Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: krymis on January 14, 2010, 08:23:53 AM
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Is there any solid solutions for interfacing USB instead of parallel ports to Mach? I ask as I am finding more and more usb and less and less parallel ports. If there is not a solid solution to that is there a way to create a stand alone parallel port box to work with a usb computer? I used the SIIG II B5 5 volt double parallel port card and would like to have a laptop hook up.
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Sounds like you need a SmoothStepper: http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx (shameless plug :) )
It will give you 2+ parallel ports worth of I/O and it is integrated very nicely with Mach. It replicates about 98% of Mach's parallel port driver functionality. Backlash compensation is not available yet but Warp9 is in the process of adding it.
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looked at that route but have not been able to find anyone using any type of usb product that had anything good to say about them. I no personal experience.
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You didn't look very hard then. There's a ton of people here using Smoothsteppers, most of which are quite happy.
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looked at that route but have not been able to find anyone using any type of usb product that had anything good to say about them. I no personal experience.
I think you will find that 99% or possibly even more of the users of the SmoothStepper are extremely happy with them. I have 4 machines from a small coil winder to a 3000kg lathe all using the SmoothStepper.
Hood
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Every one of my STDR-4C drives has shipped with a SmoothStepper in it. I've also sold lots of them for use on all sorts of machines. As with any other piece of technology you have to know what the limitations are and if it is a good fit for your machine and intended use.
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The SS is about the best option out there for USB and Mach that i know of. Has a few limitations like Jeff mentioned.
RICH
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I'm one of the people who have purchased a SS from Jeff Birt and have been using it now for about two months with no problems. I'm running Visa OS & Mach3, so no idea about other controller software.
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wow...thanks for the input. What are some of the limitations? I am looking for something to run my minimills, minilathes, Industrial Hobbies mill, and 12x36 grizzly lathe.
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The two big issues (limitations) at this point are backlash compensation and plasma torch height control. I have heard of a few folks who have taken advantage of some of the unintended quirks of how the parallel port driver works (something about swapping Ports&Pins definitions while operating the machine.) For 99.9% of folks the SmoothStepper does all they would ever want it to.
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The thing Jeff is referring towhen he says
unintended quirks of how the parallel port driver works (something about swapping Ports&Pins definitions while operating the machine.)
is SwapAxis. Its not an unintended quirk of the PP, it was intentional and is very handy and hopefully will be included in the SS at some point in time. What SwapAxis allows you to do is tell Mach to for instance swap the spindle axis to an A axis, this is extremely handy if you have a lathe or mill with a servo motor spindle as it means you can tell Mach that the spindle is now a true axis and do such things as rigid tapping.
I think the quirk in the PP that Jeff is thinking about is that you can set the same pins for more than one axis and some people use this in a similar manner by enabling or disabling one of the axis, this holds the risk of you forgetting you have both axis enabled and getting both running at the same time so really its not a good idea and yo should be using SwapAxis instead. The SS will not allow you to set the same pins up for two axis which is in my opinion a very good idea.
Hood
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Yeah, that was it hood! It was the manually swapping Ports&Pins about whilst running the machine I thought was goofy; SwapAxis() is there for that. I know some folks can make use of SwapAxis and multiple assignments of the same output pins for different axis, but 99.9% don't.
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As much as I like my Smoothstepper and will continue to use it, there are still a lot of "quirks" to the firmware. I'm not trying to cast stones here, but it is simply not a complete product as far as the software goes. I could give a toss about backlash comp, although that is currently not complete. My main issue is things like when I hit STOP, even after hitting a FEED HOLD and letting the machine come to a stop, I get an awesome pop up that says the SS ran out of data during a move, and has to be restarted, saying that "hopefully this will be handled better in the future". Mach now has to be restarted and I need to redo my offsets. I'm sure there are other surprises to find out as well.
Again, I like mine, and I'll continue to use it. The developer still says it's in beta, so it's not like I feel mislead. I just think that people who are considering it should understand that it isn't all roses just yet.
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I just noticed an add in Digital Machinist, by Eckler Software, usb to pp dongle to convert a PP cnc controller to
a USB cnc controller. Know nothing about it or even looked into it.
RICH
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I get an awesome pop up that says the SS ran out of data during a move, and has to be restarted, saying that "hopefully this will be handled better in the future".
There is a newer version on the warp9 site that does indeed handle it better.
I did make a forum post about it, you must have missed it.
Phil
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I get an awesome pop up that says the SS ran out of data during a move, and has to be restarted, saying that "hopefully this will be handled better in the future".
There is a newer version on the warp9 site that does indeed handle it better.
I did make a forum post about it, you must have missed it.
Phil
I downloaded the latest release in November after it came out. Although I see a note about OGX2 there now, I can't remember if I got it before or after that.
