Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Alternate modes of homing

« on: June 15, 2016, 03:42:32 PM »

I am putting together a system using a couple linear motor slides with Parker ViX-250IH servo drives. The drives have an internal homing routine that handles everything. I can trigger it from an input or let it home itself at startup.

Can I make Mach just send a signal out to start the homing routine and then watch for the home good signal from the drives?

2

General Mach Discussion / Reinstall and modbus settings not sticking

« on: February 28, 2015, 10:05:06 PM »

I had a hard drive crash the other day and had to rebuild the pc, I still had the mach3 folder archived from last year so I did not loose and setting file. Everything went back together smoothly almost....

My problem is the Homann Designs MP-01 units. It uses modbus to talk to mach3. As soon as I boot and hit reset it says I need to configure the pendant which it has been already. I then go to the Serial Modbus dialog and everything is reset, Port is 0, Speed is 0, Parity is reset to 8-O-1, and timeout is blank. If I set these to where they are supposed to be 1, 115200, 8N1, 100ms, and click run and apply I start seeing the leds flash on the MPG's breakout like it is supposed to. I hit the reset button again and still get the "pendant needs to be configured", so I go to the plugin config, delete the pendant (says there are two instances), and create a new one. Now the pendant works.

If I quit mach I have to do this all over again, everything gets reset. Other settings like parallel port addresses stick.

Running Win 7 Pro 32bit with the latest Mach .066, same as before the crash.

3

General Mach Discussion / Strang behavior. Slow travel to/from G54 location

« on: May 30, 2011, 03:32:46 AM »

OK, I have something weird going on and I cant figure it out. I have three programs for some parts I am making. All of them use fixture locations (multiple vises on a fixture plate) using G54 to G57. First one, winder base runs fine. Second and third programs winder plate, and winder side act funny. When traveling to and from the G54 offset it goes real slow. Like 13ipm, when it should be rapid. The thing is I cant find anything in the code that should be doing this. Once it gets to G55 it moves fine and rapids as it should to the next location in G56 and G57. When the program finishes and it is at G57 and I hit start it does it again. Very slow move to the location in G54.

Another weird thing happening in these two programs is when it is traveling in between fixture offset location the spindle speed dips. In closed loop spindle it will recover to its speced speed but in open loop it just drops a few hundred RPM.

I am including all the files and my XML. Help!

I am running the lockdown version of Mach. Spindle feedback seems to be broken in the latest dev version for me. Also using machstdmill.

4

PoKeys / Pokeys boken with 10.6.3

« on: January 20, 2011, 02:58:15 AM »

I went and upgraded my firmware tonight on my lathe. That sucked, had to redo all my keyboard matrix.

I also installed the newest plugin for it in mach, 10.6.3. Its broken. It shows no activity at all. I put the old plugin back in (5.1) and it works fine.

In 10.6.3 I bring up the pokey monitor window and none of the radio buttons do anything where in 5.1 they are active and you can see blinking from the keyboard scanning outputs.

I dont use the oemleds to control stuff, just the inputs mapped to port 10.

Any ideas?

5

Brains Development / Spindle% in MachTurn

« on: October 28, 2009, 02:50:50 AM »

I am using a Pokeys with Hood DRO code to do the spindle override. The brain viewer shows it is outputting 0-150% to Spindle% termination output as I turn the knob but the spindle stays the same speed. Hood is using it with MachMill. Should this work with MachTurn? Is Spindle% screenset dependent?

6

PoKeys / Pokeys, MPG, and MachTurn

« on: October 08, 2009, 04:28:22 PM »

Got my Pokeys installed and running on my Hercus lathe. They keyboard mapping works great. Resurrected the original 23 year old keyboard by rewiring it into a 8x8 matrix.

Like other have mentioned the MPG sucks. Horribly laggy. And something weird. In step mode it goes back and forth randomly as I turn the wheel. Looked at the encoder read out in the pokeys app and it shows a steady increase if I turn the wheel one way and steady decrease if I go the other. But in mach the axis just goes back and forth at random. In velocity mode it travels the right way.

Another thing I have notice is the response from normal buttons is delayed. I have to hold the button for at least a half second to make sure it catches the key press. The keyboard response is great though. Just like a real keyboard.

Another thing is I see there is another screen for the pokeys. How do I get to it in MachTurn? I need to set up additional inputs for OEM keys and have ran out of the 15 available.

7

General Mach Discussion / Need help with tool turret on lathe

« on: June 14, 2009, 12:48:54 AM »

I need some help to get my 8 position tool changer turret working on my lathe. I have it wired with two inputs and two outputs. One input homes the turret to spot #8. the other input indexes it one position per pulse. Keep that input on and it will keep advancing without locking. I have two outputs. One pulses at each position and the other changes state when the turret is locked.

How the heck do I program this??? I have never used brains or macros. HELP!!!

-Jerry

8

General Mach Discussion / Tool Changer Turret options on Hercus Compulathe?

« on: May 05, 2009, 03:50:45 AM »

My current project is retrofitting a Hercus Compulathe I bought from a friend. The main board in it was toast so I have decided to gut it and start anew.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/techshoppdx/3474692749/

I have replaced the dc brushed resolver feedback servos with SimpleServo 200W AC Brushless servos and drives (Hey, it what I had lying around). They have Step/dir input native. For some unknown reason the 180v Permanent magnet DC motor they are using for a spindle motor was only being ran from a 90v control. So I am replacing that too. Another brushless servo. 750w this time around. Of course this is assuming that the drive I am getting off ebay works...

I am trying to reuse as much of the original front control panel as possible. A friend tested the keyboard and figured the pinouts. Going to use a small microcontroller to get a PC to see it as a standard keyboard. For the rest of the controls I am going to use a mix of parallel port IO and one of Peter Homann's ModIO boards.

So... my main question...

It has a 8 position turret. Really simple operation. it runs off 24vdc and uses 3 microswitches for feedback. Two are on the turret itself. One senses tool location, other being home (for some reason tool The last microswitch senses locked position. It works by running the motor one direction where internal gearing pulls a pin back allowing it to turn (CW facing the turret). When the position microswitch closes the motor stops and reverses. The internal gearing extends the locking pin and sets the turret. When it is fully locked the lock microswitch is activated.

My plan is to use a microcontroller with a small motor driver IC: http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LMD18245.html

Question is what is the best way to communicate with Mach? On the microcontroller: One input home, one input index, one output locked?

Or should I just have mach control the whole thing with a brain or macro?

I have never done anything like this in Mach so I have no clue how to do this.

9

Mach3 and G-Rex / Communication Lost / Error 777

« on: March 10, 2007, 02:50:36 PM »

Downloaded the new firmware this morning and reinstalled.. Now mach finds the Grex but it does not hold the connection. It initializes it and starts working, the dro start changing then the G100 Status dialog pops up and the Status bar says Com Error, Communications Lost. In the G100 Status Box gives a ecode=777

This is direct connected with a crossover cable.

10

Mach3 and G-Rex / Bugs in new firmware

« on: March 10, 2007, 02:16:51 AM »

Well, it looks like there is a bug in the new firmware that makes it unusable. It was just posted on the yahoo groups list. Where can I download the old plugin for mach that will let me use the old firmware?