Hi guys,
I happend again, it lost it's location after I brought down the acceleration and velocity. It ran two programs fine and the last more detailed program it messed up on, the cutter path that I was running was very large I don't know if that has anything to do with it, it took about 3 minutes to load into Mach. 

Also my computer has been acting weird lately, I had it crash twice using while using Mach, it just froze up it only made the beep sound when I clicked on things but nothing responded.  The only way that I could do anything was to hit the reset button on the computer, Cltr+Alt+Del didn't even work.  Also when I started Mach and cleared the reset button the machine took off with out me moving it or commanding it to do so, I hit ESC and it stopped and ran normal after.

I also notice that the machine did another weird thing, I moved the machine manually and it sounded normal and then the motor slowed down and the tone of the motor dropped to a low rumble and didn't move any more even while I held the jog feed button down.

Here is a question for you Mach guru's . 
In the Mach manual chapter 4.4.2 Logic signals part way through it says:
"For an output signal to do anything, some current will have to flow in the circuit connected to it.  When it is "hi" current will flow out of the computer.  When it is "lo" current will flow into the computer.  The more current you have flowing in, the harder it is to keep the voltage near zero so the nearer to the permitted limit of 0.8 volts "lo" will become.  Similarly, current flowing out of a "hi" will make the voltages be lower and nearer to the 2.4 volts lower limit.  So with too much current the difference between "lo" and "hi" will be even less than 1.6 volts and things will become unreliable.  Finally, it's worth noting you are allowed roughly 20 times more current flowing into a ""lo" than you are allowed flowing out of a "hi".  So this means that it is best to assign logic 1 to be a "lo" signal.  Fairly obviously this is a active lo logic. The main practical disavantage of it is that the device connected to the parallel port has to have a 5 volt supply to it. this sometimes  take from the PC game port socket or from a power supply device that is connected."

Is it possible that this could have something to do with my problem? What if my USB that gives my machine it's 5 volts is not giving it 5 volts could that cause my machine to loose steps?

Thanks,
Greg

Hi Greg,
    This could, make sure you have 5 volts on all of your pins. Some Pcs have a 3.5 volt power supply. What was your accel and vel set at in motor tuning before and now?

Just a thought,
Greg are you using the on-board video output??  This can cause interrupts in Mach3's pulse outputs,,even an old 8meg  will operate for MAch3.
 
have you "optimised" XP for Mach3 ?? I am surprised no one asked these questions yet
  good luck
Carl

 

Hi,
No I haven't optimised XP for Mach3. How do you do that?
I have a Rage 128 Pro Ultra GL AGP on my computer.
I will let you know about the 5 volts on the USB in a bit when I check it, I just got home.
Thanks,
Greg

Hi,
When I put my multimeter on the USB connection it gets 1.28 volts, it should get 5 volts what should I do? It's AC right? If I wanted to buy a 5 volt power supply what should I buy? What would be the value of the Amps or Milliamps?
Greg

Greg,
The USB power is 5 volts DC.
Thanks.
Bill

Hi, Greg

USB has very limited current though, probably your problem I Hope. 

A 5 Volt 500 Ma, Wall plug-in type should work fine, install a 5 volt Regulator ( RadioShack has them looks like a Transistor 3 pin + - 5 volt).

Should be pretty straight forward install.

Hope this is enough Info if you need more Holler.

Hope this is It Hu, Chip 

Hi,
I couldn't find a 5volt power supply with the proper Ma, but I did find a 4.5 volt 500 Ma adapter. Is that good enough? I find the hot wire and run it to the same place that the USB wire ran to and then run the other wire to ground?
Thanks,
Greg

Greg, Measure the no-load voltage of the converter (not connected to anything) You will see that it is probably around 6 volts. If this is The case then it should work just fine
Thanks.
Bill

If your computer is near to your control box you can take a 5V direct from the computers power supply,eg from a spare floppy drive connector. It is the red wire that is 5V, the yellow is 12V. Some of the better power supplies actually have a connector on the outside of them for taking power for things like external fans.
Hood