Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 25, 2009, 01:16:14 AM »

Here's the latest.

I purchased a Mach3 license file through the Soigeneris, and have already recieved it (Thanks!).

That's probably the best spent $175.00 of my entire life.

I debated what version of Mach3 to install on the 2nd go around... the lockdown, the release candidate, or the "don't use this one" (development only) version.

I could not resist the temptation of the "latest and greatest" so I went with the development only version (and the moderators all groaned).

The installation of both Mach3 and LazyCam was trouble free, and I again opted to NOT install the driver, and again, I had the installer create a Mill profile for me, named "Dyna".

This is my office machine... not connected to a real CNC.... that's why I don't want to install the driver.

I then rebooted, as that is what Art says to do.  I'm figuring if Art says it... I do it.

After a fresh boot, I copied my license file into the Mach3 directory (as per guidance from several of you kind folks).

I then started Mach3 by double clicking on the Dyna shortcut the installer created on my desktop.

After Mach3 started, the very first thing I did was go into the "Help - About" dialog to see if the license file was being recoginzed... it was.

I then went into the configuration, set the native units to mm (already was) and then... following Mr. Hood's sage advice, I enabled X, Y, and Z motors.

Next, I started LazyCam, opened up the spanner dxf, clicked on "clean", then "reset origin" and then "Post Code".

Back to Mach3... I had a nice picture of the entire spanner in my toolpath window.

I clicked on RESET to clear the normal startup condition.

Then... taking a deep breath... I clicked on Start.

I noticed a significant improvement over my previous attempts right away.

1.  I noticed the green arrow in my toolpath window shooting up to the top (I'm assuming to indicate Z axis to clearance height).
2.  I noticed a green line slowly forming right down the first rapid move line in the spanner geometry.

I watched it for quite awhile... and it's truly a beautiful thing.

I then clicked on STOP and "Go To Zero".

After it returned to zero, I went back into the configuration (Ports and Pins, Motor Outputs tab) and disabled X, Y, and Z.

Then I tried running it again.

Crop circles.

So... this noobs mystery is solved... the strange patterns drawn in the toolpath window occured because I didn't have any of my (imaginary) motors enabled.

That's good enough for me.

I'm delighted, and I'm looking forward to the next steps.

Thank you all for your help.

Best regards,

Michael

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor tuning calculations

« on: April 24, 2009, 11:57:55 PM »

Gawd... I typed up this lengthy reply... and then something went wrong with the posting and it got lost.

Ouch.

Sorry man, but I'm not up for typing it all again.

Here's the summary.

Cool stuff on that Soc-machines site, thanks for the link.

The docs on the MM220s pretty clearly indicate that they were shipping them configured for 1/2 step, but that they can be reconfigured for full, 1/4, and other modes.

With the earlier MM220 software... you had to download a new hex file to the boards to change the stepping mode.

I think you would probably know if you had done that, grin.

However... I also spent some time looking at the docs for the MM130s.

The MM130s have this interesting feature where they can be reconfigured via the same STEP and DIR pins normally used for motion.

You change the STEP and DIR signals in a particular way... and instead of generating motion... you send commands to the stepper drivers processor.

One of the things you can do with those commnads... is change the stepping mode.

This is possibly relevant... as one of the MM220 documents mentions a new release of the MM220 software which will give the MM220's features similar to the MM130s.

It doesn't elaborate on excatly which features... but hey... it's not a stretch to think that maybe "configuration commands over the step/dir interface" is one of them.

If your MM220 drivers have updated software, and now have that feature... then it suddenly becomes at least possible that the step/dir signaling coming out of Mach3 could... depending on your configuration... result in a configuration change of your stepper drivers.

A lot of speculation here... sorry for that... but I'm working with very little real knowledge of the stuff you are using... I'm just reading tech. documents and looking for clues that might help.

Best regards,

Michael

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor tuning calculations

« on: April 24, 2009, 10:51:10 PM »

Whew!  I can breathe again.

