Messages

1051

Building or Buying a Wood routing table.. Beginnners guide.. / Re: inconsistency in Z axis

« on: February 05, 2017, 03:15:03 PM »

Acceptable tolerances are whatever you find acceptable.
Having said that, you should be getting more consistent results.
Is everything tight mechanically?

1052

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Parallel port not recommended???

« on: February 05, 2017, 09:59:26 AM »

I was thinking that this was a Mach3 thread.
There is not currently a Mach4 plugin for the UC100, although I believe that they are working on it.
So the PMDX-411 would be a better choice for Mach4 imo.

1053

General Mach Discussion / Re: New parallel port card question

« on: February 05, 2017, 09:39:09 AM »

It has been my understanding that Mach3 would run on any PC using an USB drive with a working copy of Mach3mill from the PC that had been running the CNC before on it.

If you don't run the Mach3 installer, the parallel port driver will not be installed. I beleive that this is why the motor tuning window does not display.
What you want to do is first install Mach3 using the installer, and then copy the entire Mach3 folder from your flash drive and overwrite the one you just installed.
This will give you a functioning duplicate  of the install on the other machine.
As for the port address, you only need to enter C400.

1054

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Parallel port not recommended???

« on: February 05, 2017, 09:30:49 AM »

So, I have the g540 and probobly need bite the bullet (or drink the koolaid) and get the ESS, but I can not quit figure out how the two devices connect to each other.

One each of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/11-4-Long-DB25-to-IDC-26-Pin-F-F-Printer-Port-Ribbon-Cable-Connector-Adapter-/401144802953?hash=item5d6617ee89:g:iy0AAOSwo4pYb6Ct
http://www.ebay.com/itm/25-Pin-DB25-Male-to-Male-M-M-Gender-Changer-Adapter-SGC-25MM-/221273598387?hash=item3384ef29b3:g:KlgAAOxym2BSGvbc

The ESS needs it's own 5V power supply, and the stepper motor power supply connects to the G540.
The only wiring to the ESS is the 5V power supply, ethernet cable, and ribbon cable to the G540.
The G541 manual should cover all other wiring..

Also, the ESS is overkill if your only using a G540, as the ESS has 3 ports, and you'll only be using 1.
A UC100 is quite a bit cheaper, ad will do the same thing.

1055

General Mach Discussion / Re: Change Wiring

« on: February 04, 2017, 09:36:19 PM »

Checking the Reverse column is a lot easier than changing wires.

1056

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Parallel port not recommended???

« on: February 04, 2017, 04:46:40 PM »

The g540 IS the motion controller, right?  I was thinking I just need to connect the g540 to the computer running Mach4 and the legacy parrellel port plug in via a pp cable.

No, the G540 is a stepper drive.
In your case, the parallel port is the motion controller. But what Tweakie is saying, is that an external motion controller is highly recommended. The ESS is an Ethernet Smooth Stepper.

1057

General Mach Discussion / Re: G540 Steps Per

« on: January 31, 2017, 06:55:31 AM »

My opinion is that users should never use an .xml supplied by a 3rd party, unless the .xml is supplied with a turn key machine.
As you've seen, some settings will always be incorrect, and not just steps/unit.
Learning how your machine works, and how to configure Mach3 for your machine, doesn't take long, and is very beneficial when problems arise.

1058

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Error using Smooth Stepper and Mach 3

« on: January 29, 2017, 01:59:21 PM »

Try finding a shielded usb cable, and adding some ferrite beads to it.
Your VFD is causing interference on the USB cable.

1059

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 help?

« on: January 29, 2017, 01:57:27 PM »

also if we can upgrade to mach, again how would we go about this?

This is a very serious conversion, and you really need to know what you're doing. I would expect someone that's very knowledgeable in Mach3 to spend a full week or more doing it?
It's not a trivial task at all.

1060

General Mach Discussion / Re: Set tool height zero - Z axis retracts wrong way

« on: January 29, 2017, 12:50:58 PM »

My guess is that it's an issue with the Mach3 version.
Make sure you have the latest UC100 plugin as well.