Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: bobbya47 on February 01, 2010, 11:11:52 AM
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I had problems before with parallel port not working. My machine is home built and I did not like some of things I did mechanicly so I rebuilt my machine. Now I am starting from scratch with a different pc. I downloaded mach3 and rebooted. At that point my dro's worked. I configured my motor outputs and my dro's now do not move. I uninstalled mach and started over but the same thing happened. I am attaching xml file. Keep in mind that the only thing I have done is configure motor outputs.
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You dont have any motors enabled in that xml, even if you are just simulating on a computer not connected to anything you still need to enable the motors in Ports and Pins.
Hood
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Got it working.
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I got the dros moving. A parallel port monitoring program called parmon was interfering. When I shut it down the dros moved. Here is the result:
X axis would not move when pressing the - key. Direction pin worked properly. When pressing the + pin it would move, sometimes in the negative direction and sometimes in the positive direction even though the dir pin remained at 0 volts.
Y axis would move in positive direction only using - and + keys. Direction pin would not work.
Z axis direction pin worked but no movement in either direction.
All inputs were working.
I built a breakout jig and attached it between parallel port and breakout board to verify that the board was working. Since the x axis dir pin was working, I disconnected all signals to the drives and assigned it to each pin, 2-9, one at a time. Every pin worked.
Since I had tried everything I knew to do, I uninstalled Mach 3 and reloaded it. Now the inputs do not work and the dros are not moving. I believe the above test shows that the parallel port is working but I am not getting the proper response from Mach 3. I am attaching the new xml file.
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If that is the xml you are using you do not have any motors enabled in Ports and Pins, you will not get DROs moving if you dont have the axis enabled.
Hood
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All three axis are enabled
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Please attach the correct xml.
Hood
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try this. I had to copy it to another folder and rename before I could attach it. The file in m\the mach folder still has the origonal name
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Afraid that is still the wrong xml, it is blank. Make sure it is the xml for the profile you are using that you attach, it is located in the Mach3 folder on your drive.
Hood
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you are right. I created a profile when I reloaded mach. I closed it out. and restarted mach using that profile and dros move. X axis dir pin no longer works because the voltage from the pc is only 1.3volts and axis no longer moves. Yaxis no longer moves. Dir pin is same as x axis. z axis dir is ok but no movement.
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here is xml
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If the voltage is that low you will need to get a breakout board that boosts it, but even then it might struglle as 1.3v is very low.
Hood
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This thing is crazy. Now y xaxis moves when th y dro moves. I have rechecked my connections and everything is correct. pin 2 is step and 3 is dir on x axis. I have rechecked my wiring and everything is correct. Still the x axis moves when the y axis is supposed to. Its not as if I am a complete idiot.I spent 35 years in the electrical field, most of it working on automated systems and 22 years of it as a maintenance supervisor for a major paper co.
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I closed out mach and restarted it Both y and z axis dir pins are working with about 3.98 volts from pc. X dir is only getting 1.3volts. Now nothing is moving. By the way please excuse my typing. I lost a finger recently and that makes it difficult.
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If you MDI a X move does the Y DRO move?
Hood
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Ah ok, something really strange going on, can you disconnect the cable and test directly on the computers port?
Hood
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I moved from pin 3 to pin 8 and all dir signals are working but still no movement.
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Movement of motors or DROs?
Hood
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motors. Everything keeps changing. I just rebooted and now all dir signals stay high. It seems as if closing mach and re starting makes things work different.
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It sounds as if something is screwing with the port but sure you said you checked no printer drivers were installed so dont know what it could be
Hood
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I built a breakout jig using a straight through breakout board so I could check the signals right out of the pc port. I am checking signals there and at the drive terminals. I built this pc and a printer driver has never been installed. It uses a asus motherboard. Sometime back I had another pc that also had a asus motherboard (different versiion) and could not get it to work. Thats when I decided to fix some things mechanicaly on my machine. I have that done and am back to trying to make it run again. Think I will call it a day and get a fresh start tomorrow. Thanks for all your help. I will post progress tomorrow.
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I have done everything I know to do. I have two computers with Asus boards (P5GD1-VM and P5PE-VM). Neither one of them will work. I have tried everything I know to do. I even added a second parallel port and nothing works.
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Have you disconnected the cable and put your meter directly to the parallel port?
If you have and its not correct please attach your xml and I will see if there is an issue in it.
Hood
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Yes. The jig I built lets me read the voltage at the end of the cable. I have also tried a different cable.
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can you attach the xml please.
Hood
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yes
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Everything looks fine in the xml so assuming you have the port address correct I am afraid I dont know what to suggest. Personally I would still check directly at the port, I know you said you tried two cables but there is a slim chance they could both be bad.
Hood
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Does your motherboard have onboard graphics? Sometimes that can upset things but it is usually a bad pulse rather than bad voltages. Also might be worth trying the optimisation steps detailed on the downloads page if you have not already done it.
Hood
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Yes it does.
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Your xml worked here with version .033.
