Bug VS Feature

Mach 3 Power feed. There are actually to power feed wizards with Mach 3, but they look funny to setup, and I just have not figured them out yet. I discovered quite by accident a bug with Mach 3. If you are manually jogging the feed and you open another window it continues to move in the same direction even after you remove your fingers from the feed buttons.

Today I did that on purpose. I'm making a table level vise. (jaws attach directly to the table and the table is the bed of the vise) The material I am squaring to use really likes a slow feedrate and I was getting incredibly bored so I would start a cut, hit the windows start button, and then let off the jog/feed buttons on the keyboard. While it would make its pass I have been putting away an accumulation of tools that have piled up on my work cart, sweeping up stuff, and even polished a piece by chucking up a diamond polish rotary bit in the lathe. When the cutter stops making noise I just walk over and set for the next pass. You have to click back on the Mach 3 window and hit a feed key momentarily to stop the feed.

I am sure it was not intended to work that way, but it's sure works well as a quick and dirty power feed.

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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Sounds like it would be better and safer to write a few lines of G code to make the proper length passes, with appropriate clearance and return moves between passes.

Reply to
Pete C.

And sometimes you just want an old fashion power feed.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

It's called MDI - enter a single G code command, like G1 X5 F10 and it does it.

Reply to
Pete C.

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