Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: lwight on November 25, 2008, 05:08:10 PM
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OK. We've tried everything. We've got a MaxNC Router hooked up to Mach 3. They're talking; if we manually trip a limit switch, we see the led light up on Mach 3, but there's no motor response. We've tried everything mentioned in the troubleshooting video: port 378 is good, X, Y, and Z are turned on with the pin settings from MaxNC. Incidentally, our driver test looks very good.
We are a small high school just starting out with CAD so please explain things 'slowly'!
Larry
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OK first thing to do is determine how far the Step and Direction signals are getting. If you have a scope use that, if not then a voltmeter will do.
Disconnect the parallel port cable and on the back of the computer connect between X axis Dir pin and ports ground, jog the X axis one way then the other and you should see 5v one way and 0V the other. Repeat that for all axis Dir pins. Then do the same with the Step pins, you will see a voltage when jogging and 0v when not. If thats all good then put the cable back in and test on the other end. Then next its your board, see if you get signals coming out of that to your drives.
If you want you can attach your xml and maybe someone will spot a setup problem.
Hood
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Thanks Hood,
I'll bring in a volt meter tomorrow and we'll run your tests.
In the meantime, here's our XML file..
thanks all,
Larry
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Just a caution here Larry, DO NOT connect or disconnect the wires running from the
drives to the motors with power on.
Ok, if your like me, I'll repeat:
DO NOT connect or disconnect the wires running from the drives to the motors with power on.
RICH
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I am wondering if you should have one of the Max NC modes chosen? Is your machine one of them?
Hood
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There's two MaxNC options there and we tried both, as well as neither. No motor action in any case....
Say Hood (or anyone), which pin is ground?
Larry
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18 to 25 are grounds
Hood
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We had to disable the limit switches since once we unplugged the router the Reset switch tripped. Once this was done we checked voltage between pins 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (the motor output pins as specified by MaxNC) against pin 25 on the computer's female parallel port. We did this while jogging x, y, and z in Mach 3. We never got any voltage anywhere. I assume this means the internals of the port are faulty, eh?
Larry
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I am not sure if ALL Max machines are the same but I seem to remember some are quadrature outputs rather than step and direction, if that is the case then you will definitely need one of the options checked for Max** on ports and pins page. You may also have enables that you need to set up.
Do you have a pdf manual that you could attach?
Hood
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Hi, Larry
Max NC uses ether Quadrature or Rollover on Most of there Drives.
If Stepper, Max NC "Checked" on Config, Ports & Pins Page,
"Z" axis pin's 2,3,4,5,
"X" axis pin's 6,7,8,9,
"Y" axis pin's 1,14,16,17,
It uses all the output pin's so I don't think it has an Enable pin from Mach3.
In Config, Ports & Pins, Output's Page, No pin's selected.
In Config, Motor Tuning, Set Step & Dir. Pulse's to 5
Then Continue with Motor Tuning and Such.....
SEQUENCE For Z Pin's
Z | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Pin's
A | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0
B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0
C | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0
D | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1
SEQUENCE One Dir. A,B,C,D,A,B,C..... or Other Dir. D,C,B,A,D,C,B......
Let us Know, Hope this Helps get you Going.
Chip
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Hood asked for the pdf manual. It is attached.
Chip: your suggestions seem very important and we'll test them next opportunity.. Thanks.
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Ah, thanks for attaching the manual but I was actually meaning a manual for your MaxNC ;)
Hood
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Hi, Larry
It would help if you could take a couple of pic's of the Machine, Control Box and Part Numbers....., Is it stepper or servo ?
Chip
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Chip,
School is closed until Monday and I'm out of town. But I'll go in as soon as I get back and try to get some pictures. We don't have much in the way of documentation. How can I tell if the motors are stepper or servo? And when you asked, "In Config, Ports & Pins, Output's Page, No pin's selected. " were you reading our XML?
Hood,
Of course you wouldn't want that manual! I don't know what I was thinking! I was rushing out of town and grabbed the only manual we have. MaxNC didn't provide any documentation. I'll email them right now to see if anything is available.
thanks everyone,
Larry
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I had asked Hood, offline, about how to check output voltages to the motors when the limit switches kept tripping. We thought we might have worked around this by disabling the switches in Mach 3. Hood offered the following suggestion:
"If you have NC switches on them and you remove them they will trip, what you will need to do is put jumper wires from the dedicated limit connections to the dedicated common terminal."
Hood - we're back in school tomorrow (Monday) and want to get back on this. What are "NC" switches and how can we determine if that's what we have? Do we jump between connections on the parallel plug?
There's very little information available for this MaxNC Router. I've written them asking for more info but I'm not optimistic. Here's info off their website: http://maxnc.com/maxpath_42.htm
We appreciate, so much, everyone's help and patience.
Larry
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Larry,
NC means Normally Closed, ie when they are not activated there is a path through them for the electricity to flow. NO are Normaly Open and they need to be activated before electricity will flow.
The drawing in the pdf of your driver boards suggests they are NO switches but I think you said the ones you have fitted are NC, if that is the case then to do away with the dedicated limit switches you would need to put a jumper wire between each of them and the common to trick the driver board into thinking the switches are connected.
Hood
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Chris D from MaxNC read my xml file and found a setting that was incorrectly set. But the biggest issue was an obscure and hidden reset button that tripped! Everything's working now! Thanks everyone for the help and advice. I'll send some pictures of some of the students' work next.
Whew! And the semester is almost over. Just in time!
Larry