Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: skipper on January 03, 2008, 11:14:06 PM
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Hi All,
I am having a tough time getting my Rockcliff router to work. I running Gecko G203V drives and Keling motors. When I home my maching axis, the x-axis will continue moving even though the home switch got triggered, it did not move off the switch. The error message read "Softlimit max< min" this just started to happen. The other thing that was happening when try to home was that the y-axis is that it would move but never even come close to the switch and then stop and begin homing the other axis. On the z-axis, it was moving in the oppisite direction of the switch. I am going to post my settings, can some one tell me what is wrong.
Thanks,
skipper
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Is this a new set up? Has it ever ran before? You can chnage teh direction of homing for the Z either by changing to home neg. in homing and limits or by changing active high/low state in config, ports and pins, motor outputs. For the Y stopping half way, try putting 2000 in the debounce in the top righ of config/general config. Also, on the program run screen, if the softlimits switch is green around the edges, click on it to disable your soft limits.
Brett
Look at this too to get your axis going in the right direction.
stick your left hand in front of you, point your thumb up, first finger ahead and second to the right, that is the +ve direction of the three axis (Thumb is z, first is y and second is X)
Also remember that it is the tool direction and not the workpiece/table. so on a mill, quill going up is Z+ve, table towards you is Y+ve and table to left is x +ve
Hood
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You are trying the big bang approach - and getting a big bang.
Turn off two of the homes on your Ports and Pins/Inputs and concentrate on one axis at once.
The two axis you have turned off will not move but the DROs will go to zero
The live one should be set up in order.
If you are going to use soft limits, and it looks as though you are, then these limits must a a little outside those set for your referencing. If you manuall watch your axis when it homes it pushes the switch until it clicks - mine then carry on a little because there is over-run on the motors (I don't know why) They then reverse and back off until the switch clicks again. If you are using the same switch as a limit switch, then this is taken care of in the computer program, in that, if you are homing the limmit switch part is disabled until the homing is finished
The limit switch and homing switch should obviously be set up on the same pin number.
So, ensure the inputs are correct under Ports and Pins/Input signals. Are your switches wired so they are normally open - i.e. positive until activated - Active Low, or normally closed - Active High - ensure the appropriate tick in Active Low if needed.
Try it out - jog the axis to the middle of its run, and press the ref all switch. If the axis is moving the wrong way stop it and alter the homing direction on Config/Homing/Limits. The axis should run down to the switch, press it, reverse and stop. The DRO should zero if you have ticked auto zero.
When you have that correct, turn it off (all the other settings will stay) and turn on another axis and set that up until you have each individual axis working correctly.
Then try the big bang !!!
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Hi All,
Yes, this is a new set up that has not run yet. I am still trying to get it to home and configuring the settings.
I am not using limit swithes only home switches. Does this mean I do not need the soft limits? I watched the tutorial video on Mach3 site and just assumed I need to set the soft limits.
My swiches are currently wired to be normally opened. They are not wired in series, they each have there own input. Should they be wired in series under one input?
I will try to home one axis at a time. I've been away for a couple of days but now I am back and hope to get my system running.
Thanks.
rene
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You dont need Softlimits but it is good to have them.
The way you have the switches now is fine, there is no need to group them, that is only done to save inputs. I would say however its best to have NC switches so if a wire breaks and they are NC Mach will see it open and halt with a limit error. The way you have it just now if a wire breaks Mach wont know and neither will you until you run off the end of your axis.
Hood
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Hi All,
So found out a few more things. I changed my home switches to normally closed and I tried bring on-line one axis at a time.
The Z-axis seems to home OK. When homing, it will move towards home, trigger the home switch, and them move off. The DRO will read 0.000 after it does this.
The Y-axis does not seem right. When homing, it will move towards home, trigger the home switch, and them move off. The DRO will read something like -3.1025 and not 0.000 like the z-axis. It does seem to home though.
The X-axis is still a problem. I had to replace the home switch because the machine crushed the one I was using. When homing, it will move towards the home switch, it will trigger the home switch but not back off. It will keep on going, that is how the home switch got crushed and destroyed. The other thing I noticed of the x-axis is that when using the jog control, it does not matter if I jog in the + or the - direction, it will always moves towards the home switch. It will not move away.
The other axis seem to move in the correct direction when jogging. I am at my wits ends on this, cannot figure out what is wrong.
Thanks,
rene
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rene
Sounds like you may have the pins asigned wrong for the X axis, either that or you have the motor wiring wrong, one other thing to try is change the Dir Low Active setting for that axis as seemingly some drives can be picky about it.
When your Y axis doesnt change to zero is this definitely not zero if you toggle the Machine Coords button. If its still not zero on machine coords then make sure you have it set to Auto Zero in the Homing and limits page.
