Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: wiring diagram for limit switches

« on: June 15, 2008, 09:22:58 PM »

Dont really need a wiring diagram, all you need are normally closed switches and run them all in series, ie have a wire from an Input pin of the parallel port(or breakout board) run this to one wire of first switch, other wire of first switch goes to one wire on second switch, other wire on second goes to third switch and so on until all your switches are connected then the last wire goes to a ground on your port (or breakout)
 Doing it that way will mean you only use one pin of the parallel port for all limits and Home switches. If you prefer to have each axis seperate then you can wire all the switches on each axis in series and use one Input pin for each axis.
Hood

What about pullup resistors?

Monte

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing steps at 10 ipm? Taig, Mach3, Xylotex

« on: May 21, 2008, 08:14:14 AM »

Hi Monte,

From the video it sounds like there is something running on the PC that is interfering with the Mach3 engine.  Do you have anything like Quicktime installed on the PC? Even if you don't have the application running, it has a service running in the background that could be interfering with Mach. The alternative is that there is electrical noise getting into the Xylotex driver.

Cheers,

Peter.

I'm fairly certain I didn't have anything like Quicktime running, XP was done on a clean install, then Mach, and maybe Firefox web browser.  Now it's running a Smooth Stepper, all seems good.

Monte

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing steps at 10 ipm? Taig, Mach3, Xylotex

« on: May 18, 2008, 11:15:24 AM »

Monte,
Happy you reposted.
The PC and how it relates with the MACH engine is the problem, a real bitchy one at that....

Sorry for taking so long to post back, some of the replies (good ones too!) were after I made the changes.

Besides the random lost steps which I think was resonance, I was getting a regular rhythmic sort of beat in the motors.  Don't know if you saw my video with a motor on the table you can hear what I was getting http://youtube.com/watch?v=DZUrAlST1kA It made me think there was something going on with the pulse stream from the PC.

Anyway, it's way smoother now, just don't have the time to work with it, low priority hobby right now.

Monte

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Missing steps at 10 ipm? Taig, Mach3, Xylotex

« on: May 18, 2008, 08:48:36 AM »

Thanks all for the help, I've moved on to Gecko drivers and a Smooth Stepper, problem gone.  Not solved, but gone.  I suspect I had resonance issues, but it could have been something else too, I never figured it out.  The Gecko drivers and Smooth Stepper have smoothed it out.

Monte

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Double entries with 3d Probing Plugin

« on: May 18, 2008, 12:22:46 AM »

I reported this bug a month or so back, haven't heard if it's been fixed, or even looked at.

If you search the forum you should find a probing macro or plugin that someone wrote (can't remember) that does a horizontal (in the x-y plane) probe to create an outline of the part, then it can probe within that outline in the z direction.  There is video of it somewhere too, but you'll have to find it.  I'll give it a go and try to find it again when I get some time.

Monte

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: General Q's about Mach3 and AD sureservo drives and smooth stepper

« on: May 06, 2008, 03:01:14 AM »

Monte,
I think, from what I have researched, I won't need anything other than the capability that currently exists is Mach3.  Are there areas of functionality that do not work properly when using the smooth stepper?

I think Brett pretty much covered it more than I could.  There are some basic bugs right now, one is feedrate override won't go above 100%, but it's being worked on.  There are some others, they're getting worked on.  The Warp9 web site has "the" forum for the Smooth Stepper.  If you peruse the topics there you'll find what's up pretty quickly.

Monte

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: General Q's about Mach3 and AD sureservo drives and smooth stepper

« on: May 05, 2008, 12:44:29 AM »

What interface between Mach3 and the sureservo drives would best fit my needs? (smooth stepper? is it available to the public, as of this message?)

The Smooth Stepper is available, http://www.warp9td.com/index.php is the web site.  If you use it you will have the equivalent of 2 parallel ports available for input and output, and faster speeds than typically gotten from the parallel port driver in Mach alone.  Still some work being done on it, can't say if everything you want/need is working yet, but the developer is still writing code for it.

Monte

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: HELP - DELL OPTIPLEX 520 - SIGNAL QUALITY - other pc's

« on: April 28, 2008, 10:02:47 AM »

Humm, what does this have to do with the video card? What ver of XP are you running, seems 64 bit has a inherent problem?

I think it's deeper than just the parallel port, the onboard video might have something to do with Mach's pulse generator.  If that doesn't work, you'll never get a clean signal to the pport.

Monte

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Reset button malfunction

« on: April 27, 2008, 11:31:56 PM »

check the active low/high setting for E-stop in the configuration wherever it is.  Messing with screens might have changed it and it'll not work if it's set wrong.

Monte

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 on 64 bit Windows XP? "No Driver sensed installed. Run Driver Test"

« on: April 27, 2008, 12:15:44 PM »

Have you guys tried reinstalling Mach over the top of itself again? Also look in device manager and see if the pulse engine is installed.
Hood

I'm now using the Smooth Stepper, so it's a non issue for me.  I haven't tried the SS on the 64 bit computer since the other one is now working well.

Monte