Topics

1

Galil / Mach as motion control Galil RIO as I/O

« on: May 11, 2009, 01:02:46 PM »

I am not sure if this is possible but, Could you use Mach to control step/direction drives but use the RIO for analog I/O like analog feedrate override?

Thanks,
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2

General Mach Discussion / Steppers run rough in program run/ smooth in tuning?

« on: April 23, 2009, 09:14:48 AM »

Hi,
I have a practical cnc router that originally came with Wincnc. I wanted to try Mach on this machine as I use mach on my lathe. The set up is,
Pc Dell desktop, dual core processor, 1 g ram.
Stepper drives IMS 483's running 48v.
Motors Pacsci 270 oz/in motors.

Mach v3.042
Steps per- 2038 on the x and Y (rack / pinion), 10000 on the Z (Ball screw)
Accel 100, Velocity x,y (400) z (100)

The weird thing is that in the motor tuning, These settings work smooth as silk. As soon as I save the changes and go back to the program, Mdi screens the machine runs like crap! However, If I am manually jogging and move the mouse, the motors smooth out! At least while I am moving the mouse.

In Wincnc i can run these motors @ 600"/min rapid. In Mach only about 450"/min before the motors are stalling.

Any help appreciated,
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3

General Mach Discussion / Mach Ballbar test?

« on: February 21, 2008, 10:53:15 AM »

Hello,
I was wondering if there would be a way to emulate a ballbar test using Mach3?
Thinking out loud here, If you connecteded a digitizing probe to the spindle and a rotary post of some sort, then commanded different arcs on the same idea as an official ballbar test. Could Mach output a plot or something that you could then use to tune the Machines drives or verify the synchronization of the drives? Maybe not a full-fledged Ballbar test but it could help for troubleshooting and fine tuning.

Thanks for any input/ideas,
Cutmore

4

Galil / Mach3 and Galil, What am I doing wrong?

« on: November 20, 2007, 09:47:07 AM »

I hope someone can help me,
I have been trying to get Mach to talk to my Galil card and have no luck.
1 st I was trying with an ISA DMC1040 and the pc would connect and Galil smart term worked but not Mach, O.K. it is old tech being ISA and all.
Now I have a DMC 1842 revd. All the posts tell me this should work!
I downloaded the latest Galil plugin yesterday, Installed the v2.6 Mach upgrade last night. Again Smart term connects to the board.
I do not have Smartterm running when I start Mach, When I start Mach it takes about 30 seconds before it loads, then Mach displays "Communication open but errror in getting data record" Then Mach displays" Re-start program"

Can anyone tell me what could be wrong?
THanks,
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5

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / CNC Cutoff saw using Mach

« on: November 05, 2007, 12:46:28 PM »

I Have been reading about everyone's great projects and decided to add 1 of my little projects.
I am working on converting a 4x6 metal cutting bandsaw over to a Mach controlled cutoffsaw. So far I have the Z axis working and yesterday I made a 1st attempt at a feeder for the stock. I will get to try out the feeder some time this week.

Let me know what you guys think,
Cutmore

6

Brains Development / Mach with Brains, smart enough for closed loop?

« on: October 04, 2007, 01:24:09 PM »

I just watched the videos on the new brains,
So... My brain wants me to ask all your brains if they think programming with Mach's brains could do closed loop with this.

Someone has recently been working with EMC2 and reportedly has closed loop with steppers & 2 parallel ports working.
Thanks for any answers,
Cutmore

7

General Mach Discussion / Galil + Mach3

« on: September 27, 2007, 01:55:13 PM »

I am trying to set up a Galil DMC1040 Isa bus card with Mach3.
I had this card in a different pc that died and in that pc everytime i loaded Mach with the latest galil plugin, Mach displayed "defective plugin Re-load" I re-loaded both Mach & the plugin several times to no avail. Then the pc started acting funny and I gave up on that pc. (no fault of Mach)
Ding ding! round 2,
Different pc, Rev 2.48 of Mach, Latest galil software. I have the galil talking to pc through galil smartterm. I installed the galil plugin, Now when Mach comes up no more Defective plugon message Yay! When I go to config plugins, galil ver 1.0a is there. I go to config, set to servos, hit o.k.
When I try to go to the plugin menu Mach times out with no connection to Galil. Is it possible there is an interrupt problem?
Does it sound like there is any chance of this ever working or should I stop wasting my time and try something else?
Thanks for any replies,
Cutmore

8

General Mach Discussion / Mach for cnc saw?

« on: August 20, 2007, 01:01:10 PM »

Has anyone used mach to control or create a cnc cut-offsaw?
I want to make one and already use Mach on my lathe so I was wondering if this is possible, or would I need something like a plc?
Thanks for any replies

9

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Galil plugin for ISA bus card ie. DMC 1040

« on: August 06, 2007, 12:39:03 PM »

I hope this is the right place to ask,
Is there a plugin for mach that would work with a galil dmc 1040? This is an ISA bus card & someone told me ISA is too slow for Mach.
I downloaded the galil plugin off this site and when I start mach it tells me the galil plug in is defective. I want to set up a Bridgeport R2E3 with mach and the galil card.
 I read somewhere someone mentioned a galil .dll from galil's site. Do I need to download that too?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Cutmore