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General Mach Discussion / trying to improve motor speed

« on: December 16, 2011, 06:18:55 PM »

Greetings from the swamps of south Georgia.  My name is John, aka the sheepdog, and I've been trying to run my homemade CNC machine with Mach3 but to no avail.  It is a small 15x15 unit with unipolar motors and is controlled by a Hughes Automation AIO-500 motor controller, originally running at 12 v but now has been upped to 15v.  The original manual that came with the board gave all of the hookups for Kcam which ran ok but seemed awfully slow, 8ipm.  I've purchased new motors, (bipolar) drivers and breakout board in hopes of improving performance.  When I put together the new motors, etc. I tried them on both Kcam and Mach3.  They both ran with no problems and Mach3 was the best.  Now I want to try Mach3 on the existing unit before taking it down to see if the problem is the software or do I need the bigger motors, etc. From all I've seen on the forum Mach3 will run unipolar motors but I can't figure out how to set the pins properly.  I'm thinking the 5v supply is not getting to the motors because it is built into the board and does not have a way to pick it up separately but that's just a guess.  I'm doing this as a hobby so I really do not know what I'm doing. Have tried e-mailing the Hughes Corp. but never got an answer.  I'm open for suggestions and hopefully we'll get this thing checked out.  Thanks in advance  John