[cabnet636]

havent we all been using grease fittings since our first car in my case this is somthing i have to do on all my farm equipment and shop equipment'

ypu just squirt a little in untill it fills out a bit the grease packs in good and will stiffen a bit in extreme cold and melt in extreme heat 95 degrees farenhiet+ that is when i would watch it most

we have a scedule written on a board on a wall because with 30+ pieces of equipment it is easy to forget!!!

we check grease all new equipment as most assemblers in whatever countrie have probably NO knowledge of what the equipment they are prepareing does
much less what grease it needs

i cant imagine any of us would buy a new or used car and run it flat out without checking the oil

cabnet

[rocket67]

cabnet, I totally agree with you - Ya Gotta Lube Ya Machines.
Problem with today`s youth generally speaking is that they have never had any experience with mechanical items. Cars of today are too complicated for the average dad to fix at home so they do not teach their young about them. But on the positive side my 11 year old grand daughter can help me to use this computer.

Glad to see you are coming to terms with V Carve Pro. My fog is starting to lift also. Could not figure out why i could not get into the Ucancam program until i realised that you need the "Dog Key" fitted into a usb port to be able to use it. It is now becoming clear. We are now optimistic about making this work.

Have a look at the end of the help files on V Carve Pro. There are some designs that are similar to the wave look.

rocket.

[cabnet636]

donglers lotsa names all will keep us honest from passing software around

my 20/20 "key" is 7500.00 my cabnetware "key" is 12000.00 the software is free!!!

will look at help file now

cabnet

[rocket67]

I think i had better stick with my $150 Ucancam Key!

[cabnet636]

[B:rainfro::rainfro::rainfro:YOU FOUND IT[/B]

DUDE I AM SO HAPPY MAN ARE THESE FORUMS GREAT!!!!!!!!

CABNET:rainfro::rainfro::rainfro::rainfro::rainfro ::rainfro::rainfro::wave::wave::rainfro::wave::wave::wave:

[rocket67]

cabnet, you are right on the money again. Over these last couple of months we have learnt so much here and met a lot of great people.
We have gone from having scant knowledge or information of cnc and the sh-cnc Excitech to a group of owners exchanging invaluable info with each other. I believe and hope that future newbies ( like ourselves ) can read this thread and absorb enough info to be able to make an informed choice of which router to buy.

We still have a long way to go with our learning curve but this exchange is making it so much easier. May it continue.

Rocket.

[lgalla]

The machine I am using uses pressure feed oil to all the slides and ballscrews.There is 15 separate tiny,weny tubing from a manifold to each linear componet.The idea is to supply oil and air at low pressure to "blow out any swarf or dust.In low production a shot of grease a day will keep the...away.
Happy New Year
Larry

[Jimmy007]

The machine I am using uses pressure feed oil to all the slides and ballscrews.There is 15 separate tiny,weny tubing from a manifold to each linear componet.The idea is to supply oil and air at low pressure to "blow out any swarf or dust.In low production a shot of grease a day will keep the...away.
Happy New Year
Larry

Ok- that is a beautiful looking peice of gear!

If I had the volumes of throughput requiring that level of engineering that is the sort of machine I would really like to own.

Exitech gives us an opportunity to have name brand quality linear motion gear and spindles with cheaper inverters and drives which when combined with cheap labour in China makes these machines great value. Providing you are prepared to spend a bit of time looking after resolving minor issues when putting them into service they do what they are supoosed to do and do it very well. Guess its like comparing a BMW (or a Mustang to keep Rocket happy) to a garden variety common car. With proper maintainence one will likely give better long term service and be more of a pleasure to operate, you need to pay for the privilege though. No free lunch!

[howzat]

English instructions for the DSP should be in the DSP folder of the supplied CD with DSP handwritten in the face. There is an english subfolder on the disk (at least that's what I was told).

Let me know how you go Tom, happy to e-mail my version (I obtained by other means) to you if it's not there.

Cheers,

Jimmy

Thanks Jimmy, I've got the DSP manual as a Word document that I downloaded from their web site that is in mostly understandable English.. (they should get Taney to rewrite it!)

I've also got a PDF manual for one of their larger machines that is about 50 MB, is that the one you have? If you have a different one that would be great if you could e-mail it.

