Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / DROs randomly changing in Turn

« on: July 17, 2013, 11:39:36 AM »

Hi All,

Proceeding slooooooowly up the learning curve with Turn, I have now arrived at the next problem which I am hoping someone will instantly point a finger at the solution....

Turn is installed at 066 (full licence) operating a Compact5 PC on a dedicated PC running XP SP3.

The problems seem to have materialised since I started using the tool tables.
I always start with a 'ref all' to move the carriage (with reference Tool no. 0) to my machine reference point, referenced with opto-switches.

The symptoms are that I use Turn with one of the turn wizards to carry out some piece of work and at some apparently random point, the X and Z axes change - not so far in mid program, but either after the end or when I have stopped the program in the middle to measure or to stop.

Is this a known bug somewhere?

Hoping that someone will know what my issue is, if not I will have to delve deeper into the apparently random nature of the problem.

Thanks in advance,

Simon

PS, I would have checked the bug list but "http://www.machsupport.com/knownbug.php" now terminates on the Newfangled site with a 404 error.

2

General Mach Discussion / MSM Turn tool tables - need a primer!

« on: July 05, 2013, 05:08:57 AM »

Hi All,

I am being very dim at the moment trying to setup a set of 5 interchangeable toolholders on my lathe running MSM Turn (not mill-turn) and I seem to be going around in circles.
mach3 is at 067, MSM version is 2.09

Can anyone give me a step by step sequence, ideally using the reference point as the Master tool, otherwise using a defined tool as the Master, all based on the MSM screens?

I thought that something existed but I cannot find any links.

Thanks,

Simon

3

General Mach Discussion / G76 threading issues - any thougts?

« on: March 16, 2013, 06:24:42 AM »

Hi,
I am using the simple threading wizard to try and cut a 32 x 1.5mm thread on my Emco Compact 5PC (modified to Mach 3).

I have had a number of problems that appeared to be associated with the X infeed missing steps. When running the code generated by the wizard, I can hear the X attempt to get close to the thread OD then there are a couple of missing step sounds and then the thread is cut at an indeterminate depth.

Looking through the generated code based around G76, it appears to be in line with what I was expecting:
G00  X22
G00 Z3
G00 X16
M03 S200
G76 X13.9 Z-16.5 Q10 P1.5 J0.05 L45 H0.05 I29 C6 B0.025 T0

I have tried to read all of the threads (sorry ) but there appear to be none with similar problems.

I then edited M1076 to give me the full code and that is where I start to see what may be a problem - but no idea why:

(Min decremant being used)
(Decrement = 0.05 pass 2)
G01 Z3
G32 X15.9 Z2.9446 F1.5
G32 X15.9 Z-16.3125 F1.5
G01 X22 Z-16.5 F1.5
G00 X22 Z3
G00 X16

The underlined G32 is the key issue I think; Z is set to 3 followed by an instruction to screwcut to 2.9446, followed swiftly afterwards by the 'real' G32 to do the thread I need.

So.....:

• what am I doing wrong.....? Is this something I have set/not set in the wizard or is this something that is caused by 'something' else?

If I edit out the 'odd' line, then the threading is successful.

Both files attached in full in case there is something else buried in the files.
Rev is 043.062, using MSM v2.0 and the wizard is shown as 1.7

I know that threading is always a difficult issue but this has me very confused.

Simon

4

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 failing after spindle setup

« on: October 04, 2011, 08:35:14 AM »

Hi All,
This is a copy of the mail I posted on the Calypso forum in case the problem is more Mach3 related - or in case someone here has some thoughts....
Hi All,

Required information first of all:
1) Mach version: 3.043.037
2) MSM version: 1.1.11
3) Windows version: XP
3a) If vista or W7, 32 or 64 bit? N/A
4) Interface: Parallel Port? Smooth Stepper? or ? Parallel port
5) Are any plug-ins installed? If so, what are they? none

Background:
I have been using my home converted BF20 for around 2 years now and I joined the MSM beta users when the opportunity arose.

Over this period I have been steadily improving the mill to operate faster and more accurately and it now runs at a comfortable 700mm/min and does what I want (I am not an industrial operator, my CNC work unwinds me from a day of high tech telecoms - usually!)

My most recent change was to design and build my own high speed spindle which so far has been successful - with the inevitable debugging and problem solving along the way along with configuration changes.
During the period spent debugging the spindle, I have had the power turned on for the parallel interface board and to the steppers but, because everything was in a huge tangle of wires, circuit boards, components, scope probes, etc, I did not move the axes.

2 nights ago, I decided to put the spindle aside until I could design the Mk2 version and I went back to make a simple aluminium cutout.

The problem:
The axes will not move at even 1/10th of their normal speed - they are loosing steps, stuttering whining and all sorts of noxious things.
This happens under MDI doing rapids, also using the joystick I use for large movements and with the MPG.
Max speed is around 9 mm/min.......

Obvious conclusions:
I had damaged something electronically or electrically. I went around the entire system ensuring that:

• every cable was either properly connected or completely disconnected
• all power supplies were at the correct voltages
• signals were as they should be (at a quick glance)

After that, I did what every Windows user does and restarted MSM, then tried rebooting and restarting, all to no avail.

I then decided to load an old version of Mach3 on a bit of a whim - this is my pre MSM version and did not even have the correct steps per mm values for the Y axis. This worked perfectly (apart from the steps).

After that, I went around the 2 setups trying to see what configuration setting is different between the 2 - and I cannot see what it can be.

PLEASE forum users, if anyone has any bright ideas on this problem which is causing me some grief, I would be very grateful to hear them.
Remember, this started directly after I was playing around with the spindle and spindle settings - which are now all at the disabled or set to minimum.

Thanks in advance,

Simon

5

General Mach Discussion / Parallel port not working - my solution

« on: July 10, 2009, 05:08:02 AM »

Hi All,

I am in the process of installing CNC on my HBM20 mill and I (finally) nrezsolved a problem last night, the solution for which may aid others.

My PC was bought on eBay (51€!) with a 1.7 GHZ AMD processor and 1GB of RAM. The original machine had XP loaded but also a lot of other video and media hard and software. Consequently I restarted with a clean disk and a clean install of XP. Initially this would not allow a stable operation of the test program, usually masses of lines followed swiftly by a complete lock up requiring a power off restart.
I resolved this by applying all of the solutions in the optimisation document along with a complete reload of XP. This cured the stability problems and also gave me a near perfect result from the test.

Fine.
Then I attached my breakout board (supplied unbuilt from Marcus electronics in Germany - I am a former electronics engineer so building this was not a major effort) and decided to check the outputs before attaching motors etc.
I found no signals at the stepper driver end, nor any signals coming out of the parallel port. The lines were observed with a combination of normal and storage scopes.
To cut a long and tedious story short, I eventually looked in the BIOS setup and discovered that the parallel port was set for EPP+HPP (I think...) and that there was an option for 'standard'. Changing this and a further reboot resulted in signals all over the place exactly when I wanted them.

I have not seen this issue mentioned anywhere else, perhaps I didn't look hard enough though!

BTW, when looking for signals, I didn't use the jog controls but just set a G0 to say +200 so that I had a constant stream of pulses, allowing me to use both hands for hunting down the signals.

Regards
Simon.