Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: hollyfox on June 15, 2009, 08:29:41 AM
-
Hey everyone. I have been pulling my hair out with this thing. I have a small 3-axis machine and when I first got it, I installed Win2k, then the Mach3 software, plugged in the machine, set my pins&ports based on pictures of the settings sent with the machine and off I went. The unit ran for four or five months with no problem (other than my own errors in G-code) and was quite happily cutting along. Then I moved and the unit sat for about 6 or seven months. When I started it back up (nothing had changed. Same computer same cable, ect) none of the motors will run at all.
Would someone please take a look at my xml file and see if anything glaring shows up? I need to get this going. I have thirty years of troubleshooting expoerience and have come to the conclusion that something on the computer has changed and I am about to format the hard drive and start from scratch. Before that, I would like to know if there is anything simple that I have overlooked.
Thanks.
Hollye
-
xml looks ok but then again there is nothing set in it except the motors, this could be that you have nothing else working via Mach such as limits, spindle etc or it could be you have attached the wrong xml.
What Drives do you use also what if any Breakout board?
Hood
-
Hood, I am at work but I have a small 3-axis router with none of the bells and whistles like you guys have. It worked fine before the move and just sat. Thank you for taking a look at the xml. I was concerned about the step pulse speed setting being 0. I think I am at a stage where I will wait until I get off of work and format the hard drive and reinstall like I did when I recieved the unit. Through my troubleshooting endeavors, I have seen some pretty bizarre things with this driver scheme and am not sure that everything is right. It may be that something I have on the computer is wreaking havoc on it and I want to strip it down and start new.
Hollye
-
One other thing... does anyone know if the demo version sometimes just shuts down after so many uses or something? It says it is good for an indefinate period of time. Is this true or am I fighting for nothing?
-
Demo is good for always at the moment, things may change in the future, there at the moment limitations with the demo such as Run From Here, Threading in Turn, Mill limited to 500 lines and Turn 200lines.
What kind of drives/bob do you have?
Hood
-
Hood,
I have to get to the unit to determine the make of the drives. The router was made by a private vendor on Ebay and each axis is driven by a separate driver board based on the SLA7051. The boards can be found at http://www.pminmo.com/sla7051.
I hope this helps. I appreciate the help and when I get off at 3:00 I will check the motor types and let you know.
Thanks;
Hollye
-
No problem, was just wondering if either your drives or Bob may require an enable signal because if they do then its not in the xml.
Hood
-
Hood,
What I can see on the motors is Vexta PK266-088-215. I tried enabling the port 14 on enable 1 and no go. I also do not have any inputs other than 2,3,5,6,8,9
Hollye
-
It will depend on your drive or BOB (Break Out Board) whether you need an enable, most BOBs have some sort of enable but often it is just shorted out with a jumper wire on the BOB itself so no need to use an enable from Mach if its not wanted.
If you could take a pic of your control box and post it, it might help us find where there could be a problem.
Hood
-
Hood,
Here are some pics. I am stymied. I have isolated each board in the controller, checked the voltage going to them and isolated axis both at the board input and the motor input. I get absolutely no movement. All motors have idle current. If one was bad I should be able to get one of the others working. I am beginning to suspect some weird grounding issue or something. I have tried running it on two different computers, two different cables. One other thing I could try is to run it from a comm port instead of the parallel one.
I just do not know how something can run perfectly for months and then not work after sitting. all the motors turn by hand when the controller is off so the drives are not locked up. Even then I would expect to blow a fuse or something.
Hollye
-
Ok, very simple setup there with no BOB and just three drives.The fact that your motors lock is good as it means the drives are getting power from your supply and they must also be enabled :)
What I would first do is disconnect the parallel cable from the control box and put a voltmeter between pin 3 and a Gnd pin then jog the X axis one way then the next, the voltage should go between 5v and 0v as you jog back and fwd.
