Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: nanobrain3000 on May 11, 2009, 10:41:58 PM

Title: Mach 3 won't run under certain Laptop
Post by: nanobrain3000 on May 11, 2009, 10:41:58 PM

I installed Mach 3 on my IBM X31 land an older HP aptop and it works perfectly but when I install it on my dell and T41 laptop it doesn't work.  I cannot use hot key to move the axis.  I also try to use the built-in wizard feature to generate some gcode and run it.  Still it won't run...(the X Y Z axis numbers were not changing)  Yes I have cleared the reset and I just don't know what's wrong with it

Title: Re: Mach 3 won't run under certain Laptop
Post by: Hood on May 12, 2009, 02:07:15 AM

Some laptops will not run Mach but sounds like you may not have the Jog control switched on.
Hood

Title: Re: Mach 3 won't run under certain Laptop
Post by: Jeff_Birt on May 12, 2009, 09:26:33 AM

Laptops are notorious for not running Mach properly. All the power saving features in a laptop prevent the precise timing that mach needs to operate properly. There is a document on the forum somewhere about optimizing a laptop for use with Mach. That may help but in my experience it still does not work as good as a desktop machine. If you set on using a laptop then I think your best bet is to use a SmoothStepper: http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx . The SmoothStepper handles generating the precise timing pulses needed by the stepper motors (better than the LPT can) and lets Mach worry about trajectory planning and the UI.