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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    82

    circle cuts becomes ellipses??

    When I circles program my DIY CNC (Mach 3, open table/moving gantry), they turn out to be ellipse; longer towards the top-left and bottom-right sides of the circle. It still does this even when I turn the speed way down, so I don't think it's missing steps.

    I tried messing with the bottom legs (X axis), moving one of them more forward or backwards, more/less angled towards each other, etc. But no matter what it's still cuts ellipses instead of perfect circles.

    Any ideas what it can be specifically? I'm guessing one of my alignments on the table is off??? Anyway I can fix this through the software in Mach3?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    94
    It sounds like the orthogonality between your X axis and Y axis is off. I.e. they're not exactly 90 degrees to each other.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Posts
    1865
    Try cutting a square and then checking the diagonals. a perfect square would have identical diagonals. also measure across oppostite faces. If the across the opposite faces you get the same dimensions, your are cutting a parallelagram and it is not the mach3 program or g-code, it would be that the x and y are not exactly 90 degrees from each other. Cut the largest square that you can comfortably measure, errors are easier to detect with a bigger object.
    even if you could fix this in software, which I doubt, the machine should be set as close as possible to perfect, this way the software can worry about the cutting and not have to do other things at the same time.
    Warning: DIY CNC may cause extreme hair loss due to you pulling your hair out.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Posts
    35538
    Could be your steps/unit is off on one axis. A picture would be helpful.
    Gerry

    UCCNC 2017 Screenset
    http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2017.html

    Mach3 2010 Screenset
    http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

    JointCAM - CNC Dovetails & Box Joints
    http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html

    (Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)

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