If you get that then it means the dir signal is coming out of the computer, repeat on pin 2 and Gnd and see if you get a voltage, it wont be as high as 5v but as long as you see a voltage when you jog and nothing when you stop its fine.
Ater you have done that we can troubleshoot further.
Hood
-
Hood,
It looks like I am not getting the dir switching on the port. I have tried both drivers and no joy. I am blowing away windows and reloading to the original configuration without SP4. I will let you know how this goes. It is the way I originally got it working so it is worth the try and, in my experience, I have seen Windows do some stupid crap in my day.
Hollye
-
Well, like all other possibilities, this computer died on me. Looks like the power supply. I DO NOT have time to mess with this. I will buy a new computer and go from there
-
:(
Oh well hopefully things will work out fine with another computer, maybe that one was dying and it was what was causing your problems.
Hood
-
Thank you for the positive thoughts Hood, however, this computer works fine and it did not drive it. If a new computer does not work, I will try a new swoftware suite. It is a simple LPT1 port that every printer in the world used for decades. Why is it sooooo hard to get signal to it? It is just how Windows treats its OEM vendors. They give them garbage for information on the kernel and expect them to create quality products. Why it is that there are no stand-alone pulse generators that will emulate the software the machine needs? This should be standard fare. Oh well, I am preaching to the choir. At any rate I will tell you how it goes once I get another computer. I did not want to lose another week.
-
Well, I got my computer and it made no difference. I have an idea though. It is possible that where I lived before, we had a horrendous lightening storm before I left that took out my telephone. I am thinking that this may be a case of EMP taking out some chips in the controller. I have ordered the ones I think it could be and we will see. Thanks Hood for all of your help. Sorry if I have seemed frustrated. LOL I am. But it will work out.
Hollye
-
I cant see how it can be the chips in the controller if you have confirmed that the Dir signal is not changing on the computers port, it has to be port or config. As its a different computer then its unlikely to be that so has to be config.
Hood
-
Yes I agree Hood, I will be double checking. At one time I had good signals on the cable and still got no movement. I will be working on it this coming week and will make sure I have my signals first.
Believe me, I have screenshots of the config files that worked the fisrt time I set it up. So I will double check the signals (I have already checked the config) and go from there. I'll keep you posted. I won't be able to work in it until Monday night probably.
Hollye
-
Hood,
I checked my port. It is working I am getting 3.5 vdc on the dir pins and I can see a change in voltage on the step pins. The controller should recognize anything from 3.5 to 5v as a valid logic level I would think. All outputs pins are correct numberwise.
What are your thoughts?
Hollye
-
If the Dir signals are changing for 0 to 3.5 then that is good, whether that is enough for your drives I am not sure, some are picky about the lower voltage that some modern ports put out, I would however think you should at least get some movement of some sort. If you dont then it could well be the chips you mentioned are a problem.
Hood
-
OK, thanks Hood. I will try replacing these and see what happens. I should have them here early this week and they are cheap so it is worth the try.
Hollye
-
Hello Hollye,
I too had to change out the hard drive recently on a cnc machine that worked fine but sat inactive for months. I downloaded the newest version of mach 3 and installed all
the correct pins etc. When I turn on the controller it powers up the motors but because I cannot access the motor settings in the config drop down section I too cannot get the motors to work.
I click on the motor tuning screen but it won't open. any ideas?
I sent a request in to artsoft but who know if they will answer.
I am a paid licensee but I still can't seem to get any answers on this new software from artsoft yet.
Does anyone have any idea why I can't get the motor tuning screen to open?
thanks
-
casinog,
I would recomend you reinstall Mach and reboot your computer after you install it.
Once Mach is opened, you should be able to go click the Config tab and a pullout will apear, then you should be able to scroll down to Motor Tuning and the motor tuning screen will apear and allow you to input values.
RICH
-
Does anyone have any idea why I can't get the motor tuning screen to open?
thanks
Check this post.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mach1mach2cnc/message/109780
Al
-
Thanks rich,
I give it a try in the morning.
