Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: No pulse frequency - but drivertest is ok

« on: August 18, 2011, 06:46:04 PM »

After WEEKS of fighting with this thing, we think it's FINALLY there!!

Checked every mechanical connection and rewired the entire thing with shielded wire. You name it, we tried it! Last step was increasing the pulse width, which we were considering but you nudged us over the edge Hood and THANK YOU!! It's now working better than it ever has before!

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General Mach Discussion / Re: No pulse frequency - but drivertest is ok

« on: August 17, 2011, 07:10:48 PM »

Sorry I didn't get back sooner...

The toolpath thinks it's where it should be, but I'm not quite sure I know what DRO is.

The pulse width was done basically by following the config videos (and/or books) which said to run through the motor tuning and take the defaults for pulse width.

All that having been said, we've been having a monster of a time with this and have completely rewired everything with shielded wire. Once we got it back into ACPI mode (with appropriate pulse frequency reading), we got back to a limit switch problem. We had removed the caps we originally put on the limits with the hope that all the shielded wire would obviate them, but found it didn't, so we put them back on.

After all that...it *seems* to be cutting right finally. We've had some other "false positives", so a few more runs will be necessary before we call it good. This whole thing has been exacerbating because it all of the sudden went to hell in a hand basket after working okay previously.

Back to the pulse width...these are KL-4030 drivers running with a C10. Do you think we should crank up the pulse width? We toyed with the idea of sherline, but didn't get there (yet).

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General Mach Discussion / Re: No pulse frequency - but drivertest is ok

« on: August 17, 2011, 02:40:27 PM »

Did an XP system restore because I couldn't get it to leave "Standard PC" mode (it would not see the ACPI stuff). Once we did that, and the machine is back to ACPI mode, the pulse frequency reads steady at 25010.

Now...back to the *other* problem....where it goes off the reservation a random time into cutting a piece. *sigh*

Thanks so much for taking the time Hood!!!

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General Mach Discussion / Re: No pulse frequency - but drivertest is ok

« on: August 17, 2011, 01:49:20 PM »

here it is. much obliged!

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General Mach Discussion / No pulse frequency - but drivertest is ok

« on: August 17, 2011, 11:05:29 AM »

Really stuck here and looking for some help...

Trying to get past some other issues, we changed from ACPI to standard PC per the XP optimizations. We used to get a steady pulse frequency on the diagnostics page, but now we get something that bounces around in the sub 100 range (2, 38, 15, 80, etc). It will drive the machine, but we are having issues that we don't know if they are related to this, noise, or something else. The first thing we'd like to do is get the pulse frequency issue resolved. When we run the drivertest, it reports that it is 'excellent', but the diagnostics still look bad.

Desperate for some guidance here...

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General Mach Discussion / driver test ok, but diagnostics shows low pulse frequency

« on: August 14, 2011, 05:35:45 PM »

Still battling the machine here and looking for some insight...

We went back and switched off of ACPI mode per the XP optimizations, but everything has been up and operational previously. No reinstalls or anything, but we ran the drivertest and it says it's excellent. But in Mach3 in the diagnostics page, the pulse frquency keeps coming up with numbers like 3, 18, 30, etc. Before we made the switch it would always read like 25001.

Now, jogging it, or running gcode, it seems to work fine through a full run (well, except for the problem we had before we switched out of acpi). What did we do to Mach3 to make it not see the pulse frequency? How can we make it show it again?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Caps on inputs

« on: August 03, 2011, 10:15:56 PM »

Well, we switched the caps to go from the input pins to ground and the test pattern worked perfect!! but...then a longer pattern flipped out. We definitely have interference issues. Gonna rewire with shielded cable - is this stuff any good or is there some that would be better? http://homeavcables.com/22108.html

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Caps on inputs

« on: August 03, 2011, 07:32:42 AM »

Let me state this better...

We use NC limit switches, so we have pull down set on pins 10-15 with Active Low in Mach 3. That means all my axis inputs are Active Low and set to pull down, since they are all in the same bank of pins.

When we had the estop problem, we put the cap between estop and +5v and that issue went away. First question: Principally, would this still work if we went from the cap to ground? If the pin is high normally and we put a cap from there to ground, it should "hold" an actual stop condition just for a moment while the cap discharges through the pin - right?

Now, on to the inputs. The same setup occurs here with the caps going to +5v and the pin being normally high. Shouldn't this still work for it's purpose - noise reduction? Or does this simply have to have the cap going from the normally high pin to ground in order to avoid interfering with the motor operation?

I ask all this because the machine works fine at the beginning of a run, but as it goes on, it loses more and more of zero util it becomes a mess, so I'm trying to sort things out.

Thanks!

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Caps on inputs

« on: August 03, 2011, 06:46:10 AM »

The 0.1uF caps are used for the reduction / elimination of electrical noise on the switch inputs and are connected between the appropriate pin and GND.
It is not a good idea to fit them on the step and direction pin inputs.

Tweakie.

The 0.1uF caps are used for the reduction / elimination of electrical noise on the switch inputs and are connected between the appropriate pin and GND.
It is not a good idea to fit them on the step and direction pin inputs.

Thanks Tweakie. Fortunately, we don't have them on the step/direction pins, just the inputs. The thing that maybe threw us off a little is that when we had a limit switch problem (all wired through estop), we put the cap there from the estop pin to +5v (we use NC switches) and that solved our problem. Did we just get lucky there? Or should that cap have been to ground? We have the same configuration on the inputs as well - should we change that too?

Thanks!

10

General Mach Discussion / Caps on inputs

« on: August 02, 2011, 11:39:28 PM »

I apologize if I overlooked this in searching, but I'm trying to resolve a bit of a noise issue and need some help. I have a C10 with the input pins set to pull down and Mach3 set to Active Low. We had some estop/limit issues a while back and put a .1uF cap on the estop input. But we also put them on the motor inputs as well for X, Y, and Z. Now, on that board, there is +5v next to the input pins e're using (10, 12, 13). We put the caps between the inputs and the +5v right next to it, but is that maybe the wrong way to go on this? Should we instead be putting it between the input and ground? Overall, the machine works okay at the start of a run but after a short bit, starts to drift and get real ugly. We're pretty sure it's interference (got better after eliminating some wireless need it), but can't figure out to clean it up completely.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!