It sounds like you found that information a little useful.

I almost didn't post... I'm a noob... I know it... and I'm not looking to start posting lots of useless noob advice.

I find the problem you describe very interesting.

It is very strange that it worked for so long, and then seemed to change when you tweaked some settings.

It would seem to me, that it's one of two things:

1.  Either the Step signal coming out of your LPT port (if you are using an LPT port) or out of your motion controller, has changed.  Meaning it's not putting out the same number of steps for a given distance as it was previously.

Or...

2.  The number of step pulses coming out are correct... but somehow the stepper drivers are no longer operating in the same mode (Full, Wave, Half, some level of micro-stepping).

I'm an electronics guy... so my next move would be to hook up either a counter or a logic analyzer to my STEP signal for the problem axis... tell Mach3 to do a move that would generate a specific number of steps... and see how many pulses I actually got.

At that point... I would know something... as I would actually see the expected number of pulses... or not.

If the number of pulses were right... I'd look for what changed downstream... probably the mode that the stepper driver is running in (some can be changed).

If the number of pulses were wrong... it's got to be something in Mach3... almost certainly some configuration setting.

edit --- If you are using an external motion controller... it could also be that, as that's what would be generating the step pulses.

My take on this would be that the Mach3 software has worked for too many people for too long to have that fatal of a flaw... where it's flaky and only works sometimes... it's got to be something more definitive.

Your own attempts to solve the problem by re-installing and using different P.C.s seems to indicate that whatever it's doing... the result is very consistent... it's just not resulting in what you expect.

I wish you the best of luck.

Best regards,

Michael

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor tuning calculations

« on: April 24, 2009, 09:37:26 PM »

I'm very new to Mach3, and am hesitant to post on your topic, as I'm by no means a knowledgeable Mach3 user.

However... I know a few things about steppers, and some of your posts seem to present conflicting information.

You cannot be half stepping if you are doing Wave Drive.  Those are somewhat mutually exlusive terms.

Full stepping uses phases 1, 3, 5, 7.
Wave Drive uses phases 2, 4, 6, 8.
Half stepping uses phases 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.... in fact it's a combination of Full Stepping and Wave Drive that produces half-stepping.

So... if you've got something that says it is Wave Drive, you are still "full stepping" in that it moves one full step increment per phase change.

The difference between Full Stepping and Wave Drive is that Full stepping powers both A and B phases at once, whereas Wave Drive powers only 1 of the phases at a time.

Look at page 3 of the following document.

http://www.solarbotics.net/library/pdflib/pdf/motorbas.pdf

I'm sure I didn't post that link properly (I'm in Quick Reply) but just cut and paste...

Also... this page has a pretty good representation of the differences between, Full, Wave, and Half stepping.

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/control2/sequence.html

Finally... here's a pretty good little "Stepper Fundamentals" tutorial (from StMicroelectronics) on the Digikey web-site.

http://dkc1.digikey.com/us/en/tod/STMicroelectronics/StepperFundamentals/Stepper_Fundamentals.html

Hope some of the above helps.

Best regards,

Michael

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 24, 2009, 06:19:27 PM »

Licensing:

Very understandable, and I can certainly live with that.

I just placed an order for one license on the Soigeneris site, no problems whatsoever, no prompts for changing my browser settings, no cookies, etc... much better.

I'm assuming I will get an email with the license info.

Thanks again to all of you for your continuing tolerance of this noob (just to be clear, I mean me).

Best regards,

Michael

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 24, 2009, 05:07:03 PM »

Backlash:

I'm not sure what's right... but I don't really see anything wrong with the Dyna method, provided the limit switches are precision devices (repeatably activate at same mechanical position).

If they are... then the method described should work very well, as the number of steps "lost" (that don't produce actual axis movement) when changing axis direction... is directly proportional to the backlash, is determinate, and can be calculated based on the value of distance per step for the machine.