Cheers, Tom

[Kent_Norway]

donglers lotsa names all will keep us honest from passing software around

my 20/20 "key" is 7500.00 my cabnetware "key" is 12000.00 the software is free!!!

will look at help file now

cabnet

When I get my machine I would look at OneCNC. This is a new ballplayer which is grabbing ground from MasterCam etc over in my corner of the world. Many charges rip-off-prices simply because the rest of the "gang" charges the same. www.onecnc.com has for sure a different pricing scheme.
K

[cabnet636]

i stood at the iwf some years ago and watched two men, one at the front and one at the back of a large thermwood machine the guy in the back loaded wood and the guy in the front took out machined parts and was assembling a chest of drawers every few minutes, and i mean complete!!
it was very impressive, i believe it was at a time when thermwood was begginning to give away thier free software that is considered excellent with one small hitch it will only cut on thier machine!! smart if you ask me
i am impressed at your therm wood, do you have a photo of your actual machine we have seen plenty of sales literature photos.

this thread has grown to allow a few novices and i include my self grow into cnc with whatever machine or software we have purchased. some years back my shop manager and i went to a travelling chinese tool show and bought a few small laminate trimmers (ya know just an extra few) well one caught fire in roberts hand (real funny) when the second one caught fire we threw all of them away. that show i think became the harbor frieght company.

the cnc machine i saw from china was well built and was operating on wincnc
and using cabinetpro software (a whole lot less expensive than my cabnetware) and making money for some decent cabinetmakers here in the south east.

my point is, you do get what you pay for and it can really depend on the strength of the company that imports it builds it up to your needs and is there
to stand behind it. at this cost range it is unrealistic to expect complete support from a cnc company, and some tweaking is required we here have watched some guys share problems at the offset and begin to solve them before they become mechanical nightmares. i must say taney has responded to my every email even though i did not buy his machine. (gee i called the great stiles machinery to get my edgebander serviced they called back two months later in the middle of our work load) i bought a machine used and built by camaster of lafayette ga. bill and his son josh have offered me the support i believe they would and do give to the purchasers of thier machines
whether chinese or custom built, you may have to clean metal debris of you machine when it's new and possibly be prepared to replace parts if needed
but as bill glenn has told me there are no parts on the chinese machines that are not readily available.

my need is the growth of this forum, what i have learned here is invaluable
when rocket found the texture section on my vcarve program this will generate $$$ in my world. i did learn two things 1) i did not read the entire manual:withstupi and 2) i am glad i am still hanging here at this EXCITEC thread whatever the name is!!!

kent below is a design i whipped up in about ten minutes with cabnetware
there are newer programs that cost a whole lot less and i may be switching
to cabinetpro eventually as the next upgrade to cnc with this program is
another 23000.00$ and they have yet to justify 11.000.00 of that just for
the cnc cam component of that. i am glad you found that and will look at it
as i will be buying another machine from bill with greater carving capacity
and delegating this machine to cutting parts.

ps i hope you get a machine soon and catch up with us we need you here

where is kustom we need him tooo!!

as for mulitple photos i am testing uploading amounts

[Kent_Norway]

Jim
I do totally agree with you. I have posted on different parts of this forum, but I have to admit that the feedback has been not that great. So having a really active part on this forum is for me a insurance when/if I get a Excitech machine. In this way I'm sure to have someone to discuss potential problems with and have solutions which could educate me/us in our machines.

OneCNC is for sure not a cabinet makers SW and I have to say that you're drawing looked really impressive. For me, I would be cutting out intricate designs in 2D and potentially 3D for inlay in pool cues. I do plan to make some loudspeakers where I think OneCNC could do the work.

For those already in a active business having a steady income, I do understand that buying cream d'la cream SW and HW would be the only option, but for me as a private person in the establishing phase, the solution we have been discussing is ideal solution.

I have not ordered any machine yet. I need to sort out some space requirements and then sort out if I should go for MACH3 or DSP setup.

K

[cabnet636]

quote on software cost for onecnc

and isn't mach 3 a controller software and dsp a handheld module

catch me up

i purchased mach 3 but will upgrade to wincnc this week on the advise of bill glenn as he will be able to analize and assist with my growth as his customer
over the internet.

cabnet

[Kent_Norway]

quote on software cost for onecnc

and isn't mach 3 a controller software and dsp a handheld module

catch me up

i purchased mach 3 but will upgrade to wincnc this week on the advise of bill glenn as he will be able to analize and assist with my growth as his customer
over the internet.

cabnet

OneCNC has just done a web Demo for me and they have several different versions of their SW. I do not know which version to get yet, but I think the lowest price was prox $2800 but this would depend on the country you live in. The cool part is that OneCNC has a Numeric Control software included (but not as beefy as MACH3) which means you do just need a external controller to do the work, hence it's more a "Swiss army knife" where you need to get around and learn less SW packages to get you're CNC to work (which for me is nice).

As I understand this WinCNC and MACH3 is a control software which makes you able to control the machine from you're PC. This requires you to have a machine close to the CNC and you need to use the PC keyboard to manually control the spindle position etc. You could add external controller devices (joystick) if the hardware controller box which runs the stepper motors support this.

Using a DSP system involves a separate controller (PC) inside the machine which makes a external PC unnecessary to control the CNC. You need to get the files from you're PC to the machine, which could be don either by a USB memory stick or by connecting the PC to the CNC with a USB cable. As I understand this, you have both possibilities with a DSP setup (you can have a PC in the same room as the CNC, but there is no demand to have it there to control the CNC).

This is my understanding of the differences after reading a lot on the net.

