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Andrew, thanks again for the replies.

The problem with thermally-mediated causes, is that what I observe works backwards from the way you'd expect: Once the system get good and warmed up, then...

Hi Andrew.

In a nutshell, I'm occasionally getting errors like these:

-- "The SmoothStepper's watchdog timer has expired........"

-- "The Smooth Stepper has failed to communicate properly...

I have a setup consisting of:

-- Taig mill;
-- 166 oz-in stepper motors;
-- Gecko G540;
-- 48V motor power;
-- Ethernet SmoothStepper;
-- Mach3; and
-- Windows XP/SP3.

Hmmm... Okay, so... can this really be true??? If so, then the truth is I need to let go of my fanatical pursuit of trying to cut dry...

When I've read about people using alcohol as a milling...

Okay everybody, first of all thanks for all the replies. Some interesting ideas to try, that I had not thought of before.

By the way: Does anybody have comments or suggestions regarding carbide...

Hi everyone. I would like to know if anyone has any suggestions, as far as CNC milling of aluminum without liquid lubricants or coolants.

I am operating a Taig benchtop CNC mill in laboratory /...

Hi Gerry, first of all thanks for the replies.

The thing I don't like about changing the native units, is that then the correct "number of steps per unit" isn't an integer. With my motors and...

Please tell me if I am wrong, however: I believe that, since my machine has english (20 thread per inch) leadscrews, I need to have the native units set to inches, and then let Mach3 do the...

I just ran through my workflow again. Seems to have something to do with switching over between inch and metric units. Things went roughly like this just now:

-- start mach3;

-- NOTE - mach3...

Hi again!

I'm in the process of learning CNC, having just retrofitted my Taig mill that I've had now for several years.

So far, I've got the machine and Mach3 operating with the correct axis...

Aha!

Nevermind, I just found it finally, after beating my head against things for most of this morning. Turns out that "Config --> Select Native Units" was set to "MM".

Switching this to...

Hi everyone--

I have a Taig mill which I've just upgraded to CNC with a kit from Jeff Birt at Soigeneris - so I'm starting with prewired motors, cables, and a Mach3 profile that is supposed to be...

So I've ordered a CNC upgrade package for my Taig manual mill, and it's due to arrive here early next week. BTW it's the Ethernet smooth stepper control box + motors setup from Jeff Birt at...

UPDATE:

So the good news is, looks like AutoCAD 2000 does support VBA - seems all the same support is there for loading and running VBA macros, just as indicated in the instructions for the G-code...

Thanks Gerry! That looks like just the thing, and would be great...

Except mine is AutoCAD 2000, and the solution at that site you linked says it works with versions back to AutoCAD 2002, with...

Hi all--

I'm shortly going to be upgrading my manual Taig mill to CNC, and am trying to figure out what the most reasonable CAM option(s) will be for me, in order to get started.

I'll be...

Actually now here's one concrete question:

In this sort of setup that I'm contemplating (Windows 7 PC / laptop --> Mach 3 --> Ethernet Smooth Stepper --> Gecko G540 --> steppers --> Taig mill), is...

Actually now that I think of it, there's one more thing on my mind with this CNC upgrade. I'm not too happy about compromising the ability to operate my Taig mill manually by its handles. I...

Hi All--

So I've had a Taig manual mill for a few years which I've been using very successfully for prototyping and small-volume manufacturing. The parts we're making on it are mostly plastic,...

Hi all--

I'm just wondering if anyone is using, or has used, 166 oz-in stepper motors on their Taig mill. I've been looking at the SmoothStepper package from soigeneris.com; he primarily suggests...