I'm leaving the door open on this one... as I'm NOT a machinist, and I realize there are things at play here that I don't know about.

I'm just saying... seems like it should work well... Dyna used that method for years, and had machines that were absolutely capable of producing very small, very precise, parts.

Even when used by bozos like myself. 

Licensing:

In the P.C. application software licensing world...  a license that is locked to a single "Machine" usually means a license that is locked to a single "P.C." (the machine being the computer the software runs on).

You are thinking Machine = CNC, which may be right... but it's up to the ArtSoft people to make it clear what they mean by "Machine", as they are the ones doing the licensing and employing the scheme.

As stated, I want to run Mach3 on two different P.C.s, only one of which will actually be controlling a CNC "machine".

The question remains... one license or two?

Best regards,

Michael

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 24, 2009, 04:17:53 PM »

Regarding,

"Mach 3 just homes by moving into the home switch and then slowly backs out until the switch changes and stops.
Backlash must be determined with a dial indicator. Then there is screw mapping which is another whole topic.
Your plan to install without the driver on the office machine is a good one. Enableing the axes is needed so the program has a reference to track on the screen."

Yowza.... really?

It's such a simple thing to do as part of the homing... and can be done for each axis in a matter of seconds.

The controller that comes with the Dyna machine measures and compensates for backlash every time you initialize the machine, and it displays the actual backlash values.

This is very handy as:

1.  I don't have to manually do it, cuz I'm really pretty lazy.
2.  It gets done routinely, adjusting for changes in the backlash that may (and do) occur over time, keeping the machine more accurate.
3.  It warns me when the amount of backlash is too big... which is something that can be fixed, but requires physical adjustment of the axis.

That really leaves me wondering why Mach3 wouldn't just do it the same way... it's so easy to just slowly move the axis back and forth while looking for the switch state to change state, and counting the steps.

Perhaps it requires a particularly precise type of home/limit switch in order to work, and not all machines have them?

I guess I can probably live with it for now, and figure out how to do it automatically (in my own custom script or macro or something) later, but it's dissapointing.

I just tried to buy a license via the ArtSoft site (via SecurePay.com), and that didn't go well at all.

I got through the first screen, where I entered my personal info, then clicked on the button at the bottom.

Instead of progressing to a credit card screen, I get an error screen about needing cookies and session settings (something like that) enabled.

Now... I'm no noob to online shopping.   I routinely buy things from any number of online stores, digikey.com, tigerdirect.com, amazon.com, symantec.com, so on an so on.

I haven't experienced a "need to have cookies enabled" screen in literally years.

I tried just adding securepay.com to my trusted sites... no dice.

Further... the error screen offers no information about exactly what settings I should change in IE to allow it to work.

My feeling is... I shouldn't have to change jack-squat... plenty of online stores are able to work without me lowering my security settings... this is bad.

The last thing the ArtSoft people should want is for people that are ready and willing to buy... not being able to because of the way SecurePay's order processing works.

VERY FRUSTRATING!

I've seen that other merchants sell Mach3 licenses.... can anybody suggest a reputable dealer that has a better online store?

Thanks for the licensing info.

Sounds like "not too painful today, but much more so tomorrow".

I'm in a bit of a grey area... my actual machining work is going to be VERY MINIMAL... cutting holes in the occasional plastic front panel, prototype stuff.  Very "hobby like".

But... I'm an engineer... most of what I do is somehow related to eventually producing some product.

Technically... for profit... somewhere down the road.

But I'm also just one guy, working out of my house... two licenses for one machine tool that I will use a few times a year... seems like gross overkill to me.

At $175.00 per... I don't really care... I'd be willing to buy two and not have to wonder... it's still a bargain.

What I don't want, as a legitimate holder of two licenses for one machine tool that I will use a few times a year... is ANY KIND OF HASSLE in getting that software and licenses to work.

I change out my P.C.s fairly frequently... about once a year or so... and I"m frequently in "License Hell" with the various software packages I legitimately own.

