Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => SmoothStepper USB => Topic started by: HimyKabibble on September 08, 2008, 08:35:32 PM
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I just got my SS today, and it took all of about 10 minutes to get it plugged into my knee mill, get drivers installed, and have everything more or less running. Pretty impressive! It's also doubled my rapid speeds. But, a few problems:
1) When I start Mach3, it comes up with *several* axes moving! It does not come up in E-Stop mode as it should. What's up with that?
2) It seems to have rendered my brain-based pendant nearly useless. It appears to be impossible to reliably perform a very short jog. A very brief button press is either ignored, or results in a move lasting up to about a second. Surely this is not expected? If it is, is there *any* way to have the SS and one or more PPs active at the same time? Should I disable the Mach3 de-bounce, and only use the SS ones?
3) Related to #2, pendant operation in general seems unreliable. Sometimes it works OK, sometimes hardly at all. Never had that problem with the PP.
4) Homing no longer works correctly. It correctly homes the Y axis, but as soon as it triggers the X home/limit switch, a limit stop is triggered, and the homing operation stops before X is properly homed. I (and others) have had this problem before with Mach, so it may well be a Mach problem, rather than an SS problem. This is odd, since I have only one set of home/limit switches, all wired in series, so it sure doesn't smell like a noise problem. I have all inputs set to 100uS de-bounce.
But, overall, despite these issues, I am very pleased with what I've seen so far!
Regards,
Ray L.
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Disable your Brain and see if Mach still comes up with axis moving, also might be worth making up a new profile from scratch as some people have had issues if the use the parallel port profile.
Homing problem is likely noise, add some digital filtering, I had slight problems with my MPG on the mill as it was directly connected rather than through a breakout, setting the filtering for MPG to the lowest (1.43) solved all of my problems.
Hood
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Oh should have said, debounce in Mach is not used by the SS, its done via digital filtering in the plugin as mentioned above, if you dont have the digital filtering in the plugin config then grab the latest plugin version.
Hood
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Oh should have said, debounce in Mach is not used by the SS, its done via digital filtering in the plugin as mentioned above, if you dont have the digital filtering in the plugin config then grab the latest plugin version.
Hood
Hood,
So, are you saying the Mach3 debounce is literally not used if SS is installed (i.e. - the setting will not affect operation, whether set to 0 or 10,000), or that it should be NOP-ed by setting to 0?
I do think there would be a great deal to be said for a configuration that used SS and one PP. For example, my Bob would prefer to be connected to the PP, both for the quicker response, and because the cabling works out better - the PP is closer to where the Bob wants to be than the SS will be.
Regards,
Ray L.
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Disable your Brain and see if Mach still comes up with axis moving, also might be worth making up a new profile from scratch as some people have had issues if the use the parallel port profile.
Homing problem is likely noise, add some digital filtering, I had slight problems with my MPG on the mill as it was directly connected rather than through a breakout, setting the filtering for MPG to the lowest (1.43) solved all of my problems.
Hood
Hood,
Unfortunately, my brain is disabled most of the time.... However, I assume you meant to disable my Mach3 "brains"? I did that, and it did seem to cure the axes running on startup. But why?? That seems a serious bug to me. Anyway, so now my pendant is completely useless - not good. Also, I notice Mach now *always* comes up with the DROs set to some bizarre offsets - -5900" for A, 20" more or less for X and Y. These appear to be the machine offsets. Why??
Regards,
Ray L.
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Hood,
So, are you saying the Mach3 debounce is literally not used if SS is installed (i.e. - the setting will not affect operation, whether set to 0 or 10,000), or that it should be NOP-ed by setting to 0?
Debounce is ignored by the SS, it has its own version which is in the plugin and is a lot more configurable for different types of Inputs.
I do think there would be a great deal to be said for a configuration that used SS and one PP. For example, my Bob would prefer to be connected to the PP, both for the quicker response, and because the cabling works out better - the PP is closer to where the Bob wants to be than the SS will be.
Regards,
Ray L.
Not sure what you are meaning here, first off you surely can get the SS squeezed in near the BOB but even if you cant its no big deal. Why do you say the quicker response from the PP? in what respect will the PP be quicker?
Unfortunately, my brain is disabled most of the time.... However, I assume you meant to disable my Mach3 "brains"? I did that, and it did seem to cure the axes running on startup. But why??
Not sure, I do remember something weird with the brains in one of the plugins, could be the last one that is on the site, not sure, which one are you using?
That seems a serious bug to me. Anyway, so now my pendant is completely useless - not good.
No arguements there, very serious indeed.
Also, I notice Mach now *always* comes up with the DROs set to some bizarre offsets - -5900" for A, 20" more or less for X and Y. These appear to be the machine offsets. Why??
Not sure, mine seem right. Do you have home switches?
