Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => FAQs => Topic started by: Adrian on August 26, 2011, 04:19:50 AM
-
Hi all,
I am very new at this and hope that someone out there can help me with this little problem.
I have just installed mach3 on my computer running Windows XP. I have meticulously followed the instructions in the manual. I successfully ran the "drivertest" program. nevertheless, when I run the program and try to jog it or manually put in some G-code, the positions of the axis always remain at 0. Has anyone else come across this problem and found a solution? I would be glad to hear from you.
Adrian
-
Sounds like you have not got the axis enabled in Ports and Pins, Motor Outpputs, that is the only reason I can think of that the Readouts in Mach would not show movement.
Hood
-
Thanks Hood. Where do I find "Ports and Pins, Motor Outputs"?
-
Config menu.
Hood
-
Thanks Hood. That's done it!!
-
:)
-
Hi All
I have installed Mach and gone thru all the setup done the driver test all ok when I try and jog I get movement on my screen but no output to my breakout board any ideas?
-
Most likely is the wrong port address, or wrong port # assigned to pins.
-
I do appreciate everyone's support with my previous problem. I am a bit further down the road to completion. However, I have struck another snag that is giving me headaches. When I send some G code to the controller, there is a high pitch sound from the stepper motors as though they are receiving pulses. However, there is no movement. I can control the stepper motors with a handheld controller and they move as they are supposed to. However, under computer control all I get is this high pitch noise from whatever stepper motor is supposed to be turning. Any ideas would be much appreciate.
Adrian
-
You would seem to have the Velocity and/or acceleration set to high for your particular setup and this is causing the motors to stall (high pitch sound)
Hood
-
Thanks Hood, however, this does not seem to be the cause of the problem. I have reduced the speed and accelleration as far as they can go. It did certainly change the pitch. I can almost count the pulses but the stepper motors still do not turn. Any more thoughts??
Thanks,
Adrian
-
Have you got the steps per unit set correctly? also what are they?
What have you got the pulse width set to?
What have you got the kernel set to?
Hood
-
The kernel is set to 25000Hz.
The pulse width and steps per unit I understood, is only relevant for servo motors. Am I wrong about that? I have left them as they were when I installed the software i.e. 1 step per unit. I am not even sure where to set the pulse width.
Regards,
Adrian
-
Steps per unit need set to tell Mach how many pulses it will send out to move your motor 1 unit (mm or inch) You will need to work that out. If you tell me what stepping you have the drives set to, what pitch the ballscrews are, whether you are inch or metric setup (default units from Config menu) and any gearing between motor and screw I will tell you what you should have.
Pulse width is on Motor Tuning page and if using the Shinese drives you may need to set this to 5 or more, maybe even need Sherline mode.
Hood
-
I am not to worried about it moving the correct distance for the moment. It would be good to get it to move at all! However, the pitch of the ball screw is 5.0 mm. On the motor tuning page, the steps per is set to 2000 and the step pulse and Dir pulse are both set to 5. The stepper motors are directly mounted onto the ball screws. I hope this is what you wanted to know. Thanks again for your trouble.
Adrian
-
Also need to know what microstepping you have your drives set to?
Hood
-
Sorry. Not to sure about that. How do I find out?
Adrian
-
It will depend on the drives you have but if they are Chinese ones then there will be dip switches on them so that you can set the microstepping.
Hood
-
The stepper motors came from Hong Kong so I guess they are Chinese but there are no micro switches. However, I found out from the data sheet that the stepping angle is 1.8 degress. Does that help?
Adrian
-
No, its the drives I am talking about, the motors are nearly always 1.8 degree (200 steps per rev) but the Drives will have microstepping capability or at least have options for full and half stepping.
Hood
-
You are correct! My apologies. There are four dip switches. Each is a bank of switches numbered 1 to 6. On each bank, the numbers 2 and 6 are set to off. The rest are set to on. Hope this helps.
Adrian
-
I need to know what these represent, do you have a manual? Do you know what make of drives they are?
Hood
-
Aha, yes I do. It is a Toshiba TB6560. I found a data sheet for it on ebay. I have attached it to this message.
Adrian
-
Afraid that is the data sheet for the actual TB6560 chip, it is the infor on the complete drives that you need as they incorporate the dip switch settings.
Did you not get a manual when you bought the drive? Do you have a link to the site you bought the drive from?
Hood
-
I did a bit of searching and found one site that mentions the dip switches, it would seem you have it set to half stepping. That would mean you need 400 pulses to move the motor 1 revolution so as 1 rev of motor is 5mm then your steps per unit will be 400/5=80 Try that and see if it helps.
Hood
-
Thanks for all your efforts Hood. Unfortunately, it doesn't work yet. Personally, I feel that it must have something to do with pin allocations or something because I just do not quite understand what goes on there. For example, under "ports and pins" what does "Motor outputs" really mean? I thought that motors would only have inputs, not outputs. I don't really know what all the other columns in this table are.
At the moment I am really not too worried about steps per unit etc. Once I get the motors moving I will worry about getting them to move the correct amount.
Regards,
Adrian
-
Steps per unit are important even for testing as you may be sending 10times too many and the motors cant respond and hence stall.
They are Outputs because they are from Mach so Mach is outputting steps.
Did you get any documentation at all with these drives?
Hood
-
No, I am afraid not. I guess I should now something about what is connected to the output pins of the drive. perhaps I should try and contact the supplier for the info?
-
Its not an easy task setting up drives when you have no information on them as its all trial and error and for someone who is new to things I would say impossible.
Hood
-
If you put a picture of the board I may have a sheet for it
-
Thanks Tramalot. I do have a picture but when I try to attach it, I don't seem to be able to post it. Do you have a private email I can send it to?
Regards,
Adrian
-
pm me
-
Hi team,
I have installed Mach 3 on a XP system (Ive been using turboCNC with no problems) I have all the pins and ports set the same as I had with turbo, but the mill seams to be "dead"!
Now when I say "dead" that is not quite true, When I use the jog keys the led's on my driver board light up to say the axis is moving but the motor is dead!
I have been into the motor settings and moved the two sliders from one extreme to the other and had the same result(I have also upped the pulse setting). I'm sure it is a setting that I have wrong, I just cant find it!
-
Im going thru the same problem with my pins.
First of all quick intro,I have never used a cnc machine of any sort before this.I bought a mill already converted from a local in town.Before I got to actually use it,the cpu that I got with it went out completely.With it went all the settings for these motors and who knows what else.
I went out and bought a new cpu tower,installed a PCI card to have the parallel port and have been reading the PDF manual on mach 3.The driver test checks out fine now but I still cant get any motor movement.
Here is what info I do know on this machine setup...
-Keiling 9082 stepper drivers - http://kelinginc.net/KLDriver.html
-Nema 34 KL34H2120-42-8A - http://kelinginc.net/NEMA34Motor.html
(http://i.imgur.com/WEj1M.jpg)
^ My headache :-\
Any help is appreciated,this is a completely new world for me.
-
This is an old thread, nearly a year on, what was the resolution?