It's not one of my favorite topics, as it has costs me many days of effort to continually resolve licensing issues with all my various design packages.

I'm hoping the new machine locked scheme will stop well short of making Mach3 a pain to use.

Chances are... the license cheater folks will find a way around it anyway... which means the only people that will actualy suffer... you got it... are the legitimate users.

From the quote... it sounds like the powers that be at ArtSoft are at least aware of the issue... even apologetic... I guess that's a good sign... caring is nice.

Best regards,

Michael

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 24, 2009, 02:34:57 PM »

Hood,

Thanks again for your continuing assistance.

I had read in your previous post that you didn't have LazyCam installed.

The info in my post about how/where the g-code file was obtained... was meant to state how I got the file... not how you could have.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I do realize you already know how to generate a g-code file.

The goal was to show that it wasn't something I wrote... as admittedly, I'm the questionable variable here.

It's an un-modified example that ships with Mach3.

I realize I'm the noob here... and I'm putting in lots of extra info in my posts in an attempt to show:

1.  That I'm not really doing anything all that weird... I'm using the examples that came with Mach3 and LazyCam.
2.  That I'm not really the sort of person that should have much difficulty with making this work... I'm a very proficient hardware and software guy... I'm just not a machinist (which I do realize is a full-on art, and profession, in it's own right).

I'm a bit surprised that my initial attempts didn't "just completely work", while at the same time, absolutely delighted wth how much "did just work".

Alright... back to this motor enabling thing.

Unfortunately, by the time I read your post, I had already un-installed both Mach3 and LazyCam (in preparation to reinstall with the driver).

That means I wasn't able to just try enabling the motors, and that's a bummer, as I'm really curious if that's all it was.

It does seem a little strange... I'm not really interfacing to a machine, there are no motors, there is no driver... it's purely a simulation... but you are saying I need to enable some (non-existent) motors to make it work.

I'm not trying to be argumentative... I'm absolutely going to try exactly what you suggest... I'm just pointing out that it does seem a little bit odd.

What I now notice is that, despite the uninstalls, I still have a Mach3 directory, and it has "A LOT" of stuff in it.... multiple sub-directories... multiple files... lot's of dlls, so much for a clean uninstall.

I could understand if any custom files or directories were left... things like my profile, any files that I modified, etc., but that's not all that's left.

I'm not sure I really care... it's not going to make much difference anyway, as I'm about to re-install over it anyhow.

I'm just surprised/concerned that the uninstall wasn't more comprehensive.

It does make me even MORE cautious about installing the driver... if it causes problems... I don't want to end up having to do a system restore to get things back to right.

So... now I'm trying to decide how to proceed.

The plan:

1.  I want a working installation of Mach3 and LazyCam on my office machine.
2.  The office machine installation will NOT interface to a real CNC machine, and I don't want Mach3 to affect the normal operation of that machine for my other critical tasks (all the other stuff I do).
3.  Initially, the office machine installation is purely for evaluation purposes... it let's me get familiar with Mach3 and LazyCam.
4.  Eventually, the office machine is where I would do most of my CAD/CAM programming work, drawing geometries, defining tool-paths, producing G-code, checking results, etc.
5.  I will have a 2nd P.C. in the basement, attached to my CNC machine (iniitally via LPT port, maybe an external motion controller later).
6.  The basement machine will be the one that actually does the machining work, but it will run the files that I initially developed on my office machine.

I want the above in order to cut down on the amount of time I spend in the basement next to my CNC... it's much more comfortable upstairs, plus, the upstairs machine is a much nicer and more powerful computer.

That allows me to keep the basement CNC computer "CNC task specific", optimizing it's hardware and software for the critical "real time" task it will be performing (while at the same time, keeping that critical real time task OFF my office machine).

I expect that the above is not so different from the way most people operate.

Question:  "Do I need to buy 1 or 2 Mach3 licenses for above scenario?"