Hood
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Hood,
My Geckos, BOB, power supplies, etc. are mounted in an enclosure behind the mill - basically inaccessible, and a fair distance away. The PC is right next to the mill, a few feet from where I sit. So, the pendant is more logically connected directly to the PC, rather than to the BOB. So, a PC PP connection makes more sense. As for the performance aspects, as I reported in the original post, my pendant, connected through SS, is virtually useless for other than very coarse jogging. The shortest button press I can manage moves on the order of 0.100" or more. Sometimes much more. With the pendant on the PP, I could easily jog about 0.010". The length of the button presses on the pendant are obviously being affected by the latency of communications with the SS. I'm using the latest SS plug-in, just downloaded last night.
Here's another "anomoly" I discovered in my first attempt to do some real work with SS today - I normally do 2.5D milling, with manual Z moves, as I haven't yet had time to mount the servo to the Z axis. Each time a Z move is required, an M00 is inserted, telling me where to move it to. Trouble is, the G-code display in Mach is no longer synchronized correctly, so the M00 lines are a few lines above or below the highlight in the G-code display. This sometimes leaves me having to flgure out which of the potential Z moves is the one I should be doing right now. Not good....
Regards,
Ray L.
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Hood,
My Geckos, BOB, power supplies, etc. are mounted in an enclosure behind the mill - basically inaccessible, and a fair distance away. The PC is right next to the mill, a few feet from where I sit. So, the pendant is more logically connected directly to the PC, rather than to the BOB. So, a PC PP connection makes more sense.
Still dont understand, if your bob etc is in the enclosure then surely the cable comes from it to the PC? If so what is stopping you putting the SS inside the computer case, connecting the cable from the BOB to it and also connecting the cable from the pendant to the SS. As far as I can see it would be exactly the same cabling as you have now.
As for the performance aspects, as I reported in the original post, my pendant, connected through SS, is virtually useless for other than very coarse jogging. The shortest button press I can manage moves on the order of 0.100" or more. Sometimes much more. With the pendant on the PP, I could easily jog about 0.010". The length of the button presses on the pendant are obviously being affected by the latency of communications with the SS.
I would say that is not the issue, there must be an issue with the way the Brain is working with the plugin, the USB2 is much fatser than the PP as far as I know.
I'm using the latest SS plug-in, just downloaded last night.
Try downloading an earlier one and see if the problem still happens, as I said I seem to remember a problem with a simple Brain I was using but its sorted now. However I am not sure when it got sorted as I have been using Beta plugins for quite a while now doing threading testing so it could well have been the last one on the site that gave me problems. I forgot to bring a SS home with me tonight so cant test here :(
Here's another "anomoly" I discovered in my first attempt to do some real work with SS today - I normally do 2.5D milling, with manual Z moves, as I haven't yet had time to mount the servo to the Z axis. Each time a Z move is required, an M00 is inserted, telling me where to move it to. Trouble is, the G-code display in Mach is no longer synchronized correctly, so the M00 lines are a few lines above or below the highlight in the G-code display. This sometimes leaves me having to flgure out which of the potential Z moves is the one I should be doing right now. Not good....
Cant say I have noticed that, will check it out tomorrow when I get to the workshop, well thats if I remember, supposed to do a lot of things today and forgot most of them LOL, must be getting old :(
Hood
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Hood,
OK, I think I have *part* of an answer. I believe the problem with the pendant has to do with the order in which the brain lobes are executed. I did one funky thing in there - I have one lobe whose only function is to assert a PP output. That PP output is used to power the pullup resistors for all the switches. I believe what's happening is the inputs are being read before that output is set, so Mach3 sees all, or at least some, of the inputs as asserted. What's it's doing on start-up is a GoTo Zero on all axes, which is one of the pendant buttons.
However, this still does not explain *how* it's able to come up and immediately start moving, since Mach3 is supposed to come up in E-Stop, and while the pendant can assert* an E-stop, it cannot *clear* one. So, that's still a mystery.
As for the jog resolution, further tinkering has determined that to be mostly a function of the increased jog speed and accleration the SS enabled. If I set the jog speed and acceleration back where they were with the PP configuration, then it seems to work much better. That I should be able to fix in the pendant brain functions if I can ever figure out the right combination of magic incantations....
Regards,
Ray L.
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Can you atach your brain so I can have a look, I am not great with them but may be able to spot something.
Hood
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Hood,
Pendant brains attached.
Regards,
Ray L.
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I cant see your Pendant-Jog brain, just keep getting an error when I try to view or load it.
Hood
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Hood,
Odd, I can download it just fine....
Regards,
Ray L.
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I can download it, just when I try to open it in the Brain editor it opens for a split second then the editor closes. Also when I try to reload it from Brain control it throws an error.
Hood