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Messages - Lucky13

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1
SmoothStepper USB / Re: How much of Mach3 function do you lose?
« on: March 01, 2009, 11:31:23 PM »
Thanks for the info and replys guy's.     I now have my system mounted up doing bench test.    Doing research it does look like you don't lose any of the wizards or other functions I was worried about.   There seems ot be little documentation on just want you can & cant do but the spendle control and the backlash comp seems to of been the main problems.  I havnt tried to get my spendle setup working yet,  but I will soon.   I am running a Bob Campbell Combo board with the SmoothStepper.  The Bob Campbell board has Spindle control with relays so I am not sure what it going to take to get all this working.  I may have to use the SS for Spindle control and it would be best if I can.  Although the on board relays the BC board has would be nice to use if possible.  I will figure all this out later but for now I have other problems.


For now my system   started out with the bench testing working perfectly without a hitch.  I was kinda pleased with this because this is my first build.   I researched all my parts (BOB,SS,Drivers,ect,ect...)  a lot and when I put power to the system on the bench it came to life without me having to change anything.  Even all my servos started out with lock and being able to jog.  I have had it to the piont it ran the Road Running G-code 10 times in a row without missing a step.  It was a bit course in its movement ( mainly on very slow moves and direction changes).  I have sense changed some settings to give my motors more reselution which did slow down my max IPM (was getting 286ipm, now its 166ipm).


  This really smoothed out the way the motors run a lot and I thought it was good enough to move on towards mounting all the hardware to the machine but it started having problems.  There is a lot I dont understand yet about Mach3's setting so I am going to go back and start putting some time into reading Mach's manual.  What happened is the system started gaining steps (I think) after I changed the motor axis frequency down to 256 (in SS).  This might have caused the step problem (Buffer over run in SS maybe) but I havnt gone back to try and fix it.  When I gave the motors more res I did it in Mach in the motor tuning section and I changed the steps per inch to 40,000 instead of the 25,000 I had.  This would need a 4 to 1 belt gearing to work now but it seems to be more stable at these setting even though I lose some 100ipm on my rapid speed.  I was planning to run 2.5 to 1 gearing before but I would rather have a stable system than high speed rapids.  For now I am goign to try and change the SS setting to 500 and see if the step problem goes away.  If it doesnt I am goign to go ahead and mount all the hardware on the machine anyway because it cant really be tuned right until it is.  But I believe this step problem is the Buffer over run in SS and after changing the frequency in SS back to 500 it might be fine.  If no tI might be getting noise in my incoders or somehting but it didnt do it at the other settings.



Jess

2
SmoothStepper USB / Re: Blowing driver fuse
« on: February 23, 2009, 01:03:27 AM »
This is very odd for this to do this.

 When your E-stop or limit switchs are activated does it cut the power to the motors in anyway?    You DO NOT WANT to cut the power to the motors OR drives on the DC side of the circuit.  This will cause voltage to climb,  or have no place to go and burn drives.   When cutting the power it should be done on the A/C side of the power supply so that the DC circuit is still connected. 


What type power supply do you have?  It should have big capaitors and even some type of resistor that bleeds the capasitors after power is shut down.  These motors put voltage back into the system when they coast,  even if the power is shut down.  If there is no place for this voltage to go burning drives,  or even motors is what can happen.  Your every lucky blowing fuses is all that has happened no matter what the cause.  You need to fugure this out.  Of course I understand that is what your trying to do here but just to let you know this can cause big problems.     


The action that your system takes when the E-stop or limit switches are activated is very critical,  this is what the guys mean by needing more info on how you have your system wired and setup.  The complete system,  not just the limit switchs.  So a detialed description of your wiring of all systems might help the guys figure your problem out before something gets beyound repair.  The fact it only does this on some drives is bit odd.  WIthout knowing any wiring of system info I would say check all connections on the DC side of your motors and drives.  A connection that was lose and not making perfect contact could aid in causing this,  but expect something else to be the cause.


Good Luck
Jess

3
SmoothStepper USB / Re: How much of Mach3 function do you lose?
« on: February 13, 2009, 05:38:49 PM »
Thanks Hood,  I will keep doing my research here but I feel like I am over looking something. 

Does all of Mach3 Wizards still work when using a SS ?


I thought Mach3 had threading already,  so why the need for the SS to do it? 


This is my first build,  so like I said there is lots I don't know about all this yet.  I feel like I need all that Mach3 offers and if I will loose all of these functions the SS doesn't sound like the way for me to go (although I have already bought one).   


Jess

4
SmoothStepper USB / How much of Mach3 function do you lose?
« on: February 12, 2009, 10:45:42 PM »



I am not sure if I understand how the SS works.  I am into my first build so there is much I don't know yet about Mach3 even.  But I am reading post about getting threading working and spindle control for the SS,  is this something you lose from Mach3 ?   Is there other stuff you lose ?   I assumed becuase there was a plug in for Mach3 that you could still use all of Mach3's functions but I want to make sure.    If not could someone explain exactly what you do lose. 


The SS seems like a great product as far as what it does do,  but it would be a shame to lose all that Mach3 offers.  Like I know there are scripts that will give auto centering and auto corner finding,  will I lose things like this,  or the wizards that Mach3 offers?  Like I said I guess I am just not understanding how SS works where I am so knew to all this.  Any help would be great.  If you don't lose all that Mach3 offers I would like to run a SS on my mill.  It is a servo & Gecko setup with high res encoders so I am sure I could benefit from the speed the SS offers,  just want ot make sure what else it does.



Jess

5


Hello,   I have just signed up for the Mach forum lately because  I just purchased Mach & SmoothStepper.   I am having a problem with the SmoothStepper section,  it does not offer any buttons for posting or replying.  The rest of the forum seems to work,except for the SmoothStepper section.   It shows me as signed in and I can view the threads.   I noticed others have this problem but when they do it normally shows them as a guest or will not let them sign in.  This does not seem to be the case for me,  it lets me sign in no problem and shows me as logged in even when I am in the SS section.    Is there something I am over looking that I should be doing ? 



Thanks Jess 

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