Topics

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General Mach Discussion / Testing for Missed Steps

« on: October 31, 2016, 03:17:07 PM »

Greetings,
Just finished my Joes CNC Evo.  Happy with it so far, but his a few snags last night.  Noticed that I had to be losing steps big time.  My circles were looking like eggs!  Yes, I have a noisy 2.2kw chinese spindle, but I have nice shilded wire and have connected the ground pin to the casing.   I have several times had EStops thrown when the spindle's not running.  Not sure what's going on, but I went ahead and jacked the Debounce up to 2000.  Seems to have fixed it to some extent.  The EStops aren't happening any more, but i was still losing steps both on X and Y (dual drive).  So after some reading, I put the Y and X on Step Low Active (supposed to help?)  It did!  Now it appeared I was only getting lost steps on X, but not Y.  So I disabled Step Low Active on X and it seems good so far, but of course every time I go to run a job I'm nervous.

LOOOONG STORY to ask this one little question.....Does anyone know of any wizards to test for lost steps.  I have 2 home switches installed, X and Y, nothing on Z.  I'm thinking like a wizard that would home the machine, then move it some number of steps out, then return it, ideally it should be the same number of steps back to the switch, but if it's more/less, it could tell you so you would know you still have an issues somewhere?  Does it exist, and where?

Thanks!!

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General Mach Discussion / Huanyang 2.2kw Spindle with VFD and G540 Issues

« on: January 31, 2016, 06:50:07 PM »

Greetings All.
I've read up on this topic a LOT, tons of googling, Found a ton of info here, unfortunately, not the info I need to fix my problem. 

Followed the wiring here.  http://www.homanndesigns.com/pdfs/EN010_V8.pdf

The relays work.  The spindle indeed starts.  However, the RPM shows 0 in Mach3 AND it cannot control the speed of the spindle.  I can turn the POT and it adjusts just fine, but if I try to change the speed in Mach3, nothing happens.  I have setup everything according to Port/Pins info found here.  Set up my pulley and all that. 

Thoughts?

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General Mach Discussion / VFD Signal Issues

« on: January 11, 2016, 10:10:58 PM »

Greetings again.

Ok, last time I posted here, I was having issues with my 2.2kw spindle causing E-Stop signals being sent.  The answer was for me to shield the cable that connected from my VFD to the spindle.  So, I did.  I bought special wire that's well shielded.  Still having issues, but they're different now.

More info here...It's a Gecko G540 on  a home built machine. 

I have grounded the machine, spindle, shielded cable to ground via a ground wire to my outlet. I have also wrapped my spindle in electrical tape and put it back in mount to isolate it from machine.

I have turned my Debounce down from 2000 to 0.  Sure enough it will run, for a bit.  After anywhere from 30 to 180 seconds, it will throw an e-stop.  So, things are MUCH better for sure.  But I'm concerned I may still lose steps. 

At first I turned my Debounce to 2000 to avoid the signal issue, but noticed that the machine would lose a TON of stop and wreck a project half way through.  I assumed that was due to the signal issues.  Even @ 2000, it will still throw a stop signal every so often.  I would just click start to resume it and it would carry on, but I believe it was in those moments that steps were lost.

For troubleshooting, I took the spindle out of the mount and ran a job on the machine.  It didn't stop once.  NO problems at all.  I can run the job with the spindle in the machine so long as it's not running, no problems at all.  But if I turn it on, it's only a matter of time before an EStop is thrown.

What am I missing?  Why am I still getting estops through every so often?  Thanks for any advice!

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General Mach Discussion / Estop after turning on spindle

« on: November 01, 2015, 03:19:51 PM »

New machine build.   I know there's probably a crossed wire or something but I don't know how, it's pretty simple so far.   Using a g540.  Everything works until I turn on the spindle, then it's estop.   Pictures attached to show how simple my machine is so far.   Can't imaging what would be crossed?

5

General Mach Discussion / Newbie with newbie problem

« on: July 13, 2014, 04:43:37 PM »

HI everyone.  I'm Jeff.  I'm a programmer by day and tinkerer by night.
I just bought a CNC after reading up for over a year.  Actually bought the parts to build a 4' x 2' one using chinese ball screws, sliders, nema 23's and all the goodies.  Except the frame!  Don't see a design I love, so I'm going to make my own out of machines aluminum.  I decided it might be a good idea to CNC these parts myself so I could learn on a cheaper machine.  So I bought one of those Ebay CNC6040 deals.  So far so good.  It assembled fine and seems to run well, but I'm having issues with my own design.

Simply enough, I put a piece of wood that is 9" wide and 19" long on the middle of the table.  I tell Vcarve Pro I want a 3" diameter circle in the center.  I send this job off to Mach3.  Load the GCode.  No problem.  I jog my tool to the bottom left corner of the work piece as I indicated in VCarve.  Zero out the Axis and reset the machine coords for this to be "home" - zeroed.  Load the gcode and it makes about a 2 or 3 mm circle, tiny tiny little circle.  I'm sure somewhere the machine thinks it's in mm when I designed it in inches.  I have the native units on Mach3 set to inches from the start.  What am I missing?!

Thanks,
Jeff