Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing, offsets, and slaving

« on: November 04, 2012, 01:20:07 PM »

I replied to your post at CNC Zone.

Ditto.  Thanks, Gerry.

2

General Mach Discussion / Homing, offsets, and slaving

« on: November 03, 2012, 05:39:33 PM »

I finally got out to the Green Monster (my home-built CNC router) again today and started feeding in soft limits, home offsets, and auto zeroes.  Before setting Home offsets, it didn't back off the limit switches.  Now it is. Hurray!

I think (confirm my assumptions, please) that I'm using the upper right quadrant in the Cartesian system for positive X and Y.  X home is left, Y home is toward me, Z home is top.
I'm working in inches with 52" X and Y ranges, & a 5" Z range.

In the Motor Home/Softlimits config box, I have
Soft Max 51.00
Soft Min 0.50
Slow Zone 1.00
Home Off. 0.50
Home Neg. Checked
Auto Zero Checked
Speed 20%

in X, Y, and A boxes (Home Neg Xed on A, which is slaved to X).

Pic, far left is home corner.  http://tinyurl.com/com9z8g
Pic, I changed Y back to mirror X  http://tinyurl.com/d3kdnt8
After saving, I have lost a few thou on the DROs.  Curious.

OK, I click the REF all home button and Z goes up, hits the limit switch (home) and backs off less than 1/10 turn, even though the offset is set to half inch.  Then Y comes home and backs off about
0.1" with the offset also set to half an inch. Then the gantry goes left, hits the X1 (A axis) limit switch, stops, reverses 1/8" or so, and then moves left again. This is where I get a limit switch error.

Questions: Why is it erroring out?  Why the small movement when the offset is listed higher in the soft limits?  I had a 0.1" offset at first and it moved the same distance back off the limit switch that it
has with the half inch offset entered there.  Why?  Is it only moving until it deactivates the switch? (if it's even doing that)  With X and A slaved, why isn't it locking one side and doing the other afterward?  Can I unplug A and just test the X by itself, then swap and try again?  Would this do any good?

I get the same small movement off home on all axes despite settings in the offset of 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0.  The Z moves about 19 degrees by my calcs.

The frame is within 1/32" of square, the rails are even from the end, but I just measured about 1/8" difference in the gantry position from side to side. I guess I have a twist somewhere in the gantry. It will flex about an inch while remaining easy to roll down the rails. (2 linear bearings per side, spaced 4" apart)

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 03:27:15 PM »

Not sure  why you are cloning it, there is no need to, just open whichever profile you wish to use and set up the ports and pins to what you want and then close, next time you open it will, or at least should, be as you had previously set it up.

Spindle I dont know, never used the G540 but if that is the correct settings then you can tell the SmoothStepper to ignore port and pin errors, do that from Plugin Control menu the SS Config, you should see a box to tick.
Hood

I had cloned it to save the original file intact.  And it was good I had, because before, it had been eating my xml files.   While you were writing the reply, I entered port 2 for the spindle and it saved without error!   I went to the MDI and clicked the REF ALL HOME button and the Z axis started turning at 1.5rps.  I got movement for the first time!

Is there a little G-code test floating around here for testing the axes?  And will I need limit and home switches hooked up to test?

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 03:08:35 PM »

Ok that is fine for the frequency as I was wanting to know if you had selected the external controller and you have.
Place this xml in the Mach3 folder and using the laoder open it and see how you get on. I have not changed any ports or pins from that of the original one so not sure if they are correct or not but see how you go.
Hood

OK, I cloned it and used Mach Loader.  Initial error was for different s/n, OK.  Now it gives me  "Spindle-axis Step Port = 0. Valid values are 1 and 2."
"Spindle-axis Dir Port = 0. Valid pin values are 1,23,4,5,6,7,8,9,14,16, and 17" errors.

X,Y,Z,A are step port 1 dir port 1 with 2-9 pins on the axes, and spindle enabled with step pin 14, others zero.
X,Y,Z,A homes are port 1, 10-13, respectively.
EStop is port 1 pin 15.
Outputs port 1 pin 17, port 1 pin 1.
Charge pump port 1 pin 16.

I applied those and it gives me the original spindle errors.  I believe I'm closer to running, though!  What should the inputs be for a relay-based router
as the spindle?  It's not set up yet, physically.

Thanks much for the help, by the way, Hood!

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 01:24:27 PM »

Can you attach the xml, also have a look on the diagnostics page and see what the frequency DRO says.
Hood

The only freq I see on the diag page is Pulse Frequency which shows "external."
Attached are the original copy and saved, as modified by Mach.
I'm having a heck of a time uploading those bleeping files.  It tells me that it already has a file with that name
so I changed it to saved540.xml and orig540.xml, then retry, but it won't upload. (I love forum software...)
OK, trying LJsaved540.xml and LJorig540.xml

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:54:38 AM »

Sounds like you are opening the wrong profile, if you loaded a xml you need to load the profile with that name. So if the xml you placed in your Mach folder was called 540BVFD.XML you will need to open the profile called 540BVFD
To do that use the Mach3 Loader and choose it from the list.
Hood

That is precisely what I did, yet the Ports and Pins list remains empty/zeroed when I look.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:38:26 AM »

You need to set the ports and pins yourself, to suit your machine, unless you have got a xml from someone that has the same machine/setup as you.
Hood

I set it up according to the Gecko file, 540BVFD.XML, but when it comes up in Mach, all the inputs and outputs are zeroed.

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 11:19:39 AM »

If it is a fairly recent version of Mach that you installed then it would sense whether the driver had previously been installed and would not reboot, if it was the first time then it would have rebooted itself.
Also worth mentioning, if you are using the Smoothstepper you do not need the driver installed as it communicates to Mach via a plugin, you only need the driver if you are controlling your machine via the parallel port.
Hood

It's version R3.043.022.  I'm having problems getting set up.  When I load the XML file, it shows all pins and ports as zero.  I thought maybe it was due to the lack of the reboot.  I'll be finished with my CNC router build (hopefully) on Friday and still can't get the bloody software set up.  All my hair is now gone, pulled out in frustration.  I have a green light on the Gecko G540, green and blue lights on the SmoothStepper, and a flashing red indicating comm on the SmoothStepper, but can't figure out how to get it actually talking.

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Driver Test Not What Expected

« on: May 08, 2012, 09:45:45 AM »

When you uninstall, manually remove the driver from the device manager.

I think I did my usual "install it and see if it works" thing and am fairly certain that I didn't reboot when it warned to. Then, when I read the install doc, I found that. (sigh)  Now, _what_ file do I manually remove? All I see in the docs are " manually remove 'the driver' ".  I'm using a SmoothStepper on a 64-bit machine, not a parallel port.