Hey Olf G'day,
Thank you for your post,
Ok understood UCCNC has better deviation control, that I understood from Balazs's letter. Which is fine I'm sure for precision work with Metal or materials which are not as forgiving as wood. I have other issues with wood which can be controlled and have to be controlled in other ways. For the type of work that I do, even though precision is required (we don't want a football to look like an acorn) it is more a visual account of the job in the end. I will post the last job I had.
Ok now the tolerances that you are talking about I take are the same ones I mentioned which are found in Configuration/General Settings - Linear error max and Corner error max which in my case are now set to .03 they were set to .003 which is I believe the default setting.
Now I have gone from .003 to .03 which is a reasonable change with no improvement that is noticeable at least. are you suggesting that I should try to take this down further to .3 perhaps? I understand I can trial and error I'm also trying to understand the process. If that is not the control you are referring too where do I find what you are referring too then?
As far as the acceleration parameter is concerned with my earlier correspondence with Balazs I had my acceleration parameters set to 3000 originally when I was testing my CnC build and I believe that was some type of default which was imported from Mach3 profile. I only found out what that did when I couldn't increase the speed of my cnc using the % tool. I have now set that too 14000 plus on all axis. Still even with acceleration set that high - it works great straight line provided there is no pattern. As soon as there is a pattern that goes out the door and the max acceleration I can get is from depending on the bumps say from 300 to peak 1200 in places with the last job I did.
So please note this is not a Mach3 is better than UCCNC or the other way around. What I am trying to achieve is using UCCNC to cut down the job time and finding an effective way of doing that.
This last job I did, job size 490 x 350 x 30mm - no roughing just skimming 8.6mm using a final pass with a 2.5mm ball nose. With the speeds and feeds that I know can be very easily handled by my machine (cruising speed). Job time should be about 1.5 hours. Reality barring mishaps me not paying attention bit breaking etc etc 2 hours start to finish. Mach3 that would be pretty close to the ball mark. UCCNC 6.4 hours. I started and finished the job with UCCNC. Previous job I did was not done using UCCNC.
So if we talked about billable hours, at a measly say $30 per machine hour.. The job using one piece of software or at least having the ability to increase the job speed costs money - more importantly my patience and time. I really do not need to nurse a job for a full 8 hour day when its not needed. At $30 per machine hour count my yawning having a drink reading whats going on in the world and the odd google search I bill for say 3.5 hours. Job cost is $105 I make money person on the receiving end of the bill isn't too bent out of shape either. Conversely at 6.4 hours no yawning time added or google time its $192 machine time - no profit and the person on the other end isn't a happy chappy either.
The type of work I do is not brain surgery its really simple Simon stuff come up with a design that fits, make it look good put some effort in and done. The metal workers I have great admiration for - must be within .0005 a piston in a sleeve can't rub round means round I can understand things being tight. I don't need that - I need a horse that when I stick the boot in - it takes off starts to run and I'm ok with it trying to shake me off and running a little wild
.
I have increased and decreased plunge rate and according to Balazs that has no affect on UCCNC at all so moot point there.
How do I get UCCNC to be more a stallion than a lazer beam?
Have a look at my last job like I said not brain surgery simple stuff another rescued piece of timber Red Gum changed from one of those stupid clocks with plastic numbers stuck on the face to a Different stupid clock with some semi naked mermaids and no plastic numbers.
Cheers and thanks to everyone taking time out of their day to put up with my posts, if I'm not being clear enough in what I'm trying to convey please feel free to tell me to pull my head in and breath. I do not mind being told no its impossible to do with X software because.......
Steve
This job did not have to take nearly 7 hours to do from start to finish, remember no roughing straight to final pass.
I'm sure that I'm not the only person to have experienced this but it seems to be obvious that I'm in the dumb and dumber class because I just can not resolve it. If anyone has been there before and knows the way out show mercy and put this old dog to rest.