Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Intermittant pulse frequency. An old school gamer fix that worked for me.

« on: June 27, 2009, 12:41:40 AM »

Hi all,

I've got the intermittent pulse frequency issue, it drops down to 5k or so, then when i wiggle the mouse it jumps up to 25k or so.

After asking around about what exactly the issue is, i developed a theory and tested it.

One of the "fixes" that was posited was to increase the size of the tool path window. which ate up more cpu time, stabilizing the pulse frequency.(Thanks Chip!)

So based on the idea that CPU speed was part of the issue and eating up cpu speed to decrease the effective cpu speed was a fix, i set out to do just that as simply as possible.

I downloaded a program of a class that we used to use to slow down old games of fast computers, back before frame limiters were standard technology.
One example of this is the one i used, here;

http://www.cpukiller.com/

It's free and Had the Cnet seal of approval. It also allows you to slow you effective cpu speed as a percentage of your total cpu speed.

So my theory is that mach 3 was tuned for a 1ghz processor, so my 1.5ghs box, needed to be slowed down to 1ghz. a factor of 33%.

I booted CpuKiller, set the slowdown to 33%, ran mach, and my pulse frequency was a steady as a rock above 25k.

I had already done a bunch of the optimization stuff and never got a good pulse frequency. Cpu killer and an effective CPU speed of 1ghz fixed my probelm.

Alternately I believe that EFFECTIVE pulse frequency needs to be 1ghz, or a multiple of 1ghz, i believe that mach can adjust a little, but if you
exceed that limit, bad pulse frequency. But since my test machine was 1.5ghz, I was not able to test this theory out. The more software and interrupts you have running the more your effective cpu speed will differ from your advertised cpu speed.

I hope this helps someone who has the same problem.

If you try it and it does or does not work, try adjusting the slowdown up and down to see if your effective cpu is not your reported cpu speed, find the setting that works for you. Targeting 1ghz should be a safe first guess.

If you want to find out your effective cpu speed, go to a command prompt and type in dxdiag.exe , if you have DirectX installed it will bring up a ton of info about your machine including the advertised CPU speed (on the system tab),

Sorry if this is kind of rambling and disorganized, I'm in a blazing hurry.

Thanks for the help, hope this helps someene else.

Caladin/Eric-

p.s. There are lots of other slowdown programs, they may work too, Mo Slow was good back in the days of Wingcommander, when i last cared about slowign down a
cpu.

2

General Mach Discussion / parallel port

« on: June 13, 2009, 05:46:43 PM »

Can anyone explain in more detial what's going on to keep the parellel port pulse frequency bouncing all over the place?

I'm a PC guy, and I'm pretty sure I can figure out what's really going on and the
official terms I can Google and findout more about what's going on.

What exactly is the pusle frequency?

Is it the number of free cycles on  main bus?

Why does mouse movement boost the speed back up?

Do PCI/AGP video cards and the like take up bandwidth? Aren't they on a separate AGP port?

I'm hoping to build a new box that will have better performance, but I want to understand what performance exactly
I'm trying to build for.

Any links or info is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Eric-

3

General Mach Discussion / motors no go in mach 3...

« on: June 10, 2009, 12:45:02 AM »

Hi all,

I've got my cnc router working, it's my 2nd one, but I only used the first to get the
software working with my electronics & motors.. it was a terrible $100 design, and by then all the parts for the "good" one has arrived.

so I wired everything up,  took the setup that worked with the same electronics & motors, activated the 4th axis (x2), set the pins * ports, accel etc.

The test app that came with the board gets movement just fine, but mach 3 no movement. i go to the diagnostic screen, and
It shows no traffic over the port.

the port is the same as the tool that works is using.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Eric-

4

General Mach Discussion / Software to convert Dxf to Gcode, aka CAM. Recommendations wanted

« on: January 09, 2009, 12:38:11 AM »

Hi all I'm sure you get this question every other time you exhale, but I tried a quick search and nothing came up.

What software do you recommend in the way of converting Dxfs to Gcode, I'm looking for 2.5d and simple... cheap is good too,
later on I'm sure i"ll buy something expensive and really 3d, but for now i want to spend my money on hardware not software.

I'm mostly going to do wood routing for now, At the moment i have a tiny Dremeltool driven setup for practice and I'm in
the "waiting for my darn thrust washers" phase on my larger one that's going to hold a bosch 1617 router.
 
I know Sheet cam is out there on the $200 range,

What's out there that's free, and what in the $200 and below range?

Thanks,

Eric-

5

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 setup problem, DriverTest.exe has no lines.

« on: January 05, 2009, 08:58:28 PM »

Hi,

First up, I'm a total CNC Noob, so don't be afraid to ask id-10-t questions, I'm moderately pc competent as a windows programmer.
Here is my issue.

I was following the "download install and setup" video on the artsoft site.

I got as far as the driverTest.exe step (not very far alas)

First time I ran it, i got a line with a single big jag, and then the box hung.

I wasn't sure if you were supposed to use special driver for any crashes or just blue screens, but I went ahead and tried it.

Now everything on driver test seems to work, it starts give preparation successful, says system under mach3 control, then sits, eventually i get a popup saying the test was successful ("Mach 1 test complete."), but I never see any line whatsoever, not at all.

I can only assume this is a bad thing. Is it?

I've been testing the system with a vb app written by the guy I bought the controller board and the steppers from(stepperworld.com) and it
works pretty well (except for some momentary binding of the drive screws that I assume must be because I'm using all thread from HD, which isn't perfectly smooth?)

Any help is appreciated greatly.

I followed the rest of the tutorial and everything seems to work, but no motion when i hit the jog buttons and no movement on the axis position window at the center top of mach 3 when i try to run gcode (which is not surprising)

Thanks,

Eric-

P.S. I wonder if the hang was my box not the software (it's a little flakey, but it's what i have), is there an way to "un" special driver? I don't need a bat just instructions.
P.P.S. Nope, I read the bat file, undid the changes and it hung again, after 2 refreshes. so the original driver does seem to crash my box. Going to re-special driver again