Getting started with CNC and Mach3 (The first steps Video Two)

okay now a couple of things about mach3 mach3 it's been around since about just before 2000 so it's well established and it works very very well uh there is a new program out called mac 4 um but you can only use that on one computer although it will work on a now that particular one will work on a windows 10 and i will uh this year later this year be moving um having one of my machines operating on mac 4 as well but this is the cheaper brother then and well established and it works very well so it may look complex but it's really not when you get a bit of a handle on it it's really really easy to use now this red reset button flash in here nothing you know you can press the incidentally what i was doing there was using the number pad and like the eight and the two that's y-axis back and forward uh the four and the six as the x-axis that runs left to right and the nine and the three or up and down page up and down that will raise the head the z axes up and down it won't do anything at all until that stops flashing so to get that stop flashing we press reset so now it's live mach 3 now is talking to the machine as it were so if you press a button [Music] see it's going back forward side side up we want to go up a little bit because we want to put a tool in okay um so that's how to manually move the machine and that technically is called joe gibb all right i don't know why they call it jogging but that is the word for that process of moving the machine around okay called jogging so having showed you how to jog i'm going to show you how to change gear let's change speed now in mach 3 has an a sort of an electronical computer generated one of these this is an mpg i don't just about see it up there this is what they call a mpg is a manual pulse generator turn this wheel and it'll move this okay and you've got to select a knob on it as well and also digital readout that tells you i'll fetch you down and show you it's got digital readers on it as well you don't have to have one of these there is one built into mach3 there to get at it what you do is you press the tab key on your keyboard and there it is okay now to change speed of the jog setting all right you come here to this little window here now you can either press these little arrows see it going up in a percentage term there's 40 now if you remember how quickly it moved before i use the here's the the z oh sorry so here's the the x much faster isn't it okay so that's how to change that but i would suggest you you run quite slowly until you get used to it because you could bash up against something or snap a tool off very easy i've done it quite a few times okay so we'll come back down to ten percent there are ten percent jog it's set then nice and slow and easy because we're going to set now uh the start of that job okay the the work offset or the g54 or the zero zero of the work that's just another technical name for it the zero zero or just the zero okay so i'm going to put a tool in i'm going to put this nice sharp tool and but first of all i want to show you how to get rid of that now just press tab key again um actually what i'm going to do so what i'm going to do is i'm going to load in the file first so i brought you in a little closer now to the max 3 screen and i'm going to show you how to load a g code i should actually show you what a g code is in mach3 so you come here to where it says file open that load gcode and it's found the file is our file there and come over hover over it and double click and there it is in and this is actually g-card you really do not have to understand it but if you're interested just to cut that hole this is the g-coat to cut that hole it's all coordinates many many many many lines of code all the way down to the bottom where it is so all the way back at the top again so that is the amended g-code required just to cut that hole out so now we're going to tell mach3 exactly where the start of that job is or where the middle of that material is okay so there's the end of our tool it's a very sharp tool and there's our cross in the material and that's where i want to start this job in the middle of the material so i'm just going to jog it around until i get this point in line with that cross there so just use the keypad to do that down a bit just a little bit like you notice i just scratched it there because i was too far down that looks pretty on the back for me so i'm going to show you i what i'm going to do now is i'm going to zero the x and y we're going to swap this tool out and put a different tool in but for the x and y we we need to to zero this now and i'll show you how to do that okay this incidentally is the dros or digital readouts this is the x y and z and that's for the fourth axis which is not fitted to this machine so we are going to tell mach3 the zero position of the x and y which is simply you just come over the x button here and go x zero y zero so we've just zeroed the x and y so now i'm just going to swap the two let's put this one in and we'll find the end of this tool in relation to the material [Music] so the simplest method to find the end of that tool in relation to the materials just get a piece of ordinary paper there's a piece of a4 that i've just taken taken off the end and bring it down slowly and just move the paper [Music] i'm actually using the here it's just grabbed it there so now i can safely say that tool is just scraping or just on the top of that material so we can set the zero in the zed so now we come here to the z and press zero so now we have set the 0.4 that piece of work now it is always a good practice to come over here to the regen area press that and what mark 3 does it runs through the code and checks itself out to see exactly where it is and you can see that the crosshairs here is actually in the in the center of our piece of work which is just represented on this graph here so now i'm going to lift up the tool and you can see the dro is operating here that's telling me i'm 12 30 40 15 millimeter above the material nearly 16 millimeter and if i show you down there you can see that it is so so i'm now going to make sure all the doors are shut this is going to spray um coolant around a little bit and we will set this cutting and i'll give you the best view i can incidentally all i'm going to do is put the cursor over here and press cycle start and off it'll go so what i'm going to do is turn my coolant on and make sure that it is going to be pointed [Music] roughly at the end of that tool because as it's spinning it's going to cool it get on there there you go it's going to cool it and also wash away the the swarf so it's not going to gum up the end of the tool that's about perfect there so we'll start it up and shut this [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so and there is a perfectly cut out circle claim perfect circle bit damp but it's just left a little tiny tag there but as you can see perfect so we'll just check the dimensions of that you read that it is perfectly 55 millimeters you know plus or minus a thousandth of an inch perfect okay so having machined this out and i've showed you how to make the tool paths in calf co in this case capcom maker plus um and what a simple affair it is to make the pass to cut a circle in brass now you will notice on my home page that i think about four videos back i did a full million hour i think video in kafka make a plus of how to make the design that i'm going to carve into this a 3d relief into this medallion and it is exactly how a jeweler would do it not to make a stamp or a coin what the hell the mint would do it is exactly how it occurs and how make the tool paths in that this is going to be mounted in a piece of wood and it's going to be set in here all right the piece of wood's going to be set on here and this is a very robust cnc router 400 by 400 by 125 that's the work envelope and i designed and made this and again all the plans and the pats listing and where i bought them and how much i paid including that what's called an offline controller so you don't need a computer that does it all that is a computer in that and it operates exactly the same as mac 3 or mac 4. and as it works out about half the price um so all plans all packs and the pricing to make this simply made with uh you know say you know i just use a drop saw and i used a cordless drill and a very simple uh drill press okay very cheap very simple drill press you can normally pick up for about a hundred dollars and you can make this for yourself this whole build was less than one thousand dollars including the 800 watt spindle motor and power supply for it everything all that information and the plans are available to you on my patreon pages so until the next video thank you for joining me please press like and subscribe and if you would like to become a patron to this channel because it is the patrons behind this channel that actually allow me to do things like this and bring them to you and teach you how to use them so thank you for joining me miss bye for now [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Roger Webb

Views: 7,603

Keywords: CNC, Router, Lathe, SMC5-5-N-N, offline, controller, DIY, Bob Ross, Art, Roger, Clyde, Webb, 3018, mill, milling, Laser, MIDI, Carveco, Maker, Maker +, ArtCAM, CAD, CAM, Autodesk, Fusion 360, Mach 3, Mach 4, 6012, 6090, 6040, 3040, Vectric Aspire, VCarve Pro, Avid, 2000 year old, pen, CNC Benchtop, parts, PRO, machine, kits, Grbl, software, Easel, Arduino, budget, 100, 300, 500, watt, Build, Wood-turning, Workshop, Wood, shop, turning, tools, bowl, Harbour freight, grizzly, X2, Sieg, NC Studio, Make, Benchtop, America, USA, UK, Vbit, carving

Id: dVsX-WxrV4Q

Length: 21min 26sec (1286 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021