Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Greenjeens on July 18, 2013, 11:57:51 AM
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My home is at the bottom left corner, or closest to me left corner. Here is the issue. My machine will be homed, then I jog by pressing the right arrow key, the crosshairs move to the left on the display. I jog to the bottom my corss hairs move to the top. Its like mach3 thinks my table is all opposite. I have fiddled with reversing the axes in Homing/limits, and also in the ports and pins and I cant get the cross hairs to move and stay on my material sheet. Any suggestions? Seems like a very simple problem but I just cant figure it out.
A little background on what I have
49"x49" table size
Mach 3, Sheetcam, Inkscape
3, 333oz motors on X, Y, 425oz on floating torch z axis.
Ghecko 540, im using the G540 xml
keling 48v 7.3 amp supply.
Maybe someone can tell me how to upload my XML, and maybe you fine people could possibly take a look and see what the deal is. Any help is appreciated.
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You may have the arrow keys the wrong way in System Hotkeys.
If you go there then press the X++ a box will pop up, press the right arrow, do the same sequence for the rest and you should be sorted.
Hood
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Thanks for the suggestion. Lets see if I can explain this a little further. When your in mach3 and you have the little window top right shows your table in purple and the outline of your table and the cross hairs. I will home it to bottom left corner. I will then attempt to jog it from the lower left corner. If I press the right arrow key from the lower left corner where its sitting homed it wants to go left but it cant possibly go that way because its already at the corner of my table. Theres no where for it to go. This is a plasma cnc set up with a floating torch head. I hope this makes a little more sense.
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Ok so if you press the left arrow key on your keyboard the axis will move right and the crosshair will move right?
Hood
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Yes, however if I want to jog up onto the purple space which is my table basically I cant because its already at the physicall end of my table. on the actual table itself. Think of it like this. I have the actauly table sitting there in my garge on saw horses. Mach3 thinks theres another table butted on the lower left corner and wants to run there. But I cant because the axis are up against my rales and cant go anywhere. check out my simple drawing to help better understand whats going on.
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I could upload my xml for you if you would like. I just am not exactly sure how to do it.
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here is my xml
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xml
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Ok so if it is as I asked then would seem you have the keyboard arrow keys assigned backwards.
Go to Config menu then System Hotkeys. Click X++ button and when the box opens press the right arrow key. Now X-- and press left arrow, do same for the Y etc.
Hood
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Ok, I will giver a go and see if that fixes it.
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I went into the system hotkeys as you described, they were all set to 999 numbers on all them. That fixes that part. Thanks. However, now it seems that my axis only travel on part of the available table shown on the display. Even though the direction arrows are proper now. Could that be my soft limits? my available cutting area I have 48" of gear rack on both axis except of course my Z axis which is probly around 6-7"inches. actually just free jogging it looks like it thinks theres still a phantom table next to mine, and I can only jog around about a quarter of the dotted line that represents my available table size. Any suggestions on that?
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It is indeed the soft limits that define the size of the table view.
Hood
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hmm, I have them set at 100 for soft max and min max except for my Z axis of course. Which is the way they were set from installation. I wonder if there is a bug or something because now I loaded a .tap file of a simple bracket 3x3' in size and cant even see a view of it in the program run table display.
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That will make Mach think the table is 200 long and thus you will overrun the table and soft limits will be pointless.
When you Home make sure Machine coords are being set zero (option in Homing and limits) you can check this by looking at machine coords by pressing the button.
Set X and Y min to 0 and X and Y Max to the distance of travel on each axis. Z is slightly different, Z Max is Zero and Z Min is the amount of travel but as a negative number.
Hood
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I did a search on my new Z axis problem and found a post you commented on Hood.
your post
"Ok if you move lower left lower corner and Z fully up and then press RefAll button the Machine coords should zero. That is the only way you can zero the machine coords, well it can be done in VB but .... Anyway if the machine coords do not zero then you may have one or two things wrong, both are on Homing and Limits page (from Config menu) Make sure you have the Auto Zero option chosen and secondly make sure you do not have a value set in Home Off box.
Then for your soft limits you want X and Y Min and Z Max set as 0 and X and Y Max and Z Min set to their respective axis travels, Z being a negative value.
You should then be able to jog to lower left corner and when you press RefAll the machine coords will zero and you should now be able to use Soft Limits." end of your post.
My problem is almost the same as in this guys post. When I hit ref all to get rid of the red outline on the axis boxes and make them green thus getting a successful machine coordinate setup, My Z axis just keeps going and is still going. I decided to take the pinion gear off because it chatters and will probably destroy my axis, to see if it ever stops but its still spinning as I'm typing for at least three minutes now seemingly to no end. I have my homing and limits set up just as you described. There is no value in Home off box, and auto zero is checked. Both X and Y axis will go to home as there instructed to lower left, but the Z axis will just keep on going. Z axis is set at soft max 0.00 and soft min set to -8.00 even though i have about 9 inches of travel on the Z axis. As you can see my soft limit setup, check out the DRO on the Z axis its at 1,687 and still going.
