
Just copy it to an usb stick.

Walk it to the machine.


Grtz Bert.


Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A505FN met Tapatalk

[John11668]

I thought i would need some understanding of coding before I embarked upon the Cam stuff.
I did try using Autocad but havent really tried too hard to get into it yet.
I will be hoping to machine pieces to my own designs and nothing too complex . Are you saying it would be better to learn to draw them on paper, rather than code what is in my head?

[JAZZCNC]

Hi John,

If you use programs Like CanBam or any of the CAD/CAM programs like Fusion360 etc then you don't need to write a single line of G-code. That is the purpose of them to makes things simple and easy.

However, if you are using Mach3 there some wizards that will do basic operations like Pockets, Hole patterns, surfacing, etc and all you do is enter in the parameters like depth, length, width, etc. You can even build the code up by using a combination of the wizards.

[John11668]

If I am going to look at CAM then which version is best for a novice .
In particular which has the best tutorials.