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Galil / A Galil Mach 3 communication problem I need help with.
« on: January 20, 2015, 03:20:32 PM »
I've had a problem with my system from the beginning; ie from when I got it working back in 2013. The problem is this: after a time, usually 30 or 40 min, I get an error message from Mach 3 saying "Communication with Galil has been lost" (or words similar to that), and the system has to be shut down and restarted. If a program was running at the time there is usually trouble getting things to start where they stopped. (My system has encoders with no marker pulse, so I don't try to Home to the Home micro switches.) I have also found that the Mach 3 "preparatory move" is sometimes wrong, and moves all 3 axes together: generally a bad thing. I'm getting better at recovering, but really I shouldn't have to. My system should run for hours if necessary without stopping because of a communication error.
So today I took a look at my communication parameters; they were:
Primary handle: TCP
Unsolicited messages: Take no action
Data Records: Manual Data Record Refresh
Open multicast handle: box was checked
That last box shouldn't be checked according to the plugin manual. So I thought maybe this was the problem. But I changed some more things. So today, before I ran a fairly long program, the communication parameters were:
Data records: Automatic
Refresh rate: 16ms
Cache depth: 2
Event driven DMC command: box checked
Open multicast handle: box unchecked
I ran the first part, about 50 min with no problems. Maybe this is the cure, I thought. Ran a second part, which would take more than 50 min if it hadn't stopped with a communication error after about 30 min. After recovery it ran for about 30 min to finish the part with no error. But it would appear I still haven't fixed the problem.
There should be no problem with noise on the ethernet cable. There were no other machines running in my shop while I was doing this. I have florescent lights on (not solid state ballasts), and my furnace runs from time to time. It has a small induction motor, so not really a noise source. The Galil board runs in a cabinet containing the power supplies and servo amps; but everything is linear, no switching amps or power supplies.
My Galil board is a DMC2133 3 axis board. My PC is a Dell Latitude D830 dual core, 2.4GHz, 1.5GBytes of RAM. Don't think my PC is too slow, but I'm just trying to make sure I give adequate info.
So, ... can someone offer any suggestions? Does anything look obviously wrong? I'd sure like this system to work RIGHT.
Any help would really be appreciated.
So today I took a look at my communication parameters; they were:
Primary handle: TCP
Unsolicited messages: Take no action
Data Records: Manual Data Record Refresh
Open multicast handle: box was checked
That last box shouldn't be checked according to the plugin manual. So I thought maybe this was the problem. But I changed some more things. So today, before I ran a fairly long program, the communication parameters were:
Data records: Automatic
Refresh rate: 16ms
Cache depth: 2
Event driven DMC command: box checked
Open multicast handle: box unchecked
I ran the first part, about 50 min with no problems. Maybe this is the cure, I thought. Ran a second part, which would take more than 50 min if it hadn't stopped with a communication error after about 30 min. After recovery it ran for about 30 min to finish the part with no error. But it would appear I still haven't fixed the problem.
There should be no problem with noise on the ethernet cable. There were no other machines running in my shop while I was doing this. I have florescent lights on (not solid state ballasts), and my furnace runs from time to time. It has a small induction motor, so not really a noise source. The Galil board runs in a cabinet containing the power supplies and servo amps; but everything is linear, no switching amps or power supplies.
My Galil board is a DMC2133 3 axis board. My PC is a Dell Latitude D830 dual core, 2.4GHz, 1.5GBytes of RAM. Don't think my PC is too slow, but I'm just trying to make sure I give adequate info.
So, ... can someone offer any suggestions? Does anything look obviously wrong? I'd sure like this system to work RIGHT.
Any help would really be appreciated.
