Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / motors growling,help

« on: May 12, 2007, 02:25:01 AM »

Hello All
 I built a cnc plasma machine a few years ago and I was running with Mach 2 and no THC. I recently upgraded it with Bob Campbell's assembled enclosure and new stepper motors and I hooked up the THC300 and changed to Mach 3. I am running an older ESAB plasma unit with the high frequency start. I grounded my table and plasma unit to earth ground. When I ran a test program the torch would fault on the  THC and would stop. I would click the reset and the motors would start growling and jerking. I would have to reboot the computer to stop the growling. I thought I was getting noise back through the THC, so I disconnected the THC and just hooked a relay to an output to turn torch on and off. I made two test cuts, it seemed ok. On the third one the motors started growling and jerking. This time is it ran the program all the way through. It wasn't losing steps,because it went back to the spot it started and cut off. It was about half the size of what it should of been. Can this still be noise from the plasma or is this a problem with Mach.

Thanks
Chuck

2

General Mach Discussion / rapid travel problem

« on: April 22, 2006, 06:46:54 PM »

Hello
 I am running Mach 2 with a plasma cutter. I am having trouble with rapid travel overspeeding and losing steps. It only does it during a diagonal move. A straight line movement with x or y, it works fine, but x and y together, it jumps the speed up. It will do it running a program and jogging.
 Thanks for any help
 Chuck

3

General Mach Discussion / THC300 Instaltion

« on: February 04, 2006, 10:41:40 AM »

I am using Mach2 and I am installing Bob Campbell"s THC300 box. I built a floating head for my torch head and mounted a switch on it for a probe. I have it hooked up to sensor board, probe lugs. I have Digitize bock checked, port 2 pin 13 on Input Pins screen. Digitize LED is lit up on Diagnostics page. When I trip the switch by hand, the LED doesn't change, is there a way to check to see if Mach2 is picking it up?
  I was also checking the fine and coarse adjustment knobs on THC box. I had the jumper across TP5 and TP8 like user guide said. Turned coarse knob CW and the UP LED lit up on Diagnostics screen and THC box. Turned it CCW and the Down LEDs lit up. The user guide said it should of worked the other way. Does any one have any ideas?

 Thanks
  Chuck

4

General Mach Discussion / limit switches on Fet4

« on: January 22, 2006, 04:37:33 AM »

This is my first time posting in a forum. I have been using Mach2 for several months on my gantry plasma machine. I just bought THC300 from Bob Campbell and I have setting it up. That's when I discovered my limit switches were not working. I'm using a Fet4 from Stepperworld. The Fet4 has lugs to hook switches to. One ground and four for different axises. I put a volt ohms meter across the ground and switch lug with the power supply off, I got about 2.4 volts. With the power supply on, I got around 5 volts, Does this sound right? Should I be picking up anything with the power supply off? Will this afect weather it is active high or low?