Machsupport Forum

Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 06:59:18 AM

Title: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 06:59:18 AM
Hi, everyone. New Mach3 user and fairly new to CNC in general. I have a Romaxx WD-1 with a closed loop system. When first starting up Mach3, I can do continuous jogging and MPG jogging. If I try to do step jogging, all jogging becomes disabled, i.e., continuous and MPG won't work. However, if I then run a toolpath (any toolpath, even for 1 second), all jogging then works fine, including step jogging. I can live with this, just running a toolpath briefly whenever I first start up, but I'm wondering if anyone has ever encountered this behavior and knows of a fix. Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions.
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 07:34:59 AM
Not heard of that before, can you attach your xml please.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 08:18:45 AM
Thanks, Hood. Here's the .xml file.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 08:30:33 AM
You seem to have a few outputs set up as Port Zero, what are they for as you dont have ModBus set up so cant see it being a PLC etc?

You also have duplicate inputs, you have Input1 and 2 as the same port and pins as OEM Triggers 1 and 2

Try loading the standard screenset and seeing if that makes a difference.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 09:54:43 AM
Hood, I have no idea about the outputs. The .xml is provided by Romaxx and the only change supposedly needed is to enter the correct port address for the second LPT port (which I did). The encoder board connects to the 2nd LPT port and is for the MPG wheel and the closed loop circuit. Romaxx doesn't provide info for settings of any of the other inputs/outputs, and since I am not familiar with Mach3 yet, it's not something I would have any idea about. I would have thought the .xml from Romaxx would have been already set up for my particular machine.
Using the standard screenset has the same effect: no step jogging when first starting up, all jogging disable is I attempt to step jog, and then, after running a toolpath momentarily, all jogging functions back to normal.
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 10:46:58 AM
That xml is a mess to be honest, lots of setup I/O that is disabled etc

Do you have any Brains loaded? Any plugins enabled?
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 10:57:13 AM
Hood, no Brains (not me, the software!) that I know of, and the additional plugins I have are one for the Romaxx machine (I believe it is for the closed loop system and possibly the MPG wheel), and one for an XBox controller. To eliminate the XBox controller as the source of the problem, I did a completely fresh install of Mach3 and only installed the Romaxx plugin. Same problem, so I then installed the XBox controller, which works fine.
If you can suggest how to modify the .xml so it isn't a "mess," I would certainly appreciate it. Maybe that will cure the issue.
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: stirling on January 27, 2011, 11:10:56 AM
That xml is a mess to be honest, lots of setup I/O that is disabled etc
Ain't that the truth. It's not just that the jogging doesn't work, when I loaded this xml with the standard screenset, after selecting step jog, the whole keyboard didn't work. Also if you select a DRO as if to enter something, it de-selects itself after about half a second.

I turned off port 2 completely and the charge pump on port 1 and it all worked fine - for about 5 minutes - but now I can't get anything out of it unless I restart. Also the MDI is flaky - sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Worse if it doesn't work and you hit cycle start with no gcode loaded it does what you last typed into the MDI - scary!

Also I've had a fair old collection of inapropriate error messages on the status line for no apparant reason.

Sorry - but even if you got jogging working - personally I wouldn't trust control of a machine to this. Not if I wanted to keep my fingers anyway.

