Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Totally lost

« on: September 28, 2012, 11:43:59 AM »

Finally found the problem,
it was in the G54 fixture,
I zero'd all the G54 settings and the mill is again running as before.

Thanks Hood and all for your help
Have fun,
Ted

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Laser build

« on: September 27, 2012, 10:27:26 AM »

Hi BT
May I ask who's laser and were you bought it, I'm very interested in doing one myself.

Thank you,
Ted

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Totally lost

« on: September 21, 2012, 06:28:29 PM »

Hi Hood,
Thanks for that suggestion, I'll try that tomorrow they are locking up the shop right now and want me out the door....

The funny thing is I'm really not sure what is causing this, if It was the hardware I figured something would not work.

I really don't know enough about the software other than enough to get into trouble.

If nothing in the ESS monitor,... Do you think a fresh install is the right thing to do at this point...?

Thanks again,
Ted

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Totally lost

« on: September 21, 2012, 06:10:18 PM »

Thanks BR,
I had considered that, but was trying not to blow my whole weekend, oh well, seems like I know were I'll be.

Should I delete the entire Mach 3 folder and start from scratch or is there a short cut that will work.

Thanks again,
Ted

Hi Hood please see attached.

Thank you,
Ted

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Totally lost

« on: September 21, 2012, 05:56:34 PM »

Hi Hood,
Stop spindle wait for cycle start, if it makes it that far it does what it's suposed to and then hit cycle start and it runs the code.

No error message it just stops, can't do anything until you hit the stop button. Hit the stop button and the Spindle retracts to safe Z.

It will let me rewind the code but nothing will move after that, I usually have to shut down mach to be able to even jog again.

Hi Allstar,
Tried that as well nothing, see above.

Thanks,
Ted

6

General Mach Discussion / Totally lost

« on: September 21, 2012, 05:32:07 PM »

I converted CNC Bridgeport,

Mill is set up with Mach3 a USB Smoothstepper and cnc4pc BOB and dugong servo drives.

I kept the original servos and encoders.

The machine has worked great for 9 months then we had an issue with an over travel on the Z axis and killed a servo drive. Hood and Brian helped me out in a different post dealing with the axis issue, but now I have a different weirdness.

Replaced the servo drive and the mill ran for a day and then started doing weird stuff, you could load a gcode program and you could run it several times then it would just stop or it wouldn't run at all. Had to shut down mach and restart and then the same result.

Read some posts and saw several folks had similar weirdness with noise issues. So I bought a ESS and installed that hoping that if it was a noise issue that would take care of it.... NOPE got worse.

Other funny thing was that my Z axis steps were still the same in my motor tuning but the spindle was moving twice as far as it should have DRO showed 0.250" and the spindle moved 0.500" changed the steps to get back to the correct travel.

So I thought maybe something got corrupted in Mach, I downloaded the .066 version non lockdown (Warp 9 suggested .058) but I could not find that on the download page.

As it stands now the mill will let me move all the axis with the jog keys, I tried to do a quicky NFS small program just to test it out, it loads the gcode press start and it gets to the 4th line and just sits there.

Any suggestions would really be greatly appreciated

Thank you,
Ted

7

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Help cnc machine does not stop when hitting limit switch

« on: September 15, 2012, 03:57:10 PM »

Hi Jeff,
As far as I can tell the Mill is not losing steps, home is a quarter inch ahead of the limit switch, we also use the Z=0 position for tool changing, can change tools all day and not miss a beat, hits the home and stops every time, only time it screws up is when you hit the stop button and the quill makes a hasty retreat.

The other hassle is that if it did it everytime it would be relatively easy to trouble shoot,... it only does it once in maybe 10 to 20 times so it is not a consistant problem just really annoying when it happens. I had read a post from another user that also converted a bridgeport he was having the same issue and he used his limit switch to trip the error line on the servo drive to stop the over travel he said it was the only way he could fix his problem.

Thank you again,
Ted

8

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Help cnc machine does not stop when hitting limit switch

« on: September 15, 2012, 01:58:40 PM »

Hi Jeff,
Sorry for the confusion, trying to be precise with a monster head cold is a task.....

When we start up the mill and reference it home 0 Z in machine coordinates is the homing switch.

The Safe Z is set to go to Machine coordinates 0 to it goes up to the home switch position.

This was getting over shot, the 0 position, Hood has said that Mach doesn't support a home and limit, so my assumption is that the mill is over shooting the home position hitting the limit switch but the travel speed maybe to fast and thus it is jamming the ball screw at the top of the travel.

What I'm doing now is slowing the travel down to 1/2 of the prior velocity and also going to set the safe Z to 0.250 above the work coordinates so when someone hits the stop button it doesn't crash again.

Thank you,
Ted

9

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Help cnc machine does not stop when hitting limit switch

« on: September 15, 2012, 11:01:38 AM »

Thanks Hood,
Appreciate the info, the problem I'm having is that when the machine goes to safe Z (as it is set now) it retracts to the home switch or is supposed to go to the home switch, but it occasionally over travels.

I did slow down the rapid rate to 1/2 of what it was set to before so that may help my situation.

Have a good one,
Ted

10

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Help cnc machine does not stop when hitting limit switch

« on: September 14, 2012, 01:52:03 PM »

Thanks Hood,
I'm going to change the safe Z and see if that helps, It's intersting that during the homing operation the Z runs at the speed set in motor tuning,... If I change the speed setting the Quill moves with the new settings.

But when it runs up from a stop command to safe Z it seems to run up at the fastest speed it can, do you know if the speed is setable for this or is it something in mach that is overriding the motor tuning settings.

Either way If I set safe Z to just above my work coordinates I should be in better shape I'm hoping.

Have a great weekend,
Ted