Really Ray,
.19685 lead verses .2000 lead
Did someone deprive you of your morning cup of cappuccino?
Live from downtown Burbank, home of the free endless Cup-O-Joe
JoeyB
A doughnut a day keeps the doctor away.
If someone is going to swap out the motors on their machine, they need to know the CORRECT screw lead to calculate steps/inch or steps/mm when they re-configure the CNC software. Some people can be kinda fussy about their machines accuracy. But, if you're OK with your machine being off by more than 3 thou per inch, then by all means round yours off to 0.2".
Regards,
Ray L.
Ray,
I acknowledge there is over three thousandths of an inch difference, however the conversation or question is about enhancing the machine's feed rate.
Please, take a minute and loosen up your jockstrap.
Live from downtown Burbank home of the world famous twisted jellyroll.
Joey B
A doughnut a day keeps the doctor away.
Joey read your own occupation and do your job.
Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
too funny
http://danielscnc.webs.com/
being disabled is not a hindrance it gives you attitude
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
For Mach 3, the actual lead value of the screw is unimportant once you get close. You can then dial it in after initial setup. For path Pilot, you really need to know exactly what you have. It doesn't have a nice easy calibration feature. You can can calibrate it, but it requires updating a file to do it. Much more of a process than Mach 3 uses.
Lee
So you'd set up mach 3 to somewhere in the ballpark, say 5mm pitch, and then calibrate it to adjust for the fact that the Tomach uses 0.2" ballscrews!!! Oh dear.....
Assuming we're talking about a 1100, these are P4 ground ballscrews! According to Tormach:
"We use a ground ballscrew, P4 grade with a double nut. P4 accuracy specification is 0.0006” per foot and is 100% inspected using a laser interferometer."
Just set the correct value and forget about it. No calibration required. The difficulty in calibration is not the editing of the file, rather in achieving a measuring accurately that's higher than the accuracy of the ballscrews.
Step
I was simply pointing out a difference in the two operating systems. If you know the lead value, then of course use it. Just because you have a known lead value does not mean that it is perfect either. Calibration can be a useful tool. You seem to dismiss it's value, but I do use it. It's result does change the step count in almost all cases. On the Novakon Pulsar, it was so little that I just left well enough alone and used the stated value of the lead. It now runs under Path Pilot, so I was sure that no calibration was needed. The same may very well be true with most Tormach mills, but to change it is not as easy with Path Pilot.
Lee
"I'm pretty sure the Tormach stepper drives are powered directly from the AC line"
Nope, they are powered from a 500 Watt transformer producing a 60 VDC (nominal) supply.
I talked with Greg Jackson about the actual lead screw pitch several years ago and he specifically stated that the lead screw pitch on all three axes was 200 mils and NOT 5mm. So unless Tormach has made a change since then the lead screws are imperial 0.200 inch and NOT a standard metric pitch.
I think the election has put everyone in an argumentative mood lol.
Thanks for all the good information guys. This is definitely something a may consider in the future and I'll definitely be using clear path servos on my router build.
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I have used them before in other machines and automation equipment including routers. Very great performance with very high accelerations which is very beneficial for 3d machining. The cost/benefit ratio for installing them in the Tormach 1100 though, just really is not worth it. The mill does not have spindle speed to feed small tools fast, or enough power to feed large tools fast.
Yes I suppose for certain specific applications it may be worth it to some users.