Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Going from Parallel to USB or Ether...

« on: August 05, 2017, 11:15:15 PM »

Your right, but I really don't want to deal with MS suddenly dropping support for Windows 7 32. They where so aggressive with the Windows 10 update, that I worry they will hose my machine. If I do this then I'm idiot proof from the next time they force people to upgrade without their consent.

-Paul-

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Going from Parallel to USB or Ether...

« on: August 05, 2017, 10:11:55 PM »

Thank You for the info...

I'll go do some digging...

Just got the new computer, it's 32 bit at the moment. But once I get all this working, I'll upgrade to 64 bit.

-Paul-

3

General Mach Discussion / Going from Parallel to USB or Ether...

« on: August 05, 2017, 11:42:55 AM »

It's time to work on converting my control box, It's an older K2 CNC (which still runs great), using parallel with a custom hand wired controller connected to the parallel port. Inside are three G320 motor controls, running three DAEHWA TC9 Motors (output 60W, 24VDC, RPM 800, Current 3.5A).

I want to keep costs minimal and upgrade over time in steps, I'm running Mach3 at the moment, and want to fix the Parallel problem first, then move to Mach 4, then see about the drives.

So with all that, what are some good choices for a controller board?, when I switch do I have to re-calibrate the machine? I'm wondering how hard this is going to be. I have some experience with electronics, but I've never tinkered with the CNC's electronics, and I don't want to break something...

Advice??
Thanks
-Paul-

4

General Mach Discussion / K2 CNC only jogging one way

« on: July 10, 2017, 06:02:52 PM »

I've a K2 CNC that I just put back up, when I go to jog any of the axis's they only move one way. I tried changing the hotkeys and that didn't seem to help...

Any ideas?

Thanks
-Paul-

5

Mach3 and G-Rex / Latest G100 Update

« on: December 10, 2007, 02:02:15 PM »

I'm just about ready to take the plunge to move to the G100, I have a couple of questions overall for the people that are using it today. This is a big investment for me, not monetarily but to do this I have to tear apart my K2 controller box and rewire the parallel portion. So you can understand my concern, especially since I've been doing tons of work with the machine and paying for all it's upgrades with that work. So being cautious is prudent in my case (if I had a second machine then that would be a different story). Thankfully I will not have to rewire the G320's so that should make things simpler somewhat, I've download Chaoticone's documentation and all the material from Gecko and am reading through it, i've not finished so it's possible I'll ask something that is documented...

My current machine is a K2 G3925, 3 axis using servo's, no spindle as of yet (it's on the enhancement list for a future purchase).

1. I know most people post here because they have problems, but how many have installed everything and have a good experience with the G100 (a number of the posts are old so I'm looking for updated info)??

2. What features are not supported at this time?

3. How much of a speed increase should I see with my machine, today I run the machine at 25000Hz in Mach III because I found any faster was not reliable. (maybe I need a better parallel port). And if I push it too fast it 'jitter's, I'm assuming that will go away with this setup.

4. How hard was it to setup and get working?

That should cover the basics, I'm digging but there's a lot of information to digest

Thanks

-Paul-

6

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Tool Change Pause Question

« on: September 11, 2007, 08:46:58 PM »

Ok so I get the forrest gump award for the year, I called Bret about the Z problem with the machine going up and slamming the switch... It turns out that at some point I changed the tool change to auto instead of Stop Spindle and wait, I also set the safe Z as suggest by vmax and then changed my macro to this:

x = GetUserDRO( 1200 )
y = GetUserDRO( 1201 )
z = GetUserDRO( 1202 )

code" G53 G0 Z" & z

While IsMoving()
Wend

code" G53 G0 X" & x & "Y" & y

While IsMoving()
Wend

Bingo!!! that did the trick, in fact the machine is cutting parts right now (man is it loud!!!)....

Thanks to Brett and vmax for the help, turns out I was just having one of those weeks.....

-Paul-

7

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Tool Change Pause Question

« on: September 11, 2007, 03:03:07 PM »

Interesting... so your storing those values in the tool change position DRO's, hadn't thought of that actually. I supposed it doesn't matter since I actually always come to the same location for a tool change, so that I could just hard code in. I was waiting to see how you stored the values from one macro to the other....

I'll give this a wirl as soon as I get home and see how it works...

Thank you

Cheers

-Paul-

8

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Tool Change Pause Question

« on: September 11, 2007, 02:27:51 PM »

That would be Awesome TP, it is working kind of, but I wasn't sure what the second macro was for. I did add some code to get the current position and return back but I did it all in the M6Start macro, your idea sounds better to me.

Thanks for the help, I look forward to seeing the macro's...

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Program End Crashing Z Axis

« on: September 11, 2007, 11:04:39 AM »

Thanks for the quick reply Bret, I responded to your email. I have three more pieces to cut on this current jig that I need to get done tonight when I get in, and if needed I found I can just sit and hit the esc at the very end of the program and stop it from running to the top and slamming into the limit. But I just got another large order this morning for more jigs so if I have too I'll take a day off my *real* job to solve this...

Thank you..

-Paul-

10

General Mach Discussion / Program End Crashing Z Axis

« on: September 11, 2007, 09:23:08 AM »

This is something new that just started, at the end of the G-Code program an M30 is issued, the machine rises up to a safe level and then it takes off and crashes the Z at the top of the machine. Hitting the limit switch and forcing a reset. The only change that I have made are changes to my m6Start, nothing else, I'm not sure what the hell is going on but I need to figure it out, it seems to happen after the program ends.

Any idea as to what could be going on?, can I override the m30 with my own version and possibly just home the gantry to Machine Coords?, I need to get this one solved quickly...

-Paul-