Even if that is fixed (and it sure would be nice, it's silly not to have a STOP option) that doesn't change my point one bit. The software is not complete, and people need to understand that. If they expect this to perform completely reliably it isn't there yet. It's not insulting or derogatory in any way, just a statement of fact that may or may not be important to your individual use. I look forward to the day it's out of beta, and I would, and will buy more of them for other projects.
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I just noticed an add in Digital Machinist, by Eckler Software, usb to pp dongle to convert a PP cnc controller to
a USB cnc controller. Know nothing about it or even looked into it.
RICH
Just looked, and that's not what it does. It connects to a PC via USB, and has a parallel port for the motor connections. It must be used with their own software, based on EMC, but very stripped down. Appears to run in Windows, Linux, and Mac's. Source code available.
http://www.ecklersoft.com/
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I downloaded the latest release in November after it came out. Although I see a note about OGX2 there now, I can't remember if I got it before or after that.
Even if that is fixed (and it sure would be nice, it's silly not to have a STOP option)
Koko did you not understand what i said, the stop thing is fixed in OG2X
Phil
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I read and understand very well thank you. As it so happens that IS the version of the software I am using, and although it may be fixed for you, it is NOT FIXED for me. I will try and re-download the plugin in and re-install it to see if that makes a difference.
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koko, have a look in the plugins folder to see the version you are using because if you look from the plugin menu in Mach it will show up as OGX even though you may have OGX2.
Hood
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Koko you will find what version you are using by clicking on PLUGIN CONTROL
As Hood says it may be in your plugin folder but it has to be enabled.
You can do this click FUNCTION CFG'S then reset DEVICE SELECT
Then restart Mach and choose the new plugin then it WILL BE FIXED FOR YOU as well ;D ;D ;D
Phil
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Just for reference:
I just looked in my computer and see that I have the ZIP file: SmoothStepperUSBDriver 2.06.00 saved 12/11/09
I went to Mach3 ==> PlugIn Control and it shows up as: SmoothStepper Beta2 Ver 0.015ogx Config
My board is Ver 1.2
I use a keyboard emulator Pendant and the Start/Pause and Stop work as normal.
Hope this helps.
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Phil, maybe it is just my setup but I think you will find if you look in plugins control that it is listed as OGX rather than OGX2, seems Greg forgot to update that for this particular revision, probably due to it being rushed out.
Hood
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Koko you will find what version you are using by clicking on PLUGIN CONTROL
As Hood says it may be in your plugin folder but it has to be enabled.
You can do this click FUNCTION CFG'S then reset DEVICE SELECT
Then restart Mach and choose the new plugin then it WILL BE FIXED FOR YOU as well ;D ;D ;D
Phil
Yeah, it's enabled. It was the only one ever installed, it's the version you say, and NO, IT IS NOT FIXED. You'd expect the same thing for everyone, but in this case it is not.
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Hood koKo i have just looked it is called 0.015.OGX the previous version was called 0.015OGB if memory serves me correct.
But in the plugins folder it has the 2 on the end IE ver 0150gx2.dll
KoKo if you hit STOP which is as good as an as E Stop you must re reference anyway.
Phil
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I'm still working with Mach3 v3.042.02, and the v015ogb plug-in, both almost a year old. With the current versions, my spindle takes 15-20 seconds to ramp up to speed. This appeared, at first, to be a problem with my SS hardware, but I now have three different SS board, and they all behave the same. I do still find the SS far preferable to the PP, but I do wish we could get these last few bugs out of it....
Regards,
Ray L.
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Ray are you meaning that with the new plugin it takes longer to spin up?
Hood
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HimyKabibble my spindle via VFD takes 1 second, in actual fact i had to put a 2 second delay in Mach before i could use feed per rev
Phil
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Hood koKo i have just looked it is called 0.015.OGX the previous version was called 0.015OGB if memory serves me correct.
But in the plugins folder it has the 2 on the end IE ver 0150gx2.dll
KoKo if you hit STOP which is as good as an as E Stop you must re reference anyway.
Phil
No it is not, and there is a difference between "re-reference" and re-pick up a part. Sometimes you don't like what a program is doing, you want to stop, edit the code before disaster hits, and avoid the problem. With STOP you can halt the execution of the program, and run something else without re-referencing anything, STOP does not cause an ESTOP, the drives don't lose position, nothing. I'm not going to argue with you further on this, as it's not productive. The software is still in beta, even according to the writer of it. Nuff said.
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koko, I think you said you press feedhold and when axis movement is halted then press Stop, that is the proper procedure and will not cause a problem with Mach, seems it causes a problem with your SS however which is not good :(
Pressing Stop while axis are moving is a different matter and really requires a re-reference as the chances are position is lost and I think that is what Phil thought you were doing.
I agree that the SS is not perfect yet, might never be but for me it does work extremely well and with very few issues, seems though that some others do have niggles.
