Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Thorpydo on August 21, 2008, 11:33:59 AM
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Hi,
I recently bought and downloaded mach3. I am running it on my desktop that currently does not have a parallel printer port. I plan on buying a PCI card with one soon but I still wanted to test the product out, without the parallel port.
On multiple occasions the machine would freeze. I tried installing the "special driver" and that did not help. When I first installed the software I did not check the "simulation mode".
Am I having problems because I have no parallel port and am not running in simulation mode or is there something else going on here? In addition to the freezing, I was having trouble jogging the axis. I went through the tutorials and believe I did everything right and am also attributing this to not actually running a cnc machine. Is there a way to easily go in and out of "simulation mode"?
Thank you for your time,
Adam
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I have Mach3 on my office computer, as well as the one in the workshop.
I have nothing attached to the office computer, but I do have Mach3 set up on it, as though it were running a machine, e.g. the ports and pins are allocated correctly, and all the bits I do not have are all correctly ticked as not being present e.g. none of the switches are activated. (I set it up the same as the workshop computer so I can write GCode programs on it)
I assume you have the drivers installed, and the machine told you it was installed correctly.
What you can do is run a driver test - the program is in the folder (or on your Desktop).
What may be happening is that you are running programs that are waiting for inputs from a switch or something else that you have shown active but do not have.
You might try the Smooth Stepper as a better alternative to a PCI card.
The Smooth Stepper simply plugs into a USB port and provides more inputs and outputs than the standard card. It also generates the pulses for the stepper motor/servo motor drivers - and therefore take a major task off your computer - allowing it to run more efficiently.
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So it turns out mach3 is not to blame; It freezes up with out without mach3 running and this is a recent thing.
I opened up the computer case and blew out the 4 year old dust build up and man it went flying... and kept on flying... and still more went flying. It seems to be running smoothly now without hiccups but I am keeping my fingers crossed.
On a separate note, I can't seem to get mach3 to jog. I listened to the setup videos. I have been able to jog no problem on my laptop in simulation mode, but not with the desktop running "real" I haven't had any luck. Any guesses?
Thanks again and my apologies for the post
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Make sure you have the Jog Control active, it will have a green surround if it is.
Hood