Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: sqweeker on September 21, 2012, 05:32:07 PM
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I converted CNC Bridgeport,
Mill is set up with Mach3 a USB Smoothstepper and cnc4pc BOB and dugong servo drives.
I kept the original servos and encoders.
The machine has worked great for 9 months then we had an issue with an over travel on the Z axis and killed a servo drive. Hood and Brian helped me out in a different post dealing with the axis issue, but now I have a different weirdness.
Replaced the servo drive and the mill ran for a day and then started doing weird stuff, you could load a gcode program and you could run it several times then it would just stop or it wouldn't run at all. Had to shut down mach and restart and then the same result.
Read some posts and saw several folks had similar weirdness with noise issues. So I bought a ESS and installed that hoping that if it was a noise issue that would take care of it.... NOPE got worse.
Other funny thing was that my Z axis steps were still the same in my motor tuning but the spindle was moving twice as far as it should have DRO showed 0.250" and the spindle moved 0.500" changed the steps to get back to the correct travel.
So I thought maybe something got corrupted in Mach, I downloaded the .066 version non lockdown (Warp 9 suggested .058) but I could not find that on the download page.
As it stands now the mill will let me move all the axis with the jog keys, I tried to do a quicky NFS small program just to test it out, it loads the gcode press start and it gets to the 4th line and just sits there.
Any suggestions would really be greatly appreciated
Thank you,
Ted
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What do you have the toolchange option set to in General Config?
Is there any message in the error line at the bottom of the screen?
Not sure what the G40.1 is all about but doesnt seem to stop Mach as I just tested.
Hood
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That is strange. I had a program loaded in lathe that refused to see the last line with M30. When I opened the editor (notepad) the M30 was scripted but when I hit save changes the Gcode display on the Mach screen in lathe did not show the line at all...basically not showing??? Could only get back to top of program by hitting rewind. Can you do a "start from here" if you move to another line or is it just stuck until you reload/re-start from scratch?
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Hi Hood,
Stop spindle wait for cycle start, if it makes it that far it does what it's suposed to and then hit cycle start and it runs the code.
No error message it just stops, can't do anything until you hit the stop button. Hit the stop button and the Spindle retracts to safe Z.
It will let me rewind the code but nothing will move after that, I usually have to shut down mach to be able to even jog again.
Hi Allstar,
Tried that as well nothing, see above.
Thanks,
Ted
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Sounds like a corrupt XML . Trying reconfiguring from scratch to build a new XML.
Just a thought, (;-) TP
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If you press Start does it still do nothing?
Could be as TP suggests but if you want to attach your xml I will have a look.
Hood
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Thanks BR,
I had considered that, but was trying not to blow my whole weekend, oh well, seems like I know were I'll be.
Should I delete the entire Mach 3 folder and start from scratch or is there a short cut that will work.
Thanks again,
Ted
Hi Hood please see attached.
Thank you,
Ted
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Your xml seems to be working fine here.
Not sure what the problem could be if there are no error messages.
I just had to use a SS as I dont have a ESS here so it could be somthing to do with it.
Hood
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Just a thought, when it stops look and see if there is any flags in the ESS monitor page, maybe a clue there.
Hood
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Hi Hood,
Thanks for that suggestion, I'll try that tomorrow they are locking up the shop right now and want me out the door....
The funny thing is I'm really not sure what is causing this, if It was the hardware I figured something would not work.
I really don't know enough about the software other than enough to get into trouble.
If nothing in the ESS monitor,... Do you think a fresh install is the right thing to do at this point...?
Thanks again,
Ted
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It might be the quickest way but as said it is fine with your xml and a USB SS so cant see it being a Mach issue. Could be a ESS plugin issue though.
One other thing you could try is delete all plugins from the folder except the ESS just in case there is an issue or conflict there.
Actually best is just to rename the plugin folder to OldPlugin then make a new one called Plugins and copy over the ESS plugin to it, that way you still have all the other plugins if you need them.
Hood
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That is strange. I had a program loaded in lathe that refused to see the last line with M30. When I opened the editor (notepad) the M30 was scripted but when I hit save changes the Gcode display on the Mach screen in lathe did not show the line at all...basically not showing??? Could only get back to top of program by hitting rewind. Can you do a "start from here" if you move to another line or is it just stuck until you reload/re-start from scratch?
You must hit RETURN after the M30 while in the editor.
Many folks put a % on the following line to be assured.
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That is strange. I had a program loaded in lathe that refused to see the last line with M30. When I opened the editor (notepad) the M30 was scripted but when I hit save changes the Gcode display on the Mach screen in lathe did not show the line at all...basically not showing??? Could only get back to top of program by hitting rewind. Can you do a "start from here" if you move to another line or is it just stuck until you reload/re-start from scratch?
Seems like the second time you advised me to hit return...I must be alittle slow on that concept lol. Tanks
You must hit RETURN after the M30 while in the editor.
Many folks put a % on the following line to be assured.
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Finally found the problem,
it was in the G54 fixture,
I zero'd all the G54 settings and the mill is again running as before.
Thanks Hood and all for your help
Have fun,
Ted
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Glad to hear your sorted :)
Hood
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Nice work! I am special Ed/G-code for dummies level, so can someone explain what that G54 does? I have only wrote G code for the lathe and all that was self taught reading self help books.
Thanks,
Robert
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G54 is the default work offset and is the value you normally see in the DROs in Mach. The only time you wont see G54 there is if you have called one of the other 252 offsets or you have pressed the machine coordinates button to view them.
Short explanation of machine versus g54 would be
You start Mach and press Ref All and your machine homes and sets the machine coords, usually zero. You then jog to where you want your work offset zero to be and zero the DROs, you have now just set the G54 offset. There are another 252 offsets that can be called and zeroed in a similar fashion but mostly you will be in G54
Hood