Given above... I'm about to proceed as follows:

1.  Re-install Mach3 on the office machine... I'm thinking WITHOUT the driver, again.
2.  Install Mach3 on the basement (CNC) machine (with the LPT driver).
3.  Buy a Mach3 License.

I have some hardware interface work to do between the basement machine and my CNC mill, but I'm hoping to be moving motors by next week.

Hey... did I miss the whole "backlash" compensation topic in the tutorial on homing?

I was listening for it... and didn't hear it... though I might have just missed it.

Typically... when you home an axis, you first touch the limit switch, then slowly back off until it "clears" then slowly approach the switch again until it activates... you count the steps, and the value tells you the backlash on that access, which you then use to compensate for backlash on all subsequent moves (as you change axis direction).

Did I just miss it?

Sorry for writing a novel here... my posts should get shorter and less frequent as things progress!

Best regards,

Michael

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 23, 2009, 09:24:21 AM »

Ok,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm looking at my Mach3 directory from a command prompt...

I do a "dir *.xml" (directory listing of all xml files).

It shows:

 Directory of C:\Mach3

04/22/2009  08:37 PM            84,536 Dyna.xml
04/22/2009  08:19 PM             2,514 LazyCam.xml
04/06/2008  11:54 AM            91,309 Mach3Mill.xml
10/25/2006  09:15 PM            45,264 Mach3Turn.xml
10/25/2006  09:14 PM            43,674 Plasma.xml
12/03/2007  04:00 PM                12 Screen4.xml
               6 File(s)        267,309 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  147,745,312,768 bytes free

As I only installed Mach3 yesterday, which was  04/22/2009... and alll of the files except two have dates older than that... meaning they are all "as installed" except Dyna.xml and LazyCam.xml... I'm pretty sure I'm using Dyna.

Further... if you look at my screen captures... they both show the Dyna profile as the selected profile.

I'm not surprised to hear there are no motors enabled.

Again... this is a pure evaluation environment... no machine tool... no actual motors... no parallel port driver.

The DRO's DO change when I press start, and the Crop circles DO get drawn in the toolpath window... again... see screen capture "start.jpg" in my previous message.

Now... I'm completely willing to believe they SHOULDN'T... but they do... even though it may be due to some sort of uninitentional byproduct of the program running with no driver.

And that is why I'm confused.... it DOES do something, it's just that what it does... doesn't seem to have any correlation to the geometry or the g-code.

You have to admit... that's confusing.

As a programmer myself... I completely understand that any deviation from the path of expected use... may yield unexpected results.

I prefer to spend my own coding time working on features for the 99% of user's that use my software as intended, rather than trying and handling every possible error that the other 1% may induce.

I suspect, by not installing the parallel driver, or setting up any motors... I've put myself square into that 1% weirdo category and am thus... seeing behaviour you folks haven't seen.

My fx for that is... quit being the 1% weirdo... use it the way everybody else is using it... and see if I get different results.

If there are any out there that are curious enough about what I'm seeing... I would suspect it's easy enough to duplicate.

Install the lockdown version of Mach3 and LazyCam, but deselect the driver during the install.... then just load the examples into lazycam, and post-code them to Mach3, and run.

I bet you will see crop circles too.

As far as posting the g-code goes.... easy enough.

Whenevery you click on "post-code" in Lazycam, it automatically transfers the code to Mach3 (depending on your LazyCam settings) but it also creates a g-code file.

I'm attaching the file here.

I'm now going to uninstall Mach3 and LazyCam, and then do a re-install, this time WITH THE DRIVER.

I'lll definitely make at least one post with the results!

Thanks for all of your help!

Best regards,

Michael

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: Noob is mystified

« on: April 22, 2009, 07:31:51 PM »

Wow,

That's great, people actually responding, I'm delighted!

Ok... about 6 replies to my original post, I'm going to try and respond to all here.

First off, for Hood, during the installation of Mach3 I got prompted for setting up a profile.

