Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Breastfed on February 15, 2014, 10:31:30 PM
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Hi
My 4 axis Router has been working fine in the past however I'm in the middle of reworking the control panel with an upgrade for the Home Switches and general tidy up. Now I maybe having a senior moment here but I have noticed the Pulse Frequency in the Diagnostics screen seems to jump around a lot and I remember this being kinda stable with only slight fluctuations of maybe a 100Hz or so but I never paid much attention to this. Now I see a Pulse Freq of constantly changing from 57639 > 58815 > 57675 and then it drops back to 925 > 83 Hz and repeats again 57639 .....
And last night while being away from the PC for 20mins, returning I found that Mach3 screen was no longer open ? a crashed is my guess !!
The PC is an All in One Hitachi Flora running XP Pro SP3
I don't suspect an over heating CPU > runs at around 45 to 48 deg C, Intel P4 @ 3.60GHz + 2GB of memory.
LPT1 > G540.
LPT2 > MB02-V6 BOB.
I recently added the iMACH III P2-S USB pendant this requires a dll file copied to the plugin folder and its good to go > Disable the plugin and there is no change
Pulse Engine is running at 60kHz and changing this back to 25kHz makes no difference.
I have run the Driver Test a couple of times and rebooted.
The driver test is successful and shows the mach3 takeover "excellent" > Reboot
In the Mach3 screen The Driver says it was "Successfully initialised" > Pulse engine shows no change
I'm a few weeks away from completing the updates so its difficult to do a test run, perhaps its been like this all along and now I've just realised.... could you guys take a peek at your pulse engine in the diagnostics tab and let me know
Any suggestions would be appreciated
Breastfed
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Hi,
I would be grateful if you guys could take a peek at the Diagnostic page and tell me if the Pulse Freq is a steady number
Breastfed ;D
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On my 1Ghz PIII at 25Khz, it deviates by about 2-4. I would probably expect a bit more deviation at 60Khz, IF the machine runs OK, I wouldn't worry about it.
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Thanks for the reply, I see a Pulse Freq of constantly changing from 57639 > 58815 > 57675 and then it drops back to 925 > 83 Hz and repeats again 57639....
When I run the Driver Test its rock solid, btw the PC is dedicated to this machine and there is no extra bloatware to speak of
any suggestions as to what I can do to diagnose this ?
Breastfed
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No, not really. Every PC runs Mach3 differently.
What you can do is make sure all unnecessary services in Windows are turned off, and disable all on board hardware that's not being used in the bios.
Disable sound, unused ports, unused networking. Not just software but all hardware and unused core components of Windows.
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OK Thanks I will check this out
Breastfed
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I was sure there was another text document floating around on the web about how to optimise the PC for Mach3, do you know if this is the latest ?
ftp://machsupport.com/Extra%20Information/XP%20Optimization%20Guide.txt
Still looking
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That's the only one I know of.
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Hi,
I've got a frequency fluctuation problem and am trying to find the answer - but tried the link given and get a page error - not found - report. Any ideas where it is?
Regards,
GeoffB
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ftp://machsupport.com/Extra%20Information/XP%20Optimization%20Guide.txt (ftp://machsupport.com/Extra%20Information/XP%20Optimization%20Guide.txt)
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Thanks Hood - got it.
GB
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Hi,
I've got a frequency fluctuation problem and am trying to find the answer - but tried the link given and get a page error - not found - report. Any ideas where it is?
Regards,
GeoffB
GeoffB,
did you have any luck resolving this issue ?
I have tried everything with my dedicated "all in one" PC and still going ... so far a new HDD with a fresh install of XP (Std PC), all the latest drivers, new Power supply, removed the PCI Parallel Port card just for fun, changed the CPU back to 2.8 GHZ, installed new Memory ... optimized the settings and all with no change !!
So next I installed Mach3 on this old faithful desktop PC running Win7 that I do all my CAD stuff on and bugger me the pulsing engine is ROCK SOLID just like I remember it was with the dedicated all in one PC.
Substance abuse coming soon !!!
When I run the driver test this shows a steady frequency under mach control ... is there any explanation for this difference with the driver test and the Pulsing engine instability on the Diagnostics Tab in Mach3 ?
Breastfed
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Hi BF
Nope - still got issues - the machine will jog along all day long but at a particular place in the programme it goes for a G0 and stalls the stepper for a brief sec - usually around 5-7mm of travel. Checked out the G-code have fitted new steppers and drivers and shielded cabling, checked out everything going and still it happens - as a quick fix it appears swapping the two pocket sequences around has cured it on this programme but it has happened on others to - and on this prog it went through the prog 3 or 4 times OK then suddenly it happened again - hair pulling out time!
The drivertest shows steady frequency as does the diagnostics - only varying by the odd 00001 - 2 and a straqight line on the graph with just a small (tiny) spike here and there.
GeoffB
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Well after way to much messing around and not finding a solution to my sudden problem I installed Win7, I've Installed Mach3 and immediately everything was OK with the Pulse freq.
The next step was to use RT_Seven_Lite to remove all the excess plus all the applicable XP tweaks where applicable and so far its been working OK
Breastfed
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Hi Breastfed,
Now all working fine (well it was at the last use!!) Frequencies fine and all the problems seem to be the acceleration rates that were originally set in Mach3 software by others - I have now reduced them from 125mm/sec/sec to 85mm/sec/sec and still at 2000mm/min top jog speed and all is working fine. Just t aken a long route to get t o the answer.
GB