Messages

771

General Mach Discussion / Re: Smooth Stepper reset

« on: August 23, 2009, 10:25:55 AM »

Is all that info that you just mentioned included in the smoothstepper instructions or something like that something "everyone" should already know?

There is a note somewhere in the docs about it. It is a reset for the flash memory, it clears the flash memory. You have to have the reset shorted when powering on to make it work. As I mentioned you should never need to use it. Usually memory resets like that are intended to rescue a unit (any device with flash memory) that has locked itself into an unknown state.

I would think if noise was enough to stop the unit, there would be some sort of filter built into the line itself on the smoothstepper?

The problem is noise induced on the USB cable.  The way USB hubs work is that they will give up if they see too much noise. While the SS does have some noise filtering built into it, as does your PC, when building a machine you have to try to minimize the noise from outside sources as much as possible. To do that you need to filter the noise as close to the source as possible, hence I mounted my line filter for the Taig spindle motor in spindle switch box (used a larger box.)

772

General Mach Discussion / Re: gCode I & J

« on: August 23, 2009, 09:29:40 AM »

Can you please explain what you found? Very often other folks will search old messages when they have a similar question and your findings may be a valuable resource for them.

773

General Mach Discussion / Re: Smooth Stepper reset

« on: August 23, 2009, 09:28:09 AM »

The reset is for forcing the flash memory to clear. You should never actually have to use it though.

When you have to unplug the SS and restart mach to get things going again it is a clear sign that you are picking up noise on the USB cable. After the USB hub in your computer gets tired of trying to work through all the noise it will shut down. As another poster said, a similar problem can come from some USB 1.1 ports being flaky, I have one of those PCs my self, the PIC USB card has kept it going for years though.

Make sure your USB cable is as short as possible and is not routed along with noisy lines like your stepper leads, or AC lines. Other things in your machine can cause a lot of electrical noise too, like the spindle motor. I  have found on Taigs that if you get the spindle power power arranged just right alongside the USB cable it will cause problems. I mounted a line filter up by the motor to solve the problem (and made the line filter kit available through my website).

774

General Mach Discussion / Re: Programming in Mach3

« on: August 20, 2009, 03:22:10 PM »

Take a look at the video tutorials. They are a good way to get a basic understanding of the various aspects of mach. The new mach manunal is also a good read.

775

General Mach Discussion / Re: pokey55

« on: August 19, 2009, 11:12:45 AM »

Just like Hood said, the SmoothStepper is made to provide to emulate two parallel ports, driving up to six axis. There is also some additional I/O for encoders and the like. The PoKeys 55 provides a lot of I/O and functionality for doing things like running LCD displays, keyboard emulation and driving I/O that is not time critical like operator console button, relays, etc.                                                                           

776

SmoothStepper USB / Re: SS and spindle motor control

« on: August 18, 2009, 04:28:19 PM »

So you have a PWM controlled spindle?

777

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Smooth Stepper Times Out.

« on: August 18, 2009, 09:07:31 AM »

I've not seen the exact behavior your describing. It could be that the SS is picking up noise from the machine. Is the spindle motor powered when you have this problem? I have had some PC's that had issues with the built in USB ports being flaky with any device that had high data rates like hard drives, flash drives, etc. My shop PC is one old one that I have had the problem with. I have an add-on PCI USB 2.0 card that I bought years ago for it that solved the problem. I'll be interested to see what you find with the new PC.

Oh! Don't forget to turn off the power savings stuff for your USB stuff. Go into device manager and right click on each USB port/hub and if you see a 'Power' tab uncheck the box that lets Windows power it down.

778

SmoothStepper USB / Re: SS and spindle motor control

« on: August 17, 2009, 11:22:11 PM »

When you say 'manually' what do you mean? Your can click on the 'Spindle' on button or hit 'F5' and you can turn it on/off? In the SS configuration how do you have the Spindle set up (Relay/none) how is your spindle configured in the Ports&Pins 'Spindle' Tab?

779

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Smooth Stepper Times Out.

« on: August 17, 2009, 11:14:39 PM »

How do you have the SmoothStepper configured? What are the axis and velocity update frequencies?

780

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Does it reduce CPU load ?

« on: August 15, 2009, 10:23:46 AM »

Only one real major PITA issue I am having with it is any G00 move will only go at 90mm/min,

I have yet to hear of anyone else having this problem. I certainly have not seen it in any of the SmoothSteppers I have used/sold over the past year or so. The same code runs with no modifications with the LPT or SS. I have my shop machine set up run either LPT or SS. It is an old 1.5 gHz AMD machine so I should be able to see some difference in processor load.