[Jacala]

Hello!

I'm building a simple tube cutter/notcher running on Mach 3 and I'm looking for some information.

• My rotary axis is gonna be A axis and the steps in motor tuning will be in degree's (right?). But how does mach know what the diameter of the tube is? Where can I enter this information?

• Can I make a 2d cad drawing and simply give it the same height as the circumference of the tube that needs to be cut? Does that work in combination with Mach 3 knowing the diameter of the tube that is being cut?

Where can I find some documentation on this topic?

In this topic
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/produc...wrapper-2.html

The post from Greolt is exactly what I need, a 2d drawing warped around a tube.
How do I do this in Mach 3? Is it explaned in the manual because I could not find it?

[ger21]

I think that most of your questions are about creating the g-code, and are not really Mach3 questions.

My rotary axis is gonna be A axis and the steps in motor tuning will be in degree's (right?). But how does mach know what the diameter of the tube is? Where can I enter this information?

On the settings page, you enter the Rotation Radius. Be aware that the only thing that this effects is the feedrate. Your g-code is responsible for the rotations and depth of cut

Can I make a 2d cad drawing and simply give it the same height as the circumference of the tube that needs to be cut? Does that work in combination with Mach 3 knowing the diameter of the tube that is being cut?

Not exactly sure what your asking? What do you mean by height? Are you talking about Y distance? What are you creating your g-code with? If you plan on using CNC Wrapper, you enter the diameter and/or circumference there.

You need to take your 2D drawing, and create g-code from that first. Then bring it into cncwrapper, which will handle all the rotation/circumference/diameter issues.

Mach3 just runs the g-code, and has nothing to do with the creation of it.

[Al_The_Man]

Hello!

I'm building a simple tube cutter/notcher running on Mach 3 and I'm looking for some information.

The size (dia) of the tubing would depend on whether this idea is feasible, But I would look at a lathe type machine where the spindle can also be switched over to C axis, either by using a servo motor on the spindle or a small separate motor for the C axis when in use.
And standard interpolated motion would be used for the C, X & Z axis, live tooling would enable the engraving and notching, in the spindle mode this would act in a cut off mode.
Al.
.

[Jacala]

well,

Lets say I make a flat 2d drawing with a height of 314 mm with a design or shape that I want to warp around a tube.

When I tell Mach that the tube has a diameter of 100 mm / a circumference of 314 mm will mach understand that 314 mm is 360 degrees? so that on one occasion 360 degrees is 314 mm and the next occasion with a smaller tube it could be 200 mm.

Then I could just load 2d drawings with a height that corresponds with the circumference?

I'm using lazycam at the moment.

[ger21]

When I tell Mach that the tube has a diameter of 100 mm / a circumference of 314 mm will mach understand that 314 mm is 360 degrees?

No. Mach3 doesn't "understand" anything but what the g-code tells it to do.

Then I could just load 2d drawings with a height that corresponds with the circumference?

I'm using lazycam at the moment.

You could create your g-code for this using LazyCAM, and then run the g-code through CNC Wrapper to convert it for the rotary axis.

You set up the rotary axis by specifying the # of steps/degree of rotation.
The g-code will need to specify the rotation of the axis.

[Jacala]

Ah I (think) I understand.

But why is it so important then to enter the tube diameter in Mach3 if all that information is stored in the G code?

[Jacala]

Thanks Ger21 for the information.

Is CNCwrapper the only option to do this wrap? I would love to use less steps to get to my goal of creating the G code. A cam package that could do this function would be great.

No. Mach3 doesn't "understand" anything but what the g-code tells it to do.




You could create your g-code for this using LazyCAM, and then run the g-code through CNC Wrapper to convert it for the rotary axis.

You set up the rotary axis by specifying the # of steps/degree of rotation.
The g-code will need to specify the rotation of the axis.