Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / reverse cut lathe wizard

« on: May 09, 2009, 03:20:36 PM »

Is there a lathe wizard for cutting the reverse direction? (Spindle to TailStock) The current wizard will not let you define a cut that way.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bizarre Problem with new computer...Need Help

« on: May 03, 2009, 06:55:57 PM »

I swapped the Z and Y cables and the Z motor behaved the same way. I then returned the old computer and everything worked as it should. So it is not the stepper motors nor the gecko drivers and power supply, thus everything points to the new computer. Curiously, the pin voltages from the old computer do not return to 0 volts when unapplied. The new computer does return the voltage to zero. I would think it would be the other way around. Pin 11 reads a constant 4 volts.
I also swapped pins 2 and 3 with 4 and 5 essentailly changing the control of the Y-Axsi motor to the X-Axis controls and the same problem occured. This narrows it down to pin#11. So I think? unless I'm misunderstanding how Mach3 controls the motors? Could I have a bad pin on my motherboard? It shows a constant 4 volts at pin#11 on both my old and new computers? I get the impression it has something to do with how windows is running Mach3.
If you can make sure I have everything OK in my xml file attached on the original post.
Thanks for your time and input.
KC

3

General Mach Discussion / Bizarre Problem with new computer...Need Help

« on: May 03, 2009, 06:02:35 PM »

I purchased a new computer to control my shoptask 3-in-1 machine. I have had the shoptask for several years now running Mach3 with no problems using the old computer. I purchased the newer computer (1.8GHz Dell Deminsion 2350) and have installed Mach3 and optimized the computer and everything works great except for the Y- Axis. It acts like it is missing steps?? It is not smooth nor runs contiunuously in either direction. I have isolated the problem down to pin#11 on the parallel port I just don't understand why it does not work correctly. I measured the voltages from the pins and everything seems fine. It seems fine meaning the old computer and new computer operate the same. I'm getting betwenn 3.5V-4V on each pin. The pulse engine is around 23775hz. The only difference between the old XP machine and the new one is the new machine is an ACPI uniprocessor. Attached is the .xml I'm using. It acts like there s some bios problem or Mach3 is having interference with another program, I just cannot find what.  Has anyone run into this problem?