Messages

341

General Mach Discussion / Re: Clearpath Servos are enabled, but wont move in Mach3

« on: April 18, 2022, 07:39:39 AM »

Newfangled solutions website

342

General Mach Discussion / Re: Clearpath Servos are enabled, but wont move in Mach3

« on: April 18, 2022, 07:39:12 AM »

Have you got the Mach3 manual?

343

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Z Probe not working correctly

« on: April 18, 2022, 02:34:46 AM »

G53 Z0  drives to the origin in machine coordinates IIRC.  Is that where Z0 is homed to?

344

General Mach Discussion / Re: emergency mode active wont reset

« on: April 17, 2022, 05:03:26 AM »

Have you tried going into the Spindle Setup tab in Ports & Pins and checking the "Use Spindle Motor Output" box in the Motor Control panel?

What type of machine do you have and what type of motor is on the spindle drive?  Are you supposed to be able to control the motor speed from Mach 3?  If so you may also need to set up the PWM parameters.  Do you have a copy of the Mach 3 manual??  If not then download one from the Newfangled Solutions website.

345

General Mach Discussion / Re: New Download

« on: April 16, 2022, 12:54:01 PM »

Well, I use the UC100 from CNCDrive.  This uses a USB connection but it works fine for me on both a lathe and a mill on WIN10.  You can download the required Mach3 plugin from their website http://cncdrive.com/ .  There are various clones of this device from China - make sure you get a genuine one and the genuine plugin.  You can also get controllers which use an Ethernet interface and many here recommend these over USB but I think USB works fine if you don't need a lot of I/O and don't have a lot of electrical noise around your workshop, and you aren't going to be running the axes very fast  The UC100 is limited to a maximum step pulse rate of 100 kHz.

346

General Mach Discussion / Re: New Download

« on: April 16, 2022, 05:13:14 AM »

There is only one parallel port legacy plugin, the one that's bundled into Mach3 when you download it.  Your laptop doesn't have a parallel port and Mach 3 parallel port wont work with Win11 or 64 bit anyway.  What PC and OS is coming?  Win 10 certanly supports M3 fine but with a USB or Ethernet motion controller so I guess Win11 will too.

347

General Mach Discussion / Re: emergency mode active wont reset

« on: April 15, 2022, 04:40:59 PM »

You're getting there!

348

General Mach Discussion / Re: emergency mode active wont reset

« on: April 15, 2022, 01:32:49 PM »

"They sent me the mach 3 file via email.
I installed it and did the ports and pins according to the manual they also sent."
- did they also provide a license?

"The laptop is not connected to the machine.  It uses a usb cable.
I checked the pins and ports and changed them to all suggestions online."
- if you already set them according to the manual why did you change them, and where did these suggestions come from?

U suspect that your problem may be that having set up ports and pins, it is thinking that EStop should be connected to something but it isn't and this is overriding the on-screen button.  Usually you should have a physical Estop button on the machine.  So if you connect to the machine it may work; or you can look for the Estop line in Ports&Pins/Input Signals and change the green tick in the enabled column to a cross.

349

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 / Win 10 / touch screen

« on: April 14, 2022, 02:19:45 AM »

Thanks Craig - as I read your answer on my laptop I realised that of course I can run M3 in simulation mode on this machine!  So I opened it and indeed the on-screen buttons work just as they should (at least the small number I tried).  So it should work if I had a touch-screen monitor in the shop too.  I wouldn't mind editing the buttons, I've done that for other purposes anyway.

What I find tedious is using the trackpad with my finger to move a cursor on a screen to a button then tapping the trackpad or left mouse button to "push" the onscreen button.  Would a trackball be better? - I'm not sure.  Ideal would be a physical control panel with real buttons!

350

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 / Win 10 / touch screen

« on: April 13, 2022, 08:13:43 AM »

Just seeking a bit of advice - I recently upgraded my Mach 3 installation to a Win10 mini-PC with UC100 motion controllers and wireless combo keyboard rather than mouse.  Though it saves space and wires on the bench I find that "pressing buttons" on the screen using the trackpad is less than optimum.  Anyway, phones and tablets have got me used to touch screens and I'd like to change the monitor (which is looking old anyway) to one that supports touch screen operation. 

Is this a just matter of adding the appropriate DLLs etc to the OS and the hardware, or do I need to change anything in the Mach installation or use a different screen set please?  And what would be the minimum size monitor to get?

All advice and suggestions gratefully received!