I would try uninstalling your PP and reinstalling it. I have an Asus motherbord in my new PC and works supper.
The motherboard didn't have a PP and I used a card. Does the board ou built board show that the PP pins are working?
....OH, BTW I changed your configuration such that the Estop was emulated.......
So try that first!
RICH
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I tried emulating the estop. No change. Right now pins 2-9 are high at 3.3v. Pins 10-16 are high at 4.4v. I am checking at the pp on the pc. No cables are connected. This is the onboard pp.
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Ok so if you change the active low setting of pins 2-9 in Mach do they go to or near zero?
If you jog an axis one way then the next do the Dir pins go between 0v and 3.3v?
If so then its working fine and likely you could resolve your problem by using a breakout board that will increase the voltage so your drives see 0v and 5v.
Hood
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There is no change no matter what I do. I disabled the onboard pp in the bios. I installed a pp board and made sure it was working amd its address was right. On this port pins 2-9 are low. Trying to move the axis makes no change.
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Have a look at the PP card, some are 3 v and some are 5v, and some are a combination giving you the option of changing which voltage will be generated. The voltage can be be set using a jumper on the card.
RICH
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This is a 5v card. I made a mistake. I forgot to move the cable to the new card. When I did pins 2-9 are at 4.74 v. They do not change no matt what I do.
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bobby47,
Do you use Skype by any chance?
RICH
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I downloaded a pp test software that allowed me to test pins 2-9. All pins would toggle from 0 -3.3v except pins 3 and 4. The would toggle but high was only 1.3 v. I removed that program through the control panel and moved outputs 3 and 4 to 8 and 9 . Now y and z dir pins will toggle. X dir still doesn't work and I get no movement.
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No. There is nothing on this pc but Mach3.
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bobbya47,
You have me confused, one time you have 0-3.3 v another almost 5 v.
You never mentioned what you drive requires. But lets backup some....
-Mach will send the info to the PP for the pulses required.
-You have shown that there is a high and low voltage for the pulse. But you have also shown that is a difference between the pins.
So how about just getting only one axis to work with the pins that put out the higher voltage rather than playing with them all and making it complex. Once you have the one axis working you can swap that cable to the other drives and see if they all work. Then you have the setup which you know needs to be in place to get the others to work. You can add all the other stuff, like homing etc later.
What make drives are you using? Other than Gecko post info on them.
RICH
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The higher voltage was on the pp board I installed. The voltage off the onboard pp is around 3.3v. The strange thing is that things have been moving around a lot. It works and then it doesn't work. I have had the y axis move but now it doesn't. A little while ago I reran the driver test and it did not work right. During the test it took around 10 seconds to move 1 sec on the screen. I am at the point that I would purchase another motherboard, but I am afraid I would wind up in the same boat. It appears that the pp is working with the exception of pins 3 and 4 but I cannot get movement. I am using compumotor OEM750 drives. The strange thing is that at one time the machine ran on the first computer and I used it some. If I could get the pp to work consistently I could check all the drives one at a time but nothing is consistent.
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I loaded the parallel test software on my computer in the office (also a Asus board) and it reacted the same. All pins work. Pins 3 and 4 have a low voltage. When I run Mach3 the dir pins do not work.
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Just tried it on a 3rd Asus pc and it will not work there either.
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Just one computer and one PP at time.
I would use the card as that has the higher voltage and as such would swing the full high to low required .
You need to have two things in place...
A working xp computer system and then a PP both of which are functional. I will assume that the pp card is like new / known to be good, then that leaves the computer which only you can assert. Without that, its kind of fruitless to go further. All the Mach configuration / drive hookup etc can be worked out if the first two things are in place.
Three assus pc's and they don't work.......good grief. Is this with the same pp card?
The only thing that i had a hard time with was when i just got the new pc, the pp card was installed, but for whatever reason, i had to go in and out of MAch about 10 times before it recognized the pp address. Thus no axis movement. I wrote it off as a fluke.
RICH
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The last two were onboard pp. The pp card I used was new, but I have not gotten it to function. When I first had the problem I had an old IBM Netvista that my son had dragged up. It had some problems but I managed to format the drive and reload XP. I tried it and it worked first time. The only problem was that it would just shut down for no reason. While I had it working I decided to make some changes in my machine. Now I am back to this problem. I used this computer for a while but I had these same problems when I started it up and never did know what I did to cure it.
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The pp card I used was new, but I have not gotten it to function.
Until you get that in place i think no one will be able to help much.
I have thrown a few cards away........brand new....couldn't get them to work for the life of me.
I strongly suggest you get a card that is Microsoft compliant and with the understanding on purchase
that if the card or the drivers don't work you get full money back, if that is not the case walk away!
RICH
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Yeah, you are right. I will try to get the pp board to work. I used a program called Lalim parallel port control. I allows me to send signals to pins 2-9. Oddly enough on all 3 pc's pins 3&4 have only 1.3v. All others have 3.3v. If I find a cure I will let you know.
Thanks to you and Hood for your help.
