Feb 26, 2007 - (cnc robotics by Geoff Wiliams) It seems pretty straight forward so far, and I went to the KCam site to see what they had to offer. Looks like they. Jul 10, 2010 - KCam Router/Mill software is designed to run low cost hobby CNC equipment. Program your paths using the built in Gcode editor, or import.
Give TurboCNC a try you'll be impressed with how much smoother the steppers run. Even at 12V it'll be better. Your rapids won't be much better. (They will be better by an inch or two per minute, maybe more.) Even with 24v and KCam you'll not be able to touch what it'll do with TurboCNC.
When I tried KCAM the motors sounded awful and had very non smooth motion and seemed to loose steps very easy even when operating at slow speeds. If I get a few minutes I'll fire up the Kcam demo again and do a direct comparison between it and TurboCNC. Haven't done that in a while. There are things you have to do to get speed out of kcam. One thing to remember,0 support from kcam just like he says when you buy his software. It took me about a month to figure out how to get 40'/ pr min with the same electronic set up i had when i was getting 5'/min.
The thing is i had to build a new machine my third one, but it was well worth the pain and suffering. I got very lucky because all my parts were free. About $10,000 worth of mechanical parts. I found 3 gear boxes 10/1 that fit right on my stepperworld 50oz stepper motors. I then set up my motors to a rack and pinion system. The tourqe i'am getting is crazy.
I had to set the kcam tablesetup to 4000 pulses to get 1 inch/pr mn. Now i have the kcam tablesetup to 509 pulses and i get 40'/ pr mn. The speed is 8 times faster the tourqe is crazy. Still have to test the tourqe with a meter. Will test this when i get back from EAA.
You also have to set your system time constant to 4000. Make sure you leave the rest of the kcam table settings at 5' /pr mn. Your desired feed rate should still be set at 5'/pr mn. I have to investagate why this works iam still not sure how.
O by the way i did not change anything on my plot window and that plots out just as fast as my machine cuts. There are things you have to do to get speed out of kcam. One thing to remember,0 support from kcam just like he says when you buy his software. It took me about a month to figure out how to get 40'/ pr min with the same electronic set up i had when i was getting 5'/min. The thing is i had to build a new machine my third one, but it was well worth the pain and suffering. I got very lucky because all my parts were free.
About $10,000 worth of mechanical parts. I found 3 gear boxes 10/1 that fit right on my stepperworld 50oz stepper motors. I then set up my motors to a rack and pinion system. The tourqe i'am getting is crazy.
I had to set the kcam tablesetup to 4000 pulses to get 1 inch/pr mn. I believe that is 4000 steps per inch, not inches per minute Now i have the kcam tablesetup to 509 pulses and i get 40'/ pr mn. 509 pulses to get 40' per minute, hard to believe especially with a 10/1 gear box, what size gear are you using on your rackmust be around 3' (steps per revolution x 10 x revolutions per inch = steps per inch.) not inches per minute. The speed is 8 times faster the tourqe is crazy. Still have to test the tourqe with a meter. Will test this when i get back from EAA. You also have to set your system time constant to 4000.
Make sure you leave the rest of the kcam table settings at 5' /pr mn. Your desired feed rate should still be set at 5'/pr mn. I have to investagate why this works iam still not sure how.
O by the way i did not change anything on my plot window and that plots out just as fast as my machine cuts. As for table setup inches per minute is the max your table can handle without loosing steps minus safety factor of say 5%. It just doesn't add up? You know I took some time to make sense of all that and by the time I was done I didn't care anymore! Plus I was wrong it does add up! When given how close my calculations were a few variables could cause the varience. About 120 RPM motor at 5 volts 10 to 1 gear box now = 12 RPM turn 12 revolutions into 40 inches 1: 3.3 for every 1 revolution the motor makes it moves 3.3 inches 200 step per revolution motor 10 to 1 gear box= 2000 steps per revolution 3.3 inches per motor revolution 2000 divided by 3.3 = 606 pulses per inch Please tell me this is correct!
There is really only one MAIN way to speed up ANY windows based cnc controller program. And that is to use a pic controller of some type.
Ether pic or atmel etc. Because you'll never get 100% direct access to the par port. But you can blast a bunch of moves into a pic controller and it will take it from there. Other wise trust me turbocnc works GREAT!
Though I'm not fond of the latest version 4.0 3.1 works SOOOO much better. But 4.0 does have a lot more support. 4.0 is just so $#%@$# buggy its not even funny One of the things I've found I HAVE to watch for is that the pulsewidth keeps changing which anoys me greatly because the motors stop working well at any thing over 2 for pulsewidth! Its like you have to setup a few small settings EVERY time you start the propgram. I have been using KCam on a little home built CNC sence 2002. I started with Ver3 and moved up to Ver4. I run it on an XP computer.
![Kcam Kcam](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125485804/525440369.png)
Course its has a 2 gig processer in it and it works fine. I really like KCam.
Newest Ver Changes per KCam: '. Version 4.0.16. Added Speed Overide Throttle for MaxStepper(Does not work in Parallel Port mode) made small changes in parallel mode Get Timing Constant function. Added Keyboard Jog quick speed adjust (Feed Rate Toggle) with settings at 1/1(normal), 1/2, and 1/10 speed.' I would assume that would make it run smoother. I have downloaded it but have not tried it yet. I ran TurboCNC 4 on my other home built and had all sorts of move problems.
Dropped back to ver 3.1 and it worked fine. But very 'DOS'. I like the windows gui that KCam has. It is simple and clean. Hey all, I have found Kcam to be the easiest and most user friendly program to get started with. There are definately things to do to optimize the system, but as a previous post says this is more a Windows thing than any Kcam problem. I like the fact that a 4th axis has now also been added as well, and that you get a nice little plot window, and you can also edit the code directly in the program.
I think the most important thing is to spend time optimizing the hardware. Eg: I have a stand alone computer purely for CNC, and have removed all unneccessary programs, optimizing the machine (eg: correct power supplies and ratings for motors etc), then minimizing various parts of KCam, plot update etc, and correct setting in the table setup. All simple stuff I know but I wonder how many people have given up on programs, not because of the program itself but ignorance!
Just my 2 cents, now where is my change????? I have kcam4.0.16.can anyone tell me if this kcam software can support windows XP or not???thaNK YOU. Yes I run kcam in the office on windos xp I draw with acad dxf to kcam then save the g cods to a memory stick and transfer it to the work shop on to a windos 98 166 processor the computer is 15 years old and with my home built cnc it cuts about 1m 1 minute hers sum projects as for the accuracy I draw a circle 20mm dxf ot kcam set up the tool offset to 1.5 for a 3mm cuter and the set the steps until it cut a nice fit kitsewaviation.com.
Have you done a system timing from the setup menu you must set it so you have 0 freed rate errors if not it may be your step settings 1/8 1/4 1/2 I was trying to get time constant, but I always have some feed rate errors. They were close to 0, but newer 'pure zero'. I use UHU servo controller, it is built for 3 axis, but now I have only one connected to my machine ( Z - axis). I´m trying to run this simple G-code (just to move up and down): G00 Z0 G00 Z40 G01 Z35 G00 Z0 G00 Z50 G00 Z0 For G01 I have speed 40mm/min, for G00 I should have 200mm/min. Interesting is, that only movement in the last step (G00 Z0) is with proper speed, all other movements looks like G01.
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My OS is Windows 2000.