Hood
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Ray are you meaning that with the new plugin it takes longer to spin up?
Hood
Hood,
Yes, exactly. With the old ogb plug-in, the spindle spins up to 8K RPM in 2-3 seconds. With the later plug-ins, making no other changes, it takes almost 20 seconds to reach 8K RPM, and does the same coming back down. This is with a PWM spindle, and I've verified with an oscilloscope that it is the PWM that is ramping slowly. Greg says I'm the only one having this problem. Due to other problems I've been having (my SS gets flaky on cold days, and a quick shot with a heat gun gets it behaving) we suspected my board had a faulty FPGA. But I now have three boards on-hand, and they all have the same swlo spindle ramping problem. I'm *really* good at finding the bugs in other people's software and hardware. It's a gift....
Regards,
Ray L.
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KoKo i will not argue further on this as you obviously know what you are doing.
HimyKabibble when i read the blurb on Greggs site it does mention something about re calibration of spindle speed, is that it ?
Phil
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I do seem to recall that the last plugin had changes to spindle accel which would require retuning, it didint seem to affect my servo spindle so I just presumed it was VFD spindles it referred to. Then again as you have been talking to Greg I presume this is not the issue with yours as I would have thought it would have been the first thing Greg would have mentioned.
So afraid I dont have an answer for you ;D
Hood
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Ray, regards your cold weather issues, have you tried a different USB cable? Could be the contacts of it are not great and in cold weather its breaking contact.
I certainly dont have problems in the cold and believe me it has been cold here lately, down to minus 16 deg C here and even colder inland a bit, even my coolant has been freezing up LOL
Hood
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Ray, regards your cold weather issues, have you tried a different USB cable? Could be the contacts of it are not great and in cold weather its breaking contact.
I certainly dont have problems in the cold and believe me it has been cold here lately, down to minus 16 deg C here and even colder inland a bit, even my coolant has been freezing up LOL
Hood
I do seem to recall that the last plugin had changes to spindle accel which would require retuning, it didint seem to affect my servo spindle so I just presumed it was VFD spindles it referred to. Then again as you have been talking to Greg I presume this is not the issue with yours as I would have thought it would have been the first thing Greg would have mentioned.
So afraid I dont have an answer for you ;D
Hood
Hood,
Interesting.... Greg never mentioned that, and I managed to miss it in the release notes. I'll give that a try tomorrow if I have time. The notes say it was running 8X too fast previously, which sounds like about what I'm seeing.
Regards,
Ray L.
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Ray, regards your cold weather issues, have you tried a different USB cable? Could be the contacts of it are not great and in cold weather its breaking contact.
I certainly dont have problems in the cold and believe me it has been cold here lately, down to minus 16 deg C here and even colder inland a bit, even my coolant has been freezing up LOL
Hood
Mine was never a problem in the past - worked fine all through last winter. But this year, even in relatively mild weather, the whole machine gets *really* flaky. I eventually found hitting the SS with the heat gun would make it behave. No amount of fiddling with cables, ports, etc. made any difference. But, we're having a warm spell at the moment, so I have to wait for it to cool off again to do any more testing.
Regards,
Ray L.
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Reason I thought of the bad contacts was I remember a computer I built for a friend and was forever getting called in to take a look at it as there were problems. Of course every time I was there it was fine, next day they would call and say it was playing up again, eventually I figured out the issues as I started asking questions and it seemed it was only an issue first startup and usually in the morning. The place it was in had no heating and eventually I traced the problem to a memory stick which must have just been a few microns thinner than normal and when cold was making intermittent contact in the slot. Popped a new stick in and never a problem again, better still I have that same stick in my old computer and it doesn't have an issue even in my freezing workshop so can only assume that the slot on the other computer was also slightly loose.
Hood
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Reason I thought of the bad contacts was I remember a computer I built for a friend and was forever getting called in to take a look at it as there were problems. Of course every time I was there it was fine, next day they would call and say it was playing up again, eventually I figured out the issues as I started asking questions and it seemed it was only an issue first startup and usually in the morning. The place it was in had no heating and eventually I traced the problem to a memory stick which must have just been a few microns thinner than normal and when cold was making intermittent contact in the slot. Popped a new stick in and never a problem again, better still I have that same stick in my old computer and it doesn't have an issue even in my freezing workshop so can only assume that the slot on the other computer was also slightly loose.
Hood
Hood,
The wierd thing with mine is, it makes ALL the USB devices squirrelly, not just the SS. The keyboard and mouse get flaky, and before long the whole machine locks up. That's why it took so long to track it down to the SS.
Regards,
Ray L.
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Do you have the SS inside or very close to the computer? Thinking maybe your heatgun is heating the mobo as well as the SS and really the problem lies in the mobo.
