Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / 3x Parallel Ports with Mach3 (ESS)

« on: June 23, 2016, 08:53:57 AM »

I believe you need the ribbon cable for the ESS and another BOB to tie into.


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2

General Mach Discussion / Re: No Axis control on keyboard!

« on: January 18, 2016, 11:28:20 AM »

You didnt have to admit it ;-) Been there too.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Turn, ESS and G95 - very strange

« on: January 18, 2016, 11:24:56 AM »

I had issues with that combo too. Turn is the red headed step child.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: DriverTest evaluaton?

« on: December 31, 2015, 04:43:03 PM »

Ok I am back.

Over the last few weeks I obtained an Advantech PPC 174T, combo 17" touchscreen and 2.66ghz processor with 2g ram (brand new with the plastic film still on). It came with the hard drive wiped clean, no OS. Ebay is a wonderful thing! Less than 300 to my door.

I loaded a copy of Xp Pro SP3, Mach 3 and that is it. Well I did DL and install the drivers from Pentouch and Advantech.

 I connected thru the PP to my MX3660. Tuned it to 45khz and cant stall my steppers at 200 ipm! They do stall at the 280 ipm range with an accel value above 70. This is at 8250 steps per unit (inch). This is on the machine in operation. I was stalling before at 60-70 ipm on the machine or not.  

I am not using a motion control board such as the ESS or Pokeys. In fact I am getting speeds higher than the ESS with the old computer. No ticking of the steppers etc. Quite odd.

I could not disable the APCI when installing XP no matter what I tried. F5 and or F7 had no effect on the installation. Actually F5 gave me an option of standard install but selecting it created an endless boot loop.  Whether I did the change in BIOS or thru device manager.

I didnt do any of the optimization steps except disabling updates and eliminating the remote assistance. All seems to be working great. I will not be going online with this PC. Also the driver test is a little better looking (less spikes) but nowhere near a smooth line.  Baffled but happy.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 or 4 with PMDX 126 & ESS

« on: December 14, 2015, 08:11:08 AM »

They are 2 different licenses. The pricing is beyond fair.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Turn/ESS/MX3660 and lathe homing limit issue or not?

« on: December 13, 2015, 03:05:10 PM »

DB, Home off and back off are 2 different terms

"Home off", or offset within Mach is intended for you to set a specific value. Upon reaching the switch, the DRO shows that value. It can be either end of the travel. My switch for example in machine coordinates should be the most X+  and X0 should be the center of the spindle. Using Mach3 and a PP I can achieve that. If I wanted it the opposite, I could do that too. Whichever way you can fathom it, you could set it up that way.

"Back off" which is a setting within the ESS configuration is the physical amount you want the machine to travel in the opposite direction after the state of a limit switch is triggered. This would get the machine off of a limit or home switch instead of mandating a limit override request.

For some reason using the combination of ESS and Mach seems to have a conflict or produce some weird actions.

If I put 0 in the home off of Mach but .1 in the back off off the ESS. The machine will upon triggering the limit/home switch will back off the value inserted (.1 in this case) it will show this value in the DRO. If using Mach alone it would show whatever was in the home off value (0) machine coordinate.

Lets say I would like the DRO to be 6" since the X axis is at its largest + value. If I put 6 in the home offset box instead of that value being shown in the DRO, the machine moves off of the switch 6". Regardless of the value in the ESS back off configuration.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Turn/ESS/MX3660 and lathe homing limit issue or not?

« on: December 12, 2015, 06:56:55 PM »

   No, not that I have found. I can of course give it a 0 value.

   I have never used the switch as master tool 0. The more I think about it, that might work.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Turn/ESS/MX3660 and lathe homing limit issue or not?

« on: December 12, 2015, 01:19:29 PM »

 Hood, Finally someone who acknowledges that from within Mach the 'Home Offset" value is whatever I put in the value box! in Machine coordinates.

 In regards to the ESS, if I used the ESS back off, it will back off the switch the amount given in the set up box and indicate that value in the DRO. If I insert the value in the Mach home offset section it will move that distance, not just indicate that number as Mach did. I think it might be something to do with the auto zero that I cant change its state. It wont accept or keep the change if the reset button is pushed.

If I am understanding you correctly the ESS plugin is most likely the culprit. A lot of my issue was just trying to find out which piece was dominant and responsible for the action.

Maybe an older or different plugin?

9

General Mach Discussion / X axis reversed

« on: December 10, 2015, 10:34:57 PM »

Why can't they be changed? Just click on whichever axis direction you want to assign a key to, then hit the key you want to use and hit enter. Hot keys should be on the drop down config box.


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10

General Mach Discussion / Re: The solutions to my false limit switch triggering issues

« on: December 10, 2015, 12:59:49 PM »

Then if Al the Man gives me an answer and it is most likely correct, somehow I dont understand that either. There is still too much misunderstanding on my part about Earth/Ground/Negative. For some reason I can only think - and + no matter if it is AC or DC. That is just the beginning of how wrong I can be. I bet trying to write that guide helped clarify it too.