Topics

1

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 IPC Documentation/examples?

« on: November 28, 2018, 07:03:58 PM »

I'm interested in getting Mach4 to talk to other processes running on the same PC -- I think this may be the easiest way for me to get my HuangYang VFD working, and a couple of other projects I'm interested in.

Is there any documentation/code examples for this?

Off topic: is the search for these forums going to be fixed?

2

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach 4, Modbus and HuanYang VFDs

« on: November 19, 2018, 08:34:45 PM »

I am moving from Mach3 to Mach4, and the final thing I need to get working is the Modbus connection to my HuanYang VFD.

I have not tried to configure it using the standard Mach4 modes plugin as I believe that the HuanYang protocol has some subtle differences.

With Mach 3 I am using a 3rd party plugin which unfortunately has never had its source code released.

So my questions are:

1. Is the Mach4 modes plugin known to work, or known to not work, with HuanYang VFDs?
2. If it doesn't work, is there any existing option for HuanYang VFDs?
3. If there isn't any existing solution, is the source code of the Mach4 modes plugin available, so that I can make it work with a HuanYang VFD?

3

General Mach Discussion / 'Freeing' an axis temporarily?

« on: November 21, 2013, 05:26:03 AM »

I'm using a Chinese 6040 with an ethernet smoothstepper and a G540.

I like to manually adjust my z-axis to zero when I start a job and when I change tools.

At present I click the 'Reset' button in Mach3, which stops my G540 holding the steppers, do the adjustment, then click reset again.

This seems like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut -- I just want to free a single axis for a few moments.

Is there any way to do that?

Thanks,
  Tom

4

SmoothStepper USB / Ethernet SmoothStepper Watchdog timeout after 'Feed Hold'

« on: October 17, 2013, 11:15:21 PM »

My ESS usually works well, but today I used Mach3's 'Feed Hold', which I have not used before.

My CNC machine didn't stop moving immediately, which I believe is expected with the ESS.

When I restarted the feed, it continued for about ten seconds, then stopped with an ESS watchdog timeout.

I have the timeout set to 3.1 seconds and the ESS update rate set to 250KHz.

Any ideas? I will try to reproduce the problem tomorrow.

Secondly, what's the correct restart procedure? Have I lost position when this happens?

Thanks,
  Tom

5

Mach3 under Vista / Sluggish Keyboard Response When Mach3 is running

« on: August 15, 2013, 08:08:05 AM »

I'm running the latest Mach3 under Vista with an ethernet smoothstepper. It mostly works well.

I find that when Mach3 is running the keyboard behaves oddly -- sometimes I get no response, and sometimes keystrokes seem to be batched up and then sent -- for example pressing tab to bring up the jog window sometimes doesn't work. I press tab a few more times, and then the jog window flashes on and off, as though multiple tab characters are being typed.

I have *not* installed the Vista memory override registry changes, believing that they are only needed if you are using a parallel port?

Thanks for any advice.

Tom

6

Mach3 under Vista / Motor Tuning Dialog Not Appearing

« on: July 17, 2013, 10:19:45 AM »

I'm running an Ethernet SmoothStepper connected to a G540 and then to a Chinese 6040.

I have done the following:

1. Installed Mach3 on a Windows 7 machine and configured my settings -- all good
2. Copied the C:\Mach3 directory to a machine running Vista.
3. Start Mach3 -- jogging works, but when I try to open the motor tuning dialog, nothing appears.

What can cause the motor tuning dialog to fail to open? Are there any logs I can look at?

Thanks,
  Tom