Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing communication with UC-100

« on: October 12, 2021, 10:52:49 PM »

waking up an old thread that is still relevant!

I had intermittent hiccups despite trying buying shielded USB, extra ferrites, and rearranging the power plugs to my equipment to change ground paths. So I starting trying to setup a parallel port.  Bought the cable, found a really old laptop with a parallel port, found out Mach doesn't like those, so setup a desktop pc with a parallel port card I bought, STILL didn't work, then ultimately learned that some parallel ports use 3.3V digital signals instead of 5 and how to identify whether your parallel port card does 5 or 3.3.
In the meantime I had the idea of running the long parallel cable from the motor drivers (Microproto from Taig) to the UC100, then only a foot of USB to the laptop. 
Whammo, not one fault since. I originally had the UC100 screwed to the driver box then USB all the way.
I thought this was worth sharing and I hope it works miracles for you too!

2

General Mach Discussion / Homing with G28.1 works fine but Homing icons don't respond!

« on: March 11, 2020, 06:39:50 PM »

I'm using Mach 3 with the 2010 screen set.  I'm on Win 10 and using the USB UC100.
I used it a lot in the past then got sidetracked and some cables were moved around, etc.  No real changes but now homing icon doesn't respond.

It can't be a hardware problem though because manually sending G28.1 works ok.

Ive attempted to look at the button macros but somewhat confused in that respect.

I haven't reinstalled anything yet because I don't want to have to reconfig my entire setup again and I'm not sure which files to back up first.
thanks for reading and hope you can help me.
thanks.

3

Vistacnc Control Pendants / imach pendant sometimes locks up in single-step mode

« on: June 15, 2019, 10:46:06 PM »

Hi.  I have an imach III P1A-S tied to Windows 10/64 running Mach 3.  For the most part it runs ok.
However, sometimes when I switch to the single step mode, it all locks up and no setting of the knobs can get control back.  What *does* work is toggling the EMO button in then back out (usually), moving to velocity control mode (V) and jiggling a stage around.  I do not have this mapped out precisely because too many combinations.  It might just be a timeout is necessary.

It also has the alarming tendency for the stage suddenly going into constant speed mode while jogging in single-step mode, which is a leap for the EMO button event!

I've also sent this to the VistaCNC support email.

thanks
Matt

4

General Mach Discussion / Need help with Big Fat Holes in my knowledge of CNC

« on: March 07, 2019, 03:48:29 PM »

I thought I wouldn't have too much of a problem but I can't figure out some basics like how to home my machine.
Here are some basics about me and my setup to show I'm not entirely clueless (although it feels like it).

I just bought a Taig CNC Mill and playing with Mach 3.
I'm used to Gcode and things like homing/limit switches from building a custom delta 3D printer, plus various constructions of generic multi-axis motion control over the years.  I am NOT familiar with using a CNC interface like Mach.  Usually I construct a custom control interface with Labview or other software and all interfacing is with gcode over a serial port.  My printer's control board has implemented all parameters, controls, and commands in gcode, which makes it very easy to use.

I'm used to homing my printer with a gcode macro that moves the stages to some limit switches, backs off, approaches more slowly and stops again at the switch closure, then define that as zero, all with nothing but gcodes (delta printers don't have x or y limit switches).   In the CNC world that would be used to define machine coordinates (G92, right?), which would then be the coor system I would use to define the soft limits (zero to some length of my stage). In this case the negative direction limit switch would be defined as zero.

However, I can't even find a button to start a homing operation. 
Where am I going wrong here?
thanks