Ian
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: ger21 on January 27, 2011, 11:46:07 AM
Sounds like it may be the plugin for the encoder board.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 12:21:19 PM
Can you send me the plugin  and I will see if I can make sense of things tonight, will PM you my email address.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 12:38:17 PM
Thanks, Hood. Files on the way via email.
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 04:23:14 PM
I am seeing exactly the same problem as you are seeing but afraid I have no idea why.
Do you see messages in the ticker window?
I am seeing a few but as I have never seen them before I am unsure what they relate to.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 04:38:53 PM
Ok  bit more testing and I think I half know whats going on. It would seem Mach thinks its got code running as pressing the Stop when you first enable Mach seems to cure the issue, why its happening I am not sure but may be something to do with the feedhold switch, try disabling the oem triggers in Ports and Pins Inputs and see if that helps.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 05:31:54 PM
Thanks, Hood. I will try that (later, need to go out for a few hours) and report back. If nothing else, hitting STOP when opening Mach is better than running a toolpath! Better to get it functioning properly, of course.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 05:41:40 PM
Try changing the active state of the OEM trigger inputs and see if that helps.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 06:02:19 PM
Hood, I did have time to try disabling those OEM trigger inputs. Yes, it does work. However, I need to check with Romaxx to see if those are active triggers for the closed loop function. If they are, I will need to leave them active. I'll let you know. Thanks for all the help!
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 27, 2011, 06:05:09 PM
No they are for your Start and Feedhold buttons. I am wondering if they are NC switches and if so then the active state will be wrong. Try enabling them again and change the active state and see if its still ok, also try the switches, ie load code and press the start and then feedhold buttons on your machine and see if they still work.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 27, 2011, 09:11:28 PM
Hood, with the OEM Trig #1  enabled, and Active Low on each enabled, the jogging works, as do the Start and Feed Hold switches (on screen buttons and XBox buttons). Fantastic! Thanks very much!
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 01:58:02 AM
Qhat about the buttons on the machine itself?
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 28, 2011, 05:53:26 AM
Hood, yes, Cycle Start and Feed Hold buttons on the machine itself also work. Thanks, again!
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 05:55:44 AM
Ok, thats great, they must be normally closed switches and the active state has been set wrong all the time in that xml.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 28, 2011, 06:03:24 AM
Hood, did you see anything else seriously wrong (dangerous) in my .xml that should be fixed?
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 06:11:48 AM
Nothing reaally bad but lots of I/O set that it would seem shouldn't be, for example all the outputs (I think) that were enabled and set to Port 0, that port is as far as I know only for ModBus and you dont use that. Few other duplicates like OEM trigger 1 and 2 are what you need but Input1 and 2 are set to the same port and pins and really shouldnt be. These things  should not really harm but impossible to totally rule out any interaction between them I supose.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 06:17:20 AM
I have just cleaned up the xml to what I think should be fine, place it in your mach 3 folder and use the Mach3 loader and choose LCorsa profile and see if all is fine.

Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 28, 2011, 10:14:42 AM
Hood, LCorsa.xml seems to work fine. The only thing is, I have to hit "Cycle Start" twice, as the first time I hit it, the tool number changes from 0 to 1 and the "Change Tool" icon blinks yellow. When I hit Cycle Start again, it goes into action. Tool Number 1 is default in VCarve Pro (used to generate the Gcode). Is there a way to have Mach default to Tool Number 1? If necessary, I can change the tool numbers to 1 on all my tools in VCarve (easier to do once in Mach, if the option is available).
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 10:52:18 AM
Does that happen in the previous xml?

If not then I dont have a clue why it is happening but will have a look and see if I can figure it out. I think you said you dot have any brains set up and macropump is not enabled so only thing I can think of is a plugin may be changing things, what plugins do you have runnning?
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 28, 2011, 11:57:05 AM
Hood, I believe it does happen with the other .xml as well. I can't say I noticed it on the screen, but I mostly use the XBox controller to Start and Stop and I am watching the cutter as I start, not the screen. But I would often have to press the Start button twice, so I am going to say yes, it did happen with the other.
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 28, 2011, 01:29:51 PM
Ok try with the XBox plugin disabled to see if its that as it sounds the most likely, if it is then afraid I know nothing about it so you would really have to talk to the plugins creator.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 29, 2011, 06:50:11 AM
Hood, thanks for the suggestion. I haven't been able to try it yet, but I'm just wondering. Since this just looks like a Tool Number issue (VCarve specifies Tool Number 1 in the Gcode, Mach3 is expecting Tool Number 0), wouldn't the fix be to simply sync the Tool Numbers?
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on January 29, 2011, 07:32:44 AM
You can select Tool Selections persistant on the General Config page, that should keep the same tool number in the DRO as yo had the last time you shut Mach down. However I dont think it will have any offsets saved for the tool so you would still need to call the tool offsets in the code. Another thing you could do is have M6T1  and G43H1 in the initialisation string on General Config page and that would set the tool number and offset when you first bring Mach out of reset. Again be careful as you may get offsets other than you are expecting so test with caution.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: LCorsa on January 29, 2011, 07:54:28 AM
Hood, I believe VCarve sets the tool offset in the Gcode, so I think setting Tool Selections Persistant will solve the problem. I will test to see. Thanks, again, for all the help!
Larry
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: suade907 on September 19, 2011, 11:48:53 PM
Hi guys I'm new to this forum and Mach 3 myself. I'm having the exact same problem with things going haywire when trying to use step mode. I have a wd-1 but no encoders or mpg. Would this fix work for me as well?

Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on September 20, 2011, 02:14:41 AM
Can you attach your xml and also describe what is happening as I think this thread covered a few issues so not sure what fix you are talking about.
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: suade907 on September 20, 2011, 06:10:33 PM
Hi Hood thanks for the fast response. Here is my XML. I have a Romaxx wd-1 as well. I don't have encoders like the previous poster. I believe they call my system a open loop system, I also do not have the mpg wheel like the previous poster. What's happening for me is that when I boot Mach 3 my machine seems to work fine until I try and use the step jog  mode. Once I try that, all jog moves become unresponsive even if I switch it back to continuous.

But after reading this thread I have found that when I turn on my machine and mach 3, all I have to do is hit stop and things function like they should. Before that I was stuck when the machine became unresponsive but now that I know how to fix it it isn't such a big deal.  I'm not sure why I have to hit stop or even if this is a normal function. But I saw someone earlier had mentioned it and it works for me as well. I know you made some changes for the other poster and was curious if those same changes would apply to me.

Thanks
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on September 21, 2011, 04:59:39 AM
Ok few things, first it seems you may have the Rogers plugin enabled? I can only see that in the xml as I dont have the plugin here so it doesnt show when I load your xml. I also see you have the encoders enabled, a MPG enabled and there are Inputs 1 and 2 sharing the same pins and port as OEM triggers. I dont think that can be right as Inputs 1 and 2 are set up for spindle and flood coolant and OEM triggers are set up for feedhold and start.
Do you have physical  start and feedhold buttons on your machine at all?
Hood
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: suade907 on September 21, 2011, 08:44:06 AM
Yes I do have physical start and feed hold buttons on my machine. i also have 2 110v outlets that Ron has told me could act as a trigger to start a router as well.

I'm not entirely sure I grabbed the right xml. When i installed mach3 I copied the xml that Ron Rogers provided me to the mach 3 folder. It was called Mach3mill.xml. The file I attatched is the same mach3mill.xml file but the size has doubled. I had to rename it to attatch it in this post since the original poster had the same file name. So I'm pretty sure it's the correct file as that is what is listed in the bottom right corner when I run Mach 3 but i don't understand why it is so much larger than the original file.

I also do not have encoders or a MPG. I'm not sure how plugin's work as i only had to copy the mach3mill.xml file provided by Ron ROgers to my mach3 folder to get it working. I download Mach 3 right from this site.

i hope that helps.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: suade907 on September 21, 2011, 09:53:54 AM
Let me rephrase that:

I'm not entirely sure I grabbed the right xml. When i installed mach3 I copied the xml that Ron Rogers provided me to the mach 3 folder. It was called Mach3mill.xml. The file I attatched is the same mach3mill.xml file but it's from the mach 3 folder now after I have used the program a few times, but the size has doubled. I had to rename it to attatch it in this post since the original poster had the same file name. So I'm pretty sure it's the correct file as that is what is listed in the bottom right corner when I run Mach 3 but i don't understand why it is so much larger than the original file.
Title: Re: Jogging strangeness
Post by: Hood on September 21, 2011, 03:03:59 PM
Ok so the OEM triggers seem like they should be correct however your spindle and mist coolant are set to the same pins so they should really be disabled if not using them or if you do in the future you should set to different outputs.

Have a look at Config menu then Config Plugins and see if the Rogers plugin is there and if it is disable it as you wont be using it. Also go to Config menu then Ports and Pins and then to the encoder page and disable the encoders and MPG.

One other thing I notoced is you have enhanced pulsing turned off, it is nearly always best to have that turned on so unless there is a reason its been switched off go to Config menu then General Config and enable it.

Hood