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Not really following regarding the "Z axis just keeps going and is still going. "
Do you have home switches on your machine?
Hood
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I have one home switch that is used on my z axis to refrence the top of my material, on a floating plate, from no sleep studios. The z axis will come down, reference the top of my material, travel upward, and will continue traveling upward + and will not stop. It continues to travel in a positive direction. It will hit the end of travel and still try to continue in a positive direction, and does not stop until i manually stop everything.
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Ok so it sounds like there must be a macro to do this reference, in the xml attached you do not have any home/limit switches set up so with the standard code in the RefAll button all that should happen when you press the RefAll button is Mach sets the machine coords at whatever position you are at.
No axis should move when pressing the RefAll button if you do not have any home switches set up in Mach. If your Z is moving when you press RefAll then the script in your RefAll button must be customised and thus I would need to see it to see what it is doing.
The other option may be that the xml you attached is not the one you are using.
Hood
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http://youtu.be/sq_nNsaRXIQ
Hopefully you can view this. Give you a little idea on whats going on. For whatever reason its doing this on the downstroke now when it comes down to reference material. I gave up on that xml file i posted and started fresh. So i do have my only home switch operational verified in the diagnostic screen of mach3. When i press switch it lights up on the screen.
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I can not see what you are doing in that video clearly
What are you pressing to make the Z move down to the top of that box or whatever it is?
Hood
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Im pressing the page down key to zero it to the material. Which is a speaker box for now, just to set everything up.
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Ok so you are not setting machine coords but simply setting a work offset. That means soft limits will be no use as you have not referenced the machine to a known position so that Mach knows where it is.
Also I have no idea what is in your code but likely it is being commanded to go to a position that is outwith the range of your Z axis.
For me to see you would have to post your new xml and the code and also show me a screenshot of the machine coords when you have the Z fully down and press Zero to zero the work coords.
Hood
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I think I will just scrap the whole z axis idea and cut without it. It did work at one time, but I clearly do not posess the skills to run it, or make adjustments to it. Although I do appreciate your input, I dont want to waste any more of your time. I can go withought any kind of height control until i get more knowledgable in Mach 3. My table is small enough where i wont have to much warping on a piece of plate steel material.
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I need to understand what you are doing so I can try to help you :)
I thought you were referencing Mach to a switch on the Z axis but from what I see now I dont think you are.
Up to you which way you want to go but I am sure we can get things worked out if I can understand what you are and wanting to do.
Hood
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I will see if I can post up a better video on youtube and post a link to it on here. If i start with a fresh copy of Mach 3, I can ref all my axis with the ref all button, and the axis boxes go green. As soon as i jog over to that speaker box im using as a table to simulate on, I will refrence my home there so it will cut at that part of my table. Once i hit that ref all again I get a red border surrounding them. And thats when things go crazy.
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Ok Referencing the machine sets Machine Coordinates. Normally the user will not know or care what they are, they are used by Mach so that Mach always knows where it is.
Work coords are offsets from these machine coords and pressing the zero button at the side of a DRO is setting the work coord zero but not changing machine coords.
If you want to reference your machine and do not have home switches then you will need to move to a known position and press RefAll button. The preferrable position is fully negative on X and Y and fully positive on Z. So if you jog to these positions and press RefAll button that will set machine coords to zero.
Now it seems you have a switch on the lower part of your Z axis so it touches off the plate and thus you are wanting to use it as a means of setting the work offset zero. If that is the case then you can do that manually or via a macro but that is simply setting work offsets and not machine coords.
Hood
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Ok, heres another video, hopefully the audio is good and the video is good enough quality.
http://youtu.be/tuAV_zJYP4E
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Ok your first problem is your Z Home switch is set up in Mach as the A axis home switch. I know this because when you are pressing the switch the M4 Home LED is lighting up, for the Z it should be the M3 Home LED.
So get that swapped in Ports and pins and the Z should home fine. However before you attempt to home also test your X and Y are set to the correct pins, if you press X home switch the M1 Home Led should light and for Y the M2 Home LED.
If you do not have the A Axis home switch set up in ports and pins by mistake then I think possibly you may have something in slaving which is affecting things. It would be easier to work out the issue if I saw the xml you were using at the present time, so if doing as I said above can not get your M1,M2, M3home LEDs working as they should then please attach your xml.
Its late here and I was actually away to shut down when I noticed you had replied so I decided to have a look, but wont be around for much longer so will check back in the morning if you do not reply in the next 10mins.
Hood
Hood
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WOW! I really cannot thank you enough just swapping the ports and pins as you said, made it work. Now when I run my .tap file of that test bracket it works great!!! What a relief! I cant believe that just having those pins swapped around would wreak so much havok! Only thing it says now it where it normally says in green "normal condition" it now says "Axis are not refed to normal condtion. But it does go to normal once I home the Z.
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it now says "Axis are not refed to normal condtion. But it does go to normal once I home the Z.
Yes thats ok, that is just a warning and to be honest it often causes more anguish to new people than it does good. I choose not to even have it on the screensets I have made.
Hood