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Mach3 under Vista / Re: Minimum PC requirements vs real life (Newbie)
« on: July 19, 2016, 09:31:06 AM »
Thanks Christopher,
As it turns out, vibration from the Z axis stepper motor and gravity are the only reason the cutter was dropping; I could move the cutter up and down without too much difficulty even with the Gecko controller powered on. We finally took it apart and discovered that the shaft wasn't being engaged by the controller. The DB9 connector on the Z axis cable was wired wrong, with the black wire hanging and the green wire on pin 3 instead of 8. Either this created a problem for the G540 or Murphy's Law is just not finished with me yet; After re-wiring the DB9 connector and swapping some things around, I found that nothing connected to the Z-axis serial port would spin. About 30 seconds after that the controller shut down for good.
Right now I'm waiting for a replacement G540 and an extra serial cable to be safe. Hopefully things will start to make more sense in a few days. ... And I thought computer hardware was a pain!!
Bruce
As it turns out, vibration from the Z axis stepper motor and gravity are the only reason the cutter was dropping; I could move the cutter up and down without too much difficulty even with the Gecko controller powered on. We finally took it apart and discovered that the shaft wasn't being engaged by the controller. The DB9 connector on the Z axis cable was wired wrong, with the black wire hanging and the green wire on pin 3 instead of 8. Either this created a problem for the G540 or Murphy's Law is just not finished with me yet; After re-wiring the DB9 connector and swapping some things around, I found that nothing connected to the Z-axis serial port would spin. About 30 seconds after that the controller shut down for good.
Right now I'm waiting for a replacement G540 and an extra serial cable to be safe. Hopefully things will start to make more sense in a few days. ... And I thought computer hardware was a pain!!
Bruce