Messages

1

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 16, 2011, 07:36:30 PM »

 it was set at 25000khz..  and  i thought that was conservative....
it is now set at 45000khz and is running better...


i reinstalled the unit today and re ran the part... no errors...
time will tell if it is stable ...


allan

2

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 16, 2011, 12:18:57 AM »

i hear ya...
i agree.. but finding a  legitimate legal copy is very hard .. and the old guys have the fascination with "new" ( newer is better) ...
 
sort of the same way my wife has her shoe fetish.. handbag fetish...  the same fetish i have with money accumulation ... more is better..

as for lpt2.. yep.. it is pendant..  and i am using oem triggers to select axis for the mpg...


i am running emc2 at home.. and have got some sneaky things afoot.....  

it is late here... and i have just completed my 5th evolution after adjusting the kernel speed..  without failure....  it looks promising so far.. but i'm a skeptic... 10 more evolutions without a failure and i might be convinced ....  perhaps it was thinking slowly..  like our retarted congress and senate... .
 i'll run it a few more times .. re tune the motors and re-install... perhaps that was it.  if if does it again .. i'll slap the jtag probes  and slap the das 9000 onto the ports  and make it fail..  then i can have some good data to play with...

voodoo diagnostics  gotta love it..
allan
 

3

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 15, 2011, 10:13:23 PM »

watchdog has always been off...
 and when the usb com port is uninstalled.. the plugin is not installed....
so it is by default back in its default mode...

there are no macros..
you are missing it..
 the machine is failing  after 3-4  successful runs... and it is only mach3 hanging..
like a buffer is overloading and  mach3 goes to off  on walkabout . forever.. ... sort of like i want to do when the wife starts nagging..


the real issue is that microsoft in their infinite lunacy has end of life'ed  windows XP and windows 2000 and the variants..

we cannot be offering commercial products without a valid upgrade path... and the  arrogant money grubbing "*****explicative deleted***" morons keep forcing their planned obsolescence designed by retarded committee should have been aborted products upon us..  just to line their pockets....
and i should know... i have walked out of many of those meetings in utter disgust.... i have war stories...from the 90's 
i think that effectively  demonstrates my opinions..  ( this opinion is not directed at artsoft in any way... more towards the big boys in the industry that confine us to their model.)


ART.... if you are out there.... i would be glad to help you port this program to linux...... that way we could do away with most of these nasty   annoyances...  ( you can still charge for it... like always..)
in fact we could set up a distro that wraps windows into a virtual machine and pipe i/o to a real RTOS...  no one would really see a difference..
...

4

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 15, 2011, 06:19:45 PM »

i have a spare computer... it has mach3 set up and running. it is being used while i am resolving the issue with this one..
it has xp pro. for the o/s... it has only 1 parallel port.. ( less i/o and no pendant )  ..

to refine this a little bit more... the scenario.. i live in seattle , wa.. the milling machine is in kingston, wa.. a difference of 50 miles and 1 hour by ferry...  i retrofitted an old cincinatti milicron cnc mill for a group of retired  live steam train enthusiasts.. ( think geriatric  60's -90's)  i am their go to guy for tech...

i am a retired Intel engineer  -- a motion control freak... .. but the software i play with is too much for the old guys to deal with... thus.. mach3..

i retrofitted the mill in stages.. and upgraded to state of art machines  as per their request.. ( personally a $10.00  retired compaq desktop would work for the job.. and that is what i used to do the primary configuration..)


the old guys wanted the snazzy pendant .. and the pc had to fit inside.. so in went a 1.6ghz  Atom ITX ( the little one)  1gb ram 500Gb sata hard drive and an additional pci parallel port card  into a tiny black case the size of my big dictionary..  all fanned out for cooling...

it normally sits inside of the original pendant enclosure... and has more than sufficient air flow... one parallel port is designated for basic mill operations.. (axis control,limits, e-stop flood/mist  and probe) the other is for pendant interface ( mpg,buttons, and lights..) the usb serial controls the vfd  ( all cables are rf choked like crazy to keep the noise from the vfd from screwing with them)
 
when this went wonkie  i tested the new machine in place and bisected the problem.. put the milling machine back in service with the old box and came home with the new machine ..  to keep making parts for the old guys...