Being somewhat unclever... and knowing the CNC I will eventually try to control is a DYNA DM2200... I typed in "Dyna" and the install created a shortcut on my desktop called "Dyna" (as well as one called "Mach3 Loader").

I'm assuming the install used all the default settings in creating the Dyna profile.

So... the profile I'm using is called "Dyna", and I've been changing settings quite a bit trying to make this work, as evidenced by the 17 different versions of Dyna in my xmlbackups directory.

Unfortunately, I'm also new to this forum and now need to figure out how to post the file.... ahhhh, under additional options... got it.

Ok, I've renamed my "Dyna.xml" file to "techsol.xml", as directed, and attached.

It should be pretty much as created... though I did try changing a few things (like soft limits to make the table area bigger... as I originally thought that was why the spanner example was getting clipped).

In the interest of keeping things simple...  I'm going to use an unmodified version of the "AOuterProfile.dxf" example file for the followng... as it's small enough to work in demo mode, and it produces the same sort of problems as the other example files.

Everyone should already have that same dxf, as it came with Mach3 and is in the LcamSamples sub-directory of your Mach3 installation.

I simply load the dxf into LazyCam (selecting the "Mill" button), press the clean button, then the Postcode button, and then go back to Mach3.... where the gcode has been automatically posted.

I'm able to then scroll through the G-code listing, and I see the white highlight in the toolpath window... first on the rapid move, then on the vertical line on the far right, then on the arc on the bottom right, then on the horizontal line at the bottom, etc.

I've attached a screen capture of my Mach3 screen while scrolling (scroll.jpg), hard to make out the toolpath window, but you can clearly see the white highlighted arc.

As far as the IJ settings go... it was originally on abs, and I tried changing it to inc, and back again... same basic result, but the crop circles are larger and draw slower when IJ is set to inc.

Ok... I just noticed something that I hadn't before...

Besides the "Cycle Start" button, there is also a "Simulate Program Run" button.

Up until now, I've been clicking on "Cycle Start", that's where I'm seeing the "crop circles".

When I click on "Simulate Program Run"... the ONLY things that happen is the area between the "Simulate Pogram Run" and "Run from Here" flashes red, the gcode display jumps to line N65 almost immediately, and the "Estimated Program Run Time" counts up to  23:23.

If I then change my config IJ setting to inc, and do it again... same exact thing... immediately to line N65, stays there the whole time run time counter counts up to 23:23.

I get the feeling the "Simulate Program Run" is more about estimating run-time.

If I click on "Cycle Start" (IJ = ABS)... the gcode window immediately goes to line N50, the X DRO is slowly counting up, Y DRO is slowly counting down (even though line N50 clearly show a Y val of 0.000) and I get the beginnings of a large counter-clockwise arc from the origin.

I've attached a screen capture (start.jpg) of this that I took while it was running... not completed, as it's VERY SLOWLY drawing in the toolpath window, but you can clearly see the DRO's and the beginning of what will be a BIG circle.

Thanks to Jeff for the info on his Dyna 2400 conversion... interesting.  I had already looked at both the SmoothStepper and the various Gecko stuff (G100, and the various individual drivers).

Thanks to all of you for your various responses.

I get the feeling what I'm seeing is completely related to the lack of a driver... I can tell that Mach3 is a very widely used, very functional application, so I'm looking for "what am I doing different" which has got to be the lack of the driver.

The reason I didn't want to install the driver on this P.C. was because this is my MAIN get things done, write code, draw schematics, layout circuit boards, balance my checkbook, get my email... P.C..  The driver... doesn't seem like something I would want on this P.C.

But... it's the P.C. I have running today... has the most up to date hardware, biggest monitor, most memory, and... I WANTED TO PLAY WITH MACH3 AND LAZYCAM WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY!!!

I should probably just set up another P.C., install the driver, and try this all again.... hopefully sparing everybody further posts from this noob.

Best regards,

Michael