Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Lawley on November 22, 2009, 03:00:18 PM
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Can anybody assist, I upgraded from mach ver1.84 which was working perfectly on my lathe, to ver 3.042 now the spindle will not control above 600 RPM it just ramps to full speed, axis run with an intermittent motion ramping from slow to set speed and back. The driver diagnostics appear normal, the computer is a PIII 531 MHz with 256M ram running windows XP Pro the kernel speed is unchanged at 25000Hz.
Brian.
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Hi
I just went through the same thing exactly
I had a hard drive crash last Tuesday.
Had a spare system and saw that there was a newer version of mach3
so I downloaded it.
Just about pulled all my hair out. First I could not get it to
run the printer port.LPT1
Then when I did get it to run the following happened:
1) My indexer would only work at 100 or less. It work fine for years before the crash.
ie I could not thread.
2) The spindle speed would not display on the screen, no matter the speed.
3) When I tried to run a program, the 'start from here' button would not
work. Program would rewind and start from the beginning.
Worked at this for most of last week on/off thinking I had a computer problem.Even went and got another to try.
Today I went back to R2.63 and in 15 minutes all was working again
Made some parts just to be sure.
eddie
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This happened to me also. The problem was the debounce value for the index pulse in the general config screen. My had been setting at 2000 for a couple years up through ver 2.42 with no issue. I had no idea what the 2000 referred to, but it was a default and worked with no issue. Somewhere along the way, the definition of the 2000 changed to 2000 x 40usec pulses in the recent releases and this was way too much - totally hid the pulse. The spindle speed dro did weird things and threading was impossible. Changing the debounce value to 2 fixed it. - Terry
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Hi Eddie
Many thanks for the info, could it be that the computer is marginal, IE with the lower demand that the earlier Mach versions placed on it, it worked fine. I have just seen that the minimum system requirements are a 1Ghz machine with 512Mb ram.
Is the XML file the only thing required if one removes the program to reload an earlier version?
Brian.
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Lawley,
The latest versiom 3.042.032 works just fine for threading. You should take a look at the Threading on the Lathe
write up as it talks about items which apply to threading. Take a look at the configuration section.
You only use a single index.
RICH
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Thanks Rich
The problem is not really with threading, but the servos on the axis are ramping up and down in speed during a cut. This is also evident on the feedrate DRO, I am running digital AC servos using step and direction from the parrallel port, which all worked fine on version 1.84.
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I don't use servos so someone else that does will probably chime in.
RICH
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do you have backlash enabled?
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what do you have for accelleration settings under motor tuning?
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Backlash is not enabled Motor velocity is 2000mm/min steps are 625 /unit accel is 1000 these settings have worked for 18 months with ver 1.84 Interesting is the fact that there is a vast size difference between the XML file size from ver 1.84 to ver 3.04 is 42 kb versus 102 kb
Brian
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Hi
Just to update:
The system worked great all day.
made many parts on the lathe... Thanks to the older version R2.63
Just to note that while I had the latest version on
I did change the debounce value to 1 while I was trying to get it to work.
It made no difference.
And the "Start from here" command did not work as well
It would just rewind the program to the beginning.
And it took several tries to get it to find the printer port....
eddie
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You might have to uninstall the old driver before re-installing the new driver that comes with the later versions. There were major changes to it. This has to be done in the device manager since Windows sees it as a piece of hardware instead of software. The driver changed sometime after 2.42 and I remember a warning about having to do the uniinstall of the old one before installing the new one, but I wasn't able to find the thread where this was discussed. Someone over on the other forum asked the same question but never got a reply.
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Many thanks for all the assistance, I have got the machine running again. To sumarise: a new computer was used, blank hard drive, new XP Pro, Ver 3.04 was loaded with driver, NO JOY!! The only thing that has remained common was the XML file there definitely appear to be glitches in Ver 3.04 E.G. changing between G20 and G21 does not change the units on the screen but the units have in fact changed. I deleted Ver 3.04 and removed all of the directory contents this allowed me to put back Ver 1.84 which runs fine.
I am busy putting together a large gantry router, guess which version Mach I will be using.
Brian
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There is a setting, in general config I think, that allows you to choose whether the DROs display in native or coded units.
Hood
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Brian,
If i was going from a realy old version of Mach here is what i would do:
1.Do a windows Search for Mach.sys and exe and delete all of them
2.Use windows device manager and delete the Mach3 Driver
3.Delete the Mach3 directory
4.Empty the Recycle bin
5.Repeat #1 just to make sure all the files are gone
6.Now reinstall Mach3
7.Run the driver test
8. Check that the driver is installedvia the device manager
9. Reboot the computer
10. Create / make new profiles. Review the configuration and change whatever you need to. I am sure there are a number of things that have changed since 2.63.
I assume you don't have other versions installed in another directory.
FWIW,
RICH
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It seems that I was prematurely offering advice. I had recently updated to 3.042.029 from 2.42 and ran into and solved the issues that I mentioned above which I thought were the other user's problems. Just today I decided to take the plunge to .032 and I am seeing similar problems myself. I am using a Wabeco lathe that uses the Campbell board and automatic spindle control which has never had an issue in the past. When I updated to .032 my spindle speed dro shows -602 rpm (minus rpm) when commanded to turn at 1000 rpm. A tach shows the spindle is really turning at 1000 rpm. The index pulse is being seen and I'm running spindle feedback and averaging. The driver test is nearly perfect on a 3 GHz machine. Index debounce is at 2. I've gone back and forth between .029 and .032 three times now and always everything is fine with .029 and the problem is always there with .032. Actually, I have to ask the question - has anybody successfully installed and run .032 with MachTurn under automatic spindle speed control? There seems to be a number a reports of problems. - Terry
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Terry,
Sorry but can't help you out with the auto sipndle control since mine is all manual.
Do you have the Relay Control unchecked?
What does the Turn Diagnostics show?
I suggest that you post your question in the Problems Threading on the Lathe thread
and address the question to ART and Brian.
RICH
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Rich,
I don't have the "disable spindle relays" checked. Under "motor control" the "use spindle motor output" and "Step/Dir Motor" boxes are checked. I read the applicable section in your write-up but I still didn't understand if I needed to do something different here than I was doing in .029 which does work. I never downloaded the plugin for the Turn diagnostics and so I didn't try it. I've gone back to .029, but I will post in the lathe threading problems section. - Thanks - Terry
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Terry,
The Turn Diagnostics is loaded with .032 all you need to do is enable the plugin in config. You won't find anything in the writeup on motor control because i don't use it and don't remember anybody posting about it "after" the threading changes. So maybe there are additional bugs that Art and Brian should be made aware of. Like you asked,
Is anyone else having any problems with motor control in .032?
I am just like many others and don't upgrade to another version if the current version works for me and there is nothing to be gained. But.....unless a number of users, with different setups, try an upgrade, then a bug can creep in
and go undetected. Can be frustrating, but what can i say....
RICH