Hood
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Skipper - to avoid a crushing defeat, then, when you have the switch wired up - (you do not need it in place - it can be on a long length of wire) test it by closing it with you finger, or something. If you turn to the diagnostics page, you should see the switch closing - red led will light.
You can try all your switches on this page and make sure they work, before you get things rolling along and crushing things. You can even designate pins as limit switches etc. and see what the effect is.
Once you have the axis working in your hand, so to speak, fasten them all back on the machine and away you go. It sounds as though the x axis switch is not making contact when it closes.
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Jim all good advice but I think the important thing that rene said was the motor will always travel in the same direction even when trying to jog the other way. I think probably Mach is seeing the switch fine, is reversing but the switch never closes because although Mach has told the axis top reverse it is acrtually still moving in the same direction.
Hood
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I think I agree - which is why I am saying test ALL the switches on the diagnostics page before setting anything in motion. It is one of those faults you could find in a few minutes, if you didn't have to communicate over miles of ether - most frustrating !!!
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Jim, yes totally agree with you and the advice you gave was very good, sorry if it came across otherwise.
Hood
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Hi all,
My x-axis is still not working.
I checked each on my switches (activiated them by hand) and they all turn on and off properly in the diagnostic screen of Mach3.
I changed the "dir step", to X instead of the check mark.
I checked the motor connections and it looks to me hooked up correctly for that motor, A phase=black wire, A- phase=green wire, B phase=red wire, B- phase=blue wire.
The x-axis is still only moving towards the switch when I jog, it is not reversing. I am attaching some screen shots for you to examin. Please let me know if there are any other screen shot you would like to see.
Thanks,
rene
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What you need to do is disconnect your parallel port cable from your breakout board and put a volt meter between pin 3 and a ground pin. Then you want to Jog the X axis one way then the other and you should see the Volateg go between 5v and 0v as you change directions. If you see this then Mach to your cable end is OK and you need to start looking at your breakout and drive. Easiest way to check next is to swap out the Y drive for the X drive and see if the problem follows the drive. If it does then looks like you have a bad drive. If it doesnt then it could be your breakout.
I notice you have output 1 active in the screenshot, do you need this? if so you dont have any pin asigned to it, if not then best to disable it.
Hood
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Hi All,
I have not been able to work on my motor problem until today. I tried to set the step dir to active high as suggested on cnczone and it made no difference. I also tried to re-making the connection and it also made no difference.
I checked the dir output from the bob board to see if I get a + and - voltage coming from Mach3. I did so on the x axis and when I jogged x- the voltage was 2.47v, when I jogged x+ the voltage was 0.00v. When I checked the same for the y axis I got the oppisite, y- gave my 0.000v and y+ gave me 2.47v. So, I concluded that the output voltages are ok.
I then swapped the x Gecko drive with the y Gecko drive to see if the problem follows with the drive. To my suprise, the problem did follow. There is a problem with my Gecko driver.
I am going to call them tomorrow and see about fixing it or other suggestion.
Thanks for the help I'll keep you posted.
Rene
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Hi All,
The x-axis turning in only one dirction problem has now been solved. It turned out to be a bad G203V drive. I sent it back to Gecko and they said that it had a "defective opto isolator", that sometimes they get a bad one from their sources. I appreciate all the help everyone given me. I am disappointed at how much time I spent trying to figure out the problem, my machine should have been up running over the Christmas holidays and now I am well into January, live and learn.
So, I am now able to home all my axis but I think I still need to set up my soft limits. Mach3 comes loaded with a couple of G-coded programs. I ran a couple of them but a few times they went beyond my machine travel and I had to shut my machine down. I built the standard Rockcliff router, which I believe has 18x24x6 inches of travel. Do I then just set up my soft limits to these values? I looks like the values are suppose to be in metric because there have numbers like 100 and 200?
Again, thanks for all the help, I still need a long ways to go before I can actually start cutting material. I see that there are share files on this site but can I get any g-coded programs here? I still need to learn how to convert a dxf file into g-code. I am using solidworks and solidcam. I have experience with solidworks but none with solidcam. I really need to come up to speed on solidcam but there are not alot of tutorials out there.
Thanks,
rene
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SoftLimits in Mach are whatever units your machine is set up in, ie if you are using Inch then thats what it is. If your physical limits are at the extremes of the travel then setup is fairly straightforward, that is if you home to the lower left of your work envelope. If thats the case then all you do is enter 0 for X and Y min and then the travel of your table is the Max on X and Y. You can set up a slow zone so that Mach has time to decelerate before it hits the physical limit.
Hood
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Oh Forgot to say the Z is slightly different in that 0 is the Max and minus Z travel is the minimum.
Hood