Hood
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Do you have the SS inside or very close to the computer? Thinking maybe your heatgun is heating the mobo as well as the SS and really the problem lies in the mobo.
Hood
Hood,
The SS is right next to the computer, but I was careful to heat only the SS - the heat gun was directed away from the computer.
Regards,
Ray L.
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Well that screws that theory, give me a few mins and I will concoct another ;D
Hood
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I am one who needs the swap axis function. If Mach had the ability to run an axis continuously, there would not be a need, and hopefully that may find its way into Mach4.
My objective is to implement some of the capabilities of a machining center and thereby add a great deal of versatility and capability to a standard milling machine. Without the swapaxis function in mach, I know of no other way to get at this functionality.
Selecting a differnet plane is not a trivial task either is there are circular moves involved. I have not had to do this very much and so far I have simply 'messaged' the G-code rather than explore the application of swapaxis to this issue, but it seems like swapaxis would be a good, if not the best solution there if there was a larger program or the need to make a lot of smaller programs run on a different plane than XY.
I don't understand why smoothstepper would eliminate this important feature of Mach, but that's the reality at the moment. Hopefully Mach4 will implement some more sophisticated interface options so that a single product with buggy firmware and drivers is not the only available choice. How long does a product need to stay in beta and have holes in it's functionality? I keep reading that 99% of SS users are happy campers to the point where it starts to look as if that is justification for the remaining bugs and limitations . . . . just my impression.
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I am one who needs the swap axis function. If Mach had the ability to run an axis continuously, there would not be a need, and hopefully that may find its way into Mach4.
My objective is to implement some of the capabilities of a machining center and thereby add a great deal of versatility and capability to a standard milling machine. Without the swapaxis function in mach, I know of no other way to get at this functionality.
Selecting a differnet plane is not a trivial task either is there are circular moves involved. I have not had to do this very much and so far I have simply 'messaged' the G-code rather than explore the application of swapaxis to this issue, but it seems like swapaxis would be a good, if not the best solution there if there was a larger program or the need to make a lot of smaller programs run on a different plane than XY.
I don't understand why smoothstepper would eliminate this important feature of Mach, but that's the reality at the moment. Hopefully Mach4 will implement some more sophisticated interface options so that a single product with buggy firmware and drivers is not the only available choice. How long does a product need to stay in beta and have holes in it's functionality? I keep reading that 99% of SS users are happy campers to the point where it starts to look as if that is justification for the remaining bugs and limitations . . . . just my impression.
The thing is that not everyone cuts the same kind of parts and therefore don't see the same bugs. This happens a surprising amount here, many people refuse to see a problem because it doesn't show up in their setups with the kind of code they run. A lot of folks run simple code generated by simple CAM programs, or 2D hand code as it's cheap to produce. It's also not very taxing on the system.
But because it "works fine for them" you must be doing something wrong, and it's not a problem.
I like the product, and I respect the difficulties in bringing the software to completion, especially in light of the tremendous variation in workflow and skill level of the folks reporting problems with the code. I continue to be hopeful that these issues will be ironed out. But it certainly isn't done yet.
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Koko76,
Yep, said a different way, is that the use of the software varies and as the use gets more complex you find shortcomings, bugs, or whatever you wish to explain it as. At a high level you end up doing work arounds that may not be the ideal.
I wouldn't take a reply as "your doing something wrong" but rather think in terms of why does something work for another and what are the differences. Sounds easy, but at times it can be something simple or very complex.
Many times, transparent to the user, someone is spending time to replicate the problem and look into.
One thing for sure, nothing is standing still. May not be moving at the pace to suit us, and certainly something will creep in no matter what.
I see the USB use as a transition away PP and the system evolution just has to take it's course over time
RICH
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I wouldn't take a reply as "your doing something wrong" but rather think in terms of why does something work for another and what are the differences. Sounds easy, but at times it can be something simple or very complex.
Many times, transparent to the user, someone is spending time to replicate the problem and look into.
One thing for sure, nothing is standing still. May not be moving at the pace to suit us, and certainly something will creep in no matter what.
I see the USB use as a transition away PP and the system evolution just has to take it's course over time
RICH
This becomes difficult to do when the reply states that I'm doing something wrong. There are a lot of very well meaning individuals out there who like to provide help, but are misguided in their information. This does not move the ball forward.
Being defensive about a particular product's shortcomings also does not move the ball forward. It does not improve the product, or provide valid feedback to the developer of said product in order to fix problems with it.
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koko76,
Fortunately there are enough replies, that over the course of the thread, it all sorts out.
RICH
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Just a question that I either over looked or isnt in here... The smooth Stepper, is that just for stepper motors? Or will it work with servos 2?
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It will work with either steppers or servos drives that take step/direction input signals. It will NOT drive an analog servo amp.
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Does the smoothstepper support swapaxis yet?
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No.
Hood