Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => Mach4 General Discussion => Topic started by: jem on December 11, 2015, 03:23:09 PM
-
h!
I have a connection with the machine. I can see the input signals and I can hear very weak movement from the motors on the machine. However I've gone through all the settings looked through all of the mnauals but have no idea how to get the motors to move...
Any ideas?
Thanks
Jem
-
Hi Jem,
We need additional information in order to help you. Is this the controller that you have?
http://www.prototools.co.uk/shop/download/media/controller/zero3.pdf
If this is the controller that you have, the PMDX-411 needs to connect to the DB-25
on the LEFT side. To accomplish this you will need either a gender changer or a
straight through cable with a female connector on each end.
You should not need to change any of the settings inside the controller box.
Also, please use the Help > Support > Package Current Profile option from the menu bar
in Mach4 to generate a Profile Package from your machine and send it to us for analysis.
Regards,
Steve Stallings
PMDX
-
Yep thats the one.
I've fitted a gender changer and it looks like it works. I can see the sensors working. Motors are engaging but too weakly to move.
-
Are your motors providing normal holding torque while at rest?
If not, this controller may not activate the motors until it sees the
"charge pump" running. Have you configured the PMDX-411 to
supply a "charge pump" signal on pin 16?
-
Not sure how to do that?
-
when the pdmx device is plugged in and the software is off, the z motor starts grinding not moving just grinding. Switch on the software it works.. can see ref signals but no movement whatsoever from the motors which are on but locked.
Have gone through all of the settings and manuals but i cannot figure out how this is supposed to work?
-
To enable the charge pump on the PMDX-411, do the following:
(1) Go to the Mach4 "Configure" menu and select "Mach...".
(2) When the configuration dialog appears, click on the "Output Signals" tab. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the signal list. Look for a signal named "Charge Pump #1". This should be right after "Limit Override" and right before "Charge Pump #2" and "Current Hi/Lo". If instead of "Charge Pump #1" you see "Reserved #1", go ahead and use that. Our plug-in will still interpret this as the charge pump signal.
(3) On the "Charge Pump #1" line, click on the red "X" in the "Mapping Enabled" column to change it to a green check mark. In the "Device" column select the "SmartBOBUSB" device. In the "Output Name" column, select "Pin16". You can leave the red "X" in the "Active Low" column. Click on "OK" to return to the main Mach4 screen.
(4) Now go back to the Mach4 "Configure" menu and select "Plugins...".
(5) Click on the "Configure" button on the PMDX-SmartBOB-USB line.
(6) When the configuration dialog appears click on the "Feature Config" tab.
(7) Look for a section titled "Charge Pump Configuration". Make sure the frequency is 12500 Hz, and that the "Charge Pump On only when Machine is Enabled" option is selected. NOTE: The Zero3 manual does not say what frequency it expects on the charge pump signal, so we are using our plug-in's default value.
( 8 ) Click on "OK" until you are back at the main Mach4 screen.
(9) With Mach4 disabled (the button in the lower left corner should be flashing green and say "Enable"), look at the LEDs on the front of the Zero3 box. The 2nd LED from the left shows the charge pump status, and this LED should be off. now enable Mach4 by clicking on the flashing green "Enable" button. The button should turn red and say "Disable". On the Zero3 controller, the 2nd LED from the left should now be on.
Now see if you can get any motion from your motors.
Bob
-
thanks bob! I'll give that a try...
-
ok tried all of that... green lights are on... I can barely hear the motors trying to turn but they aren't moving. Not on any axis...
-
Its working! ;D Thank you so much! the motors sound a wee bit weird but they are all moving... I changed to another set of pins and that did the trick... okey dokey then... now to configure the motors etc :)
-
oh btw is it possible to run this mach 4 dealie from an ipad? thanks!
-
Not going to happen on an iPad because there is no way to run Mach4.
There are reports that some people have run Mach4 on a Surface Pro.
-
Hello again.. I'm afraid I'm going to start asking you guys a lotttta questions :-) How do I get the software to start from xyz 000? How do I change the orientation of the axis? How do you create macros?
Thanks
jem
-
What I'm finding now is that when I load gcode intio mach 4 its no longer showing the simulation on screen. Secondly when i try pressing reference all axes. The machine stops working and I have to reload the software just to get the motors to run again. Any ideas?
The gcode I have is from winpc nc so i'm looking to get xyz and e back to 0000 before kicking off the rest of the code...
-
A general tip - if the topic of your questions changes, it is better to start a new thread on the forum, rather than to keep appending to this thread. Specially now as your questions move more towards generic Mach4 operation questions than Xero3 specific questions. That said...
For writing macros, Mach4 uses a programming language called "Lua" for its macros. Search this forum and look in the :Mach4 Toolbox" sub-forum for samples.
How do you change the orientation of an axis? I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean something like change the direction of the X axis to positive moves travel to the left instead of the right? Or do you mean something like make the Y axis move left & right, and the X axis move in and out?
Ref All Home **should** start homing the machine. But there are a couple of things that need to be configured before this will work. But that shouldn't cause the machine to stop working. What exactly does "stop working" mean? When this happens, do you see any error messages in the status line? The status line is down near the bottom of the Mach4 screen - though you may need to click on the "History" button to see all of the messages. If you exit Mach4 and re-start it, can you then run the machine again? Or do you have to also unplug the PMDX SmartBOB also?
You need to have home switches defined for each axis (see Configure->Mach, then click on the "Input Signals" tab). You also need to set the homing order for each axis. See the Configure->Mach menu, then click on "Homing/SoftLimits" tab. Homing order values are non-zero (if you want the axis to "home"), with 1 being the first axis to home, and higher numbers following in order. You can assign the same value to multiple axes and Mach4 will attempt to home them at the same time. If the "Home in Place" column is enabled (a green check mark), Mach4 won't actually move that axis, it will simply declare that whatever the axis' current position is, THAT is home.
Bob
-
Thanks I'll add some new posts/ I was using winpc nc before this and the axis orientation ie + or - are different to what is in mach 4. So apart from having to write a converter to change + and - values is there any way i can change the orientation of the xyz axis?
Also the tool paths have partially dissaperaed off the screen. I can only see part of what the machine was printign before not the whole thing. I have no idea how to get it back.
-
See this thread: https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,31512.0.html