Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: problems with larger bit and machine stuttering

« on: October 10, 2010, 02:54:10 PM »

odd
i have exactly the same problem come on in the past 2 weeks
weve replaced the ball screw and nut, the h win carriages and the rails
we reckon its a weak motor or drive, we have msd980 drives and a fl86 156 motor at 4.8 amps rms and around 500 rpm
weve dropped it from 6m/m to 2m/min and now its not stalling but we are looking to go to servo motors now asat 6m/m our cut times are to long

2

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Feed hold and SS

« on: July 21, 2009, 12:20:37 PM »

hi jalitt
i have had the same problems if i feedhold and then jog 6 out of 10 times it will restart.

3

General Mach Discussion / 2 wire hall effect switch, how to wire it up?

« on: July 10, 2009, 04:23:05 PM »

hi
i have a pacer 2500hds which has 3 of 2 wire hall effect switches on it,
ive found that if i put 5v to the v+ and 0v to the v- it creates a current draw of 200 milliamps when the machine gets to it so they work, but how should i connect this to mach3?
if it is a 3 wire type i have an output so its easy but these are 2 wire ones,
any ideas before i try it blind?

thanks

4

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 10, 2009, 06:23:48 PM »

we tried a few more things today, but i have to say its not a reliable product suitable for comercial use.
ive had a reply from greg today and in his own words"I think that a ground loop exists from the PC through the USB
cable," no mate you design and sell this product you should know not think, a cnc machine with a spindle turning with a cutting tool in it can injure or kill a person

ive put mine in the bin its a liability i employ people i cant have a situation of "the only way i could get stability apart from!" my insurance company would have me in prison if it injured someone especially with the knowledge i have of around 50 percent of users having problems, and all seem to be with commercial machines which are better built to start with but are expected to return better results.

5

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 02:19:02 PM »

so would putting it in a metal box instaed of a abs one make a difference? or is it a case of it might help?
thanks

6

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 01:42:13 PM »

jeff even
i work with a geoff engage brain before fingers!

7

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 01:41:18 PM »

oh and i forgot my manners!
hi geoff
thanks
james

8

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 01:40:33 PM »

so do i understand it correct the usb hub/line is actually more prone to noise? and not so much the ss picking it up or developing a fault?
the machine we have is a £50k machine its now 7 years old lives in its own cage for health and safty that has its own pressuiresed air filtration system as well as dust collection/recurculation, (the materials we mill are considered unhealthy!)we run a pc with 3cctv  camera's on it to monitor the machine without entering the room.
the control pc sits in an operators booth, there is a 2 inch hole (rubber grommet) through which the usb and also a manual overide and estop control panel cable runs it is only since going to ss and usb weve had any issues and by simply taking out the ss and replacing the usb with a parellel cable and breakout (no isloation no additional earthing) all is well.

as a test i will try the ss in our room with a long parellel cable and see if that changes things.

as for the opto isolation i agree you shouldnt stack them the relay board is shmitt triggered, the drives are opto'd at there end
we have no inputs connected so no noise there, one point i did pick up on which we might have is our stepper drives have the option of pulsing plus 5 and common neg or fixed five and pulse neg, we have them wired as pulse 5, our negs are connected together and back to a common (pin 20 i think) we also have a ground to pin 18 from the relay board if i read another post correctly this can cause problems? although the post did not say how to wire this problem out. i could reverse this and take plus5 from pin 1 on enable and then switch the neg line, but will that make any difference?(takes out the pin 18/20 common and earth possible cross over)

so for good earthing,
we have an earth from the ss to the metal outer cab, we also have one from the