 i have a micro mill with a 10x  scaled setup 1 inch =.1 inch.. ( the exact pulse count works )
 i have the same  vfd with the same connections driving a smaller spindle motor..  and it is wired exactly as the big mill...
 i have a pendant interface wired exactly the same as the big mill  also..

in other words i have a clone testing platform at my house..  no need to venture back and forth...

 the machine has been testing itself for over a week  constantly...

 the mill is cutting parts without a pendant on the old machine..
 the geriatric train enthusiasts are wanting to use their snazzy pendant.. with windows 7 and mach 3... and i am running tests that take 2:30 hours to run and occasionally it fails at an hour or so into the job... ..

i have at this point  totally disconnected the machine from everything absent power, usb kb/mouse and vga...

the intel internal  hardware diags that are used to qualify the hardware commercially and for military applications are coming back with excellent reports... (all aspects of the hardware are good)  
when the mach3 hangs for the most part windows stays usable .. and a simple restart of mach3 brings things back..
on 2 of 50 failings windows actually tried and succeeded a shutdown/reboot..
on 2 other failings the machine reboot and said that it could not find the hard drive .. but a manual reboot ( power cycle ) restored everything.. ( this is what triggered the hardware diagnostic session)

on 46 of 50 failings the mach3 stopped between 1 hour and 1:20 into the 2:30 job...
 the code contains 1 tool change  operation which is ignored..
the code is essentially 19 layers of successive  finishing passes.. and a couple of curved cuts....

the windows 7 install is a basic  32 bit one with all power management options disabled..
the network was installed and unplugged when the machine was in use ( else it was only used for windows updates)
the updated were manually searched and installed.
it has since been removed..
the mach3 install was plain vanilla  except the hyungyang vfd plug-in.. being controlled by a usb serial to rs4-22converter ma jiggie...

i will turn on the debug mode and check out the logs... in between the tests i will try to get some sleep.
thanks..

 
 

5

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 15, 2011, 04:38:09 PM »

on the bench .. failed.. nothing attached... ( bisect the problem)

file size 44k... 2029 lines   runtime 2:29:24... no real complex calculations..
 watchdog??
no error messages.. just stops motion and is unresponsive.. spindle keeps spinning ..  have to e-stop the vfd and restart mach..( not the machine) .. sometimes the system goes into shutdown.. and reboots itself... ( happened twice) ..

machdebug???
another computer runs the part .. but has only 1 parallel port and is  different o/s..

it runs part fine 2-3 times  then goes off... but .. passes all diagnostic bashing i can throw at it.. ( i'm an expert at validating hardware....)  hardware IS OK.. ( i ran the MIL -SPEC  testing suite to the rail.. it passed)

  EMC2 runs part perfectly every time... but the point is to have mach3 and winblows 7 working  for the old guys in the shop that need to have the cute winblows theme... and the ability to let something else think for them...

i am starting to get frustrated with the integration ....  i'd love to have a port of this working on linux...  the stability of the os and the nice friendly appearance of the mach3...  half of the complex swizzling to make the parallel port do what it was intended to do in the first place.. ... what a combination...  

enough rambling...
back on task..  mach debug you say... i'll go and check that out.. thanks for the idea... might be very useful....

6

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 15, 2011, 03:10:58 PM »

 removed network completely..  no dice.... 3rd run  hung like always...  but it was a great idea...  significantly lightened the o/s footprint...  it is getting into the realm of switching to a semiconductor storage medium.. and dropping the hard drive altogether... no more vibration issues...


 i am thinking about retuning the kernel speed..