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i am now totally convinced that there is nothing wrong with my pc. I just tried a hp and it reacted exactly the same as the others. I can pulse the pins with lalim and all work. The problem must be with the mach 3 driver.
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Ok, you can pulse the pins and all work, that is good. Then you should be able to also see what the voltage off each step and direction pin is ( and they should be all be the same / or close) to the motors and also they should have adequate swing in the voltage such that there is a proper square wave to the dirves.
Seems we are still at step one.
RICH
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I am back to where I was at. When I move any axis the dros move but the voltage from the parallel port never changes from 0v
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Didn't see it mentioned, did you try running the Special Driver ?
Just a shot.
Russ
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Yes, in fact I couldn't get a response without using it. It showed excellent.
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Anybody home. Help!!
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Nott really sure what you have done and what you have not done but think the best route would be format the drive, install any motherboatd drivers, install Mach and thats all. If you still cant get it to work then I dont know what else to suggest.
Hood
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You state that you have 0 volts on a pin / no change. I can't help you if your PP is not working. From a MACH point of view,
the PP port must be recognized via the PP address. If your PP port is not working i don't care what you do MACH software wise it is fruitless. The MACH instructions sent to the PP just go nowhere.
I can't help if a functional PP is not in place.
Don't know what else to say,
RICH
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The pp port works. I can pulse the pins and they change. Here is what I have done.
1. Formated the hard drive
2. Loaded XP and made sure pp was set at 378.
3. Loaded Lan driver.
4. Loaded Mach3.
5. Rebooted.
6. Set to inches.
7. Enabled Axis and assigned pin numbers. Kernel speed 25000Hz
8. Set steps to 2000
9. Set velocity to 60
10. Set acceleration to 1.5
11. Set step pulse to 0.
12. Dro's move but I have no output.
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Bobbya47,
Describe your systems X axis ie; screw TPI, any gear reduction, any microstepping.
What kind of drives do you have?
Attach your xml used for your last reply.
RICH
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I am using compumotor drives, microstepping with 10threads per in screws. No gear reduction. These drives have worked in the past but that is a mute point. Nothing is going to happen until I get an output from pp.
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No time to read it all but do you have axis inhibited by chance?
Are the axis enabled?
Post your xml.
Brett
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I am back in the shop. Here is the xml
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all axis are enabled.
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How many microsteps? 200 X 10 TPI = 2000. 2000 X Micostep?=?
Brett
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1000 but none of that matters yet. Nothing is going to happen until I get the pp working.
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The pp port works. I can pulse the pins and they change.
NOW YOU SAY
Nothing is going to happen until I get the pp working.
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IF WORKING:
So what is the voltage swing for pins 2,3,4,5,6 at the computers PP?
You may find that they are different but just list the high and low,please.
Then please confirm , via your drive manual the min pulse required and also the min volatge required.
Some other settings you need to change or try are in the pic.
RICH
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0v-0v
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I assume that you had Mach open and tried jogging the axis when you did that.
So, for PP port pin 2 & 3, take a voltage reading from pin 2 to ground and also pin 3 to ground ( not at the end of some cable but right at the pc connector), with Mach open. Watch for a change in voltage as you jog the X axis from one direction to the other.
Use the attached XML
RICH
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I am sorry, use this xml as i have assigned the right and left arrow key for jogging the x axis.
RICH
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No output. 0v on dir pin 3
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You dont have the port set on Ports and Pins, Motor Setup for either X Y or Z
Hood
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Thanks Hood,
Make the following changes and try measuring the voltage again.......
RICH
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Rich, I hate to tell you this but that is the xml you sent. All I did was renamed it and saved it in Mach3. It did make a difference after I set the port to 1. The dir pins are now changing but no motor movement. I will check further tomorrow afternoon.
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Rich,
Did you create a new xml or modify the one I sent. I have a copy of the one I sent and I did have the port set to 0. I guess I did that when I reloaded xp and mach3. I had it set to one on the previous one. Dir pins are changing state on breakout board now.
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bobbya47,
In #65 the xml i posted had the following changes done:
- Step and dir was set for active high... so when Mach instructs a pulse to be sent out to the PP it would be at the higher voltage
- Estop was checked to be emulated
- x- and x+ had the left and right arrow keys assigned to them
- I changed the motor tuning to 20000 ( quess only ) vel to 20, acel to 5, step and dir pulse to 4us ( that' s what a friends Compumotor drives recommend, i don't know what model drive you had so only a guess)
In reply #68, just a picture and nothing else, i just instructed, as Hood remarked, to change the port assigned to pin 2 &3 to port 1 since it was 0
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Now attach the cable to the computer pp and see if a signal sent to pin 2 & 3 ( x axis) are comming out the other end of the cable on pin 2 & 3.....if that works
Then look up in your manual what the recommended pulse time and voltage to the drive should be. I posted info on that in another reply....also change your steps per based on what your drive micro step setting is as i assumed 10
Glad you finaly got a signal to te break out board...... ;D ;D ;D
RICH