Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trouble getting external switch to operate

« on: February 16, 2009, 08:05:13 PM »

Hood,
You are sooooo right.
How dumb can I be ? I feel foolish.
It works fine now.
Thanks a ton.

Al

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trouble getting external switch to operate

« on: February 16, 2009, 07:44:44 PM »

Hood,
I don't have a OEM trig title on my diognostics page. I have a Port 1 pins current state.
This has 2 horizontal rows of 10 small square led's. When I ground pin 15 the fourth LED
from the left on the top row changes from green to black.
Maybe this is a version difference(?) and the cause of the problem.
I have attached my .xml
This is a very basic mill setup. I control 3 axis and 1 coolant output only. Spindle on/off is
done manually.

Thanks
Al

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trouble getting external switch to operate

« on: February 16, 2009, 07:58:54 AM »

No, I'm not using a breakout board. I am connecting direct to the parallel port.
I will have to check the diagnostics page tonight.
Al

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Trouble getting external switch to operate

« on: February 15, 2009, 08:59:44 PM »

Hood,
I'm not sure. This is my 1st. attempt at trying to signal an input externally.
Maybe I don't understand it well enough yet. Pin 15 has 5v at idle. Is that
normal ? I thought if I grounded it that would signal mach to run.
Al

5

General Mach Discussion / Trouble getting external switch to operate

« on: February 15, 2009, 07:33:57 PM »

Hi all,

I am trying to get an external momentary switch set up to act as cycle start. I am using port 1 and pin 15.
I set ports and pins input signals, OEM trig #1 to port 1 pin 15. Also set OEM trigger #1 code to 1000
in the hotkey menu. I have one of the switch terminals connected to pin 15 and the other terminal to ground.
It's not working. Am I missing something ??

Thanks
Al

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on lap top wont operate

« on: December 07, 2007, 07:05:50 PM »

I have given up trying to make either of my laptops work with Mach 3. The Toshiba is out due to low voltage output.
The Compaq is just too old I think. It was originally a Windows 98 machine so it is marginal on running XP anyway.
Also the floppy drive quit working so I think it's going in the parts only stack. I will keep an eye out for a newer laptop
to try again. Thanks for all of your help.
Al

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on lap top wont operate

« on: November 30, 2007, 01:21:09 PM »

I ran the PCTools registry checker (only the free version) on my Toshiba and it helped. Using Mach2 I was able to get port output. Unfortunately It only outputs 3.95volts so I get no motor movements. I then tried Mach3 and the computer crashes again.
The registry checker did not help any on the Compaq laptop. It still crashes when trying to run Mach2 or 3. Does anyone know of any particular problems with the current lockdown Mach3 version that could be causing this crashing problem ?
This is one of those things I should just let go and give up but it would sure be nice to be able to use a laptop to control this machine.
Thanks
Al

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on lap top wont operate

« on: November 29, 2007, 01:20:22 PM »

That is all extremely interesting as one of the laptops I have been trying to use is a Toshiba. It is older though, 4010CDT Satellite.
The other one is a Compaq.
I will try a registy mechanic program.
I was going to reformat and reload XP but now I can't get either laptop to boot from a floppy or the cd drive. !!ugh!!
Hood, I thought I had a printer to try but turned out it is setup for usb only.
Thanks
Al

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on lap top wont operate

« on: November 28, 2007, 11:18:57 PM »

Does anyone know of a particular combination of LAPTOP brand & model, operating system, and Mach version that works ?
No matter what I have tried I either get no output on the printer port or the computer crashes.
Thanks
Al

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 on lap top wont operate

« on: November 25, 2007, 10:24:32 PM »

Hi Chip,
 I don't know yet. That's one of the things I am going to try here. Maybe yet tonight. Not sure.
I just installed a much better defrag program and am running it now. It is a mess as I expected.
Too many crashes.
Al