-
Also check out what Al posted. I never had your problem with any reinstallations in Mach3 nor upgraded from Mach 1 or 2.
RICH
-
I have not seen this problem but Al's recommendation looks feasible.
Hollye
-
Thanks Rich!
By doing a new install and naming the directory something else it allowed me a clean install that works!
Thanks for the assistance!
;D
-
Suggest you delete the other directory. I personaly have had problems, on my computer, where it will selects the
first file it finds on the hard drive, but then that's just on my end.
RICH
BTW happy it works. :)
-
Casinog,
Good to hear you are up and running. Good job RICH! :) I am still waiting for my controller chips. They should be here tomorrow and we'll see if that is it.
Hollye
-
Hollye
Cant remember if it was mentioned or asked before but do you have a pulse frequency and Time In Int showing on the Diagnostics page?
Hood
-
Hood,
I am not sure. I ran the driver test and it showed 24335 but that may not mean anything. I was just going to lay down for a bit but let me go out and check real quick...
Hollye
-
Hood,
I am showing 25440 for pulse freq and INt is flucuating somewhere between 2 and 5. I did notice that I am showing an 'Idle' light green.
Hollye
-
Ok thats good regards frequ and Int, not sure on the Idle LED, dont use the standard screenset, can you post a screenshot of it.
Hood
-
Here it is Hood:
-
What screenset is that? just looked at the standard screen and I dont have that, what version of Mach is it, maybe mine is an older version as I have just updated via exe's for the last while.
Hood
-
Oh meant to ask, does the LED go out when you attempot to jog via keyboard?
Hood
-
Hood, I am running the original that I loaded when I got the machine, R1.84.000 the run and idle lights only come on when I run g-code.
I am off to lay down for a bit. I have guests coming over for a cookout this afternoon.
Let me know if you think of anything else. I have a sneaking feeling that these chips are bad. But, who knows?
Thanks for your help. I'll check back in an hour or so.
Hollye
-
Hood,
I got er goin'!!!! :D It was those ICs. Popped them in and off it went! Thanks for all of your help. I might need some more when I upgrade to the full version which I will be doing soon. On that subject, the new version 3.84 (or whatever it is) has a pretty grainy user interface. What do you think. To me it doesn't look as pro as the 1.84. Am I doing something wrong? Or is it actually not as clean as the one I am running now?
Hollye
-
Thats great news :)
As for the interface, should be exactly the same, can you post a screenshot of both?
Hood
-
Hood,
The version I am running is 1.84 and yes, everything is the same as it was before. I put the chips in and that did it. These chips are electrostatic sensitive and evidently the storm I had a year ago took all three out. I have three more extras in case I get another bad storm. I live in N. Florida and they can be horrendous at times.
I have to run across town to get a package the UPS has messed up delivery on twice. What interface are you wanting a screen shot of? The new one that I am seeing as 'not as pro'? If so I will post them this evening when I get back (I still have the new version installed on this computer. I keep my machine computer off of the network).
Hollye
-
Was wanting a screenshot of each if possible to see the difference you mentioned.
Hood
-
Here is R1.84 and the New one 3.84. Maybe it is just me being use to the other one.
Hollye
-
Ok, have not used the standard screen for years so wasnt sure what the old versus newer looked like. If you prefer one over the other then rename the one you like to something like Hollye.set then copy and paste it into the Mach3 folder on the machine. Then when you open Mach go to view then Load Screens and browse to that screen and you will be back to the old style :)
Hood
-
Oh Kewl! Thanks Hood. That will come in handy. :) Just to let you know, I tied cutting the roadrunner file that comes with the old version and learned that it is an engraving. LOL I always cut parts so off I went thinking that this files was of a cutout of the speed demon. At any rate, I exercised the machine and got some new lube on it. Now I am on to a circuit prototyping job today.
Thanks for all of your help Hood. This forum is great. Hopefully I will be able to help someone else out in it in the future.
Hollye