7

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 14, 2011, 11:42:34 PM »

i see your point.. i'll try that.. perhaps the network software is trying to sense if a network  connection is present and tieing up an INT  or 500 ....  that is a possibility ..

as for hard drive .. i just duped it onto another one .. and am running a test as i type..   the first one is brand new as of a month ago.. has less than 2 gb of data on the 320 gb drive ..  and passes every test i have thrown at it so far.. ( i am a former Intel  chip set validation tech... i have the nice tool suite...to play with..)...

 i am talking with some friends at Intel  to get the internal post log checker... ( there are more codes i can poll from the jtag bus..)

still watching...
allan

8

Mach3 under Vista / Re: strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 14, 2011, 07:49:26 PM »

mike-
that was never a problem before .but, like you...  i did think of that first ...and transferred the file onto the hard drive and re-ran.. same problem...

 i was wondering if vibrations would have played with the usb hub...  but in reality the vibrations at 4000 rpm and .025 cut into 6061 Al at 30 ipm with a 25% step-over  and a .250 3 tooth endmill  are not to great ... barely noticeable. ( yes--- flood  AND mist coolant)  the chips fly like tiny snowflakes in the mist... sort of like a wet snow at Whistler....

 the pc is hanging out about 4 feet off of the main casting in a vibration dampened steel cabinet. there is no appreciable translation of the vibration.
 so that was ruled out.
 it was doubly ruled out when the program locked up while cutting air. ( cutting air is nice.. it doesn't seem to wear my tools much at all)


the pc is currently setting on my desk ... nothing connected to it.. running the code  and after 3 or 4 cycles.. it looses itself.. and hangs the program .. the rest of windows still works...though..
 it seems to be confined to mach3.

 i have been working to find the solution for some time.. and have tried several different solutions absent of totally reloading the software... (that should be the last resort)..  and still it would only serve to place the system in a near identical state...as now... this is for the most part a virgin system... used ONLY for the mill..
it is not allowed to surf the net or check email... and the only time it pops onto the net is to do o/s updates.. and that is done manually...i hope... ( i think... that's what i thought i told it to do.)

any other ideas would be encouraged.. although i have tried a bunch.. i may have missed some.. and quite possibly the one that works might be one i haven't tried yet.. .. i'm open to suggestions.

allan

9

Mach3 under Vista / strange case of mach3 lockup...w/ win7

« on: September 14, 2011, 03:48:22 PM »

hi guys,
i have a basic 3 axis mill setup ..
xyz and a hyunang vfd into a 2 hp 3 phase motor.. e-stop and mpg.. a couple of oem triggers for selecting axis  and a reset  outputs for mist and flood ... 2 parallel ports.. and a few extra o/i still to be worked with.
nothing fancy..

the vfd is in the same  enclosure as the motor drivers..  the ipx atom pc is in the pendant enclosure.. and there are rf chokes on the lines that enter the pendant...( i'm a good ham) .. power supply is separated and clean to each section.. and added many extra fans  ( it is like a refrigerator in the case.. ( 18 degrees c) and no recirculating bubbles..
 i started with a virgin oem copy and trimmed out a lot of fat...
( i have several microsoft engineer friends scratching their heads on this one too.. ( i prefer Linux though... still wondering when a copy of mach3 will be available for the rest of us... ( one can dream)))

i have been running this setup since june reliably...( still adding features slowly....) 

last week while running a section of code that takes 2:39 hours to run   i had a lockup .. motion stopped  spindle continued and no updates .. mach3 froze...

i reboot.. re-zeroed and began to cut air again... and an hour or so into it  same thing... but new twist.. the whole machine reset itself. ( went through the shutdown process) .. and came back with the no boot device found... error...  i cycled power and booted normally ...   no problem..  ran some system testing soaking  software for 2 days  no problem...   removed machine from mill and disabled e-stop and  vfd plugin  and ran the same code again.. 3 times good... 4th time  lockup...

system is not on the net while running mill... well protected behind many layers of firewalls...  remains on at all times... and has never seen this kind of problem before...

files are uploaded via thumbdrive and this is hand written code ( a very large file)

i am at a loss... driver test has no problems and the hardware is fine..  as each piece has been tested separately ..and completely.
is there a memory leak  still?

allan

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle pulley setup?

« on: April 24, 2011, 10:53:29 PM »

this all sounds good .. for pulley based machines..  what do we do when we have vari-disk drives???  what is the magic?