Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / G41/42 toolpath display only to around 1000 lines?

« on: January 01, 2013, 11:46:58 AM »

Hi Guys,

recently been playing with the G41/42 codes to learn how to apply them to serially produced parts.

Was pulling my hair out for a while as the toolpath display was not showing the White trajectory lines on some of my CAM produced gcode.

I know that there are limitations in the G41/42 callout so I have researched ans stuck to them. What is funny though, once the code was corrected the white trajectory still failed to show and Mach was not giving an error.

If I simulate the trajectory though, the green trajectory tracer follows the line that should be white.

If I half the length of the program, the white trajectory appears.
So I am confident that all is good and that the only issue is the length of the program.

Anyone else seen this?

2

SmoothStepper USB / Newbie: issues regarding limits, e-stop and backlash comp

« on: October 06, 2012, 06:42:14 AM »

Hello all,

I am new here on the forum and new to SS, having previously struggled with parallel ports and lost step all round. The machine in question is a Chester super lux that was butchered and modded. Currently actuated on 3 separate chinese stepper drives ant a 50V supply. Software is the latest plugin directly from Greg and the latest drivers from the website. Signal cables are all UTP twisted pair cables for the time being but will be replaced with audio shielded cables today.

A few questions to the learned ones on here:


The problem I am having is that Mach returns an external e-stop whenever an axis hits a limit, and not an axis limit indication.

I have switched off the power to the motors and jogged the axis virtually without the axis actually moving on the machine and pressed a limit. This also gives me an e-stop condition. If I only press the switch without an axis being jogged, mach tells me that a limit has been trip. To make sure it is not noise, I have disconnected the e-stop and done the same thing with no change, with and without an axis physically moving . in the filtering boxes I have 100 in each one. Debounce in the mach settings is 0.

The chinese breakout board I am using seems ok as I have tried the same using the parallel port and it works fine.

Could the driver/plugin be playing up? I do not know enough about the logic the USS follows in order to troubleshoot fully.

I am also slightly perplexed as to the backlash compensation. My axes have 0.02mm and 0.05mm real backlash. These values have been set up in mach and work with the LPT as normal. quick acceleration to take up the lash and then proceed as normal. Does the SS work differently? Asking because I don't get that super quick jolt in the new direction.

Been reading on here that the watchdog time increasing may help solve some issues so will give this a try.

Looking forward to your response.

George