I guess the MACH3/WinCNC setup could be more customized to what ever type of machine you have, simply by having a software update or a plug in. This however requires that the HW controller support the function. In other words if you have a 4 channel controller it would be possible to have a 4th axis, but if you're initial purchase was a stock 3 channel you would need to spend $ on a new controller even if MACH3 support up to 6 axis.

A DSP setup would not be that easy upgraded I guess, but then it's not depending on a special version of MicroBill$ Windows - what -ever and hopefully more reliable??

I would be really interested to hear of any experiences in this respect (like not being able to have the G-code processing speeds applied in stead of any stock speeds set in the DSP).

K

[maxmachine]

I recently received a small router that was supplied with WinCNC. I am not a beginner in this area; I have owned a large Northwood router with an Allen Bradley control, have several CNC engraving machines, a Haas VMC, and a CNC lathe. So, I do have some experience to compare various controllers and software.

I found the WinCNC to be virtually bulletproof and easy to customize. The manual that comes with it is comprehensive, and allows you to change most parameters by changing the ini file.

The only problem I had with it is that it crashed frequently with Vista... once I changed the OS to XP, I had no more problems. The WinCNC website specifically mentions that they do not recommend Vista for their software (or at least they did two months ago!)

I had to change the limits due to the dust shoe I made for it. Also, the number of steps per inch was way off when I received the router. A few minutes with a dial indicator and the ini file and it was fixed.

WinCNC also provides a lot of options if you want more bells and whistles... it will control ATC's and remote pendants, to name a couple.

I have not had any reason to call WinCNC for help, so I don't know whether they are any good at customer help.

When the time comes to buy another router (the small one was a test machine to evaluate chinese routers and low cost controllers in general) I will probably stick with WinCNC because it is so easy to use.

Regards, Mark

[cabnet636]

actully i bought mach 3 on my own (Impatient) and bill has told me we could work with it yet he would be better able to help me with wincnc as this is his
experience, we will install wincnc in a dell i bought from one of my guys that is using XP, i caught on real early the problems with vista when i saw someone buying new printers at the office supply store after switching to vista. most all advice is not to even attempt to use vista where cnc is concerned.

when i bought my cnc it was basically an unused 8 year old machine that had a dos control setup in an old E machine computer with win 98, in a million years i never thought i'd see dos again but i have learned how to use it and
if i could move the dos controller to XP on the newer computer i would probably do it however wincnc will be in soon and i will be windows based.

recently a local cabinetmaker (kiethg) who is near me in sc, had a problem with a setting and josh glenn was able to get online with the computer at the cnc in sc and set it correctly, thus allowing the cabinetmaker to proceed with making money that is why i am going with bill on this

i am glad you are watching us on this thanks
cabnet
www.mcgrewwoodwork.com

[cabnet636]

check this
http://www.vectorcam.com/
800.00

cabnet

[Kent_Norway]

check this
http://www.vectorcam.com/
800.00

cabnet

Thank´s. I´m always on the look for something new and I´m currently trying to investigate the pros and cons for the supplied SW. Do I need it at all or is it nice to have ... ?

Reading you´rs and Marks feedback on the controller issue I have to ask; have you ever tried machines with DSP control in stead of having a PC controlling the CNC machine?

I was just having the sneaking feeling that a DSP setup would be more reliable, hence less "down time" in production since it's actually designed for one purpose - controlling the CNC? I have left the "WinTel/Microbill" setups many years ago (for general use) because of all the trouble I got trying to have a machine working as it should. I'm currently in the Apple world and have never looked back.

In stead of paying for pretty expensive SW package for controlling the CNC (I don't have my quote from WinCNC but I think it was in the $1200 range if I'm not mistaking), then buying a PC to control it, why not use the money on a DSP? Is there any drawbacks I'm not aware of ?

I see my self having one machine where I do my design work and then either having a extra machine controlling the CNC (with MACH3 ) or just bringing the files on a USB memorystick for DSP processing. Is there anything I can't do on a DSP setup that you can do on a PC controlling the CNC (with either MACH3 or WInCNC)

For those who demands the control of their CNC machine from a PC, here is a free software which ( I guess you may heard about) could do the work as well, but then on a more stable platform than WinTel/MicroBill ... http://www.linuxcnc.org/
K

[cabnet636]

with the type 3 that comes with the machine, most if not all cnc machine companys send controller software with the unit, cam or file writting programs are where the $$$ start

[cabnet636]

i followed bills advice when he told me to learn on what i got there will be plenty of time for buying software later

yes wincnc is 1200.00 us +/- in my commercial application its a no brainer
i got a better chance of learning chinese than i do of even thinking apple
those decisions were made long ago. as i understand it most software programs offer both operating languages, the computer i purchased to work the cnc was a 3 year old dell 2 gigs 120gig hdrive 200.00$$ blew the dust out of it and started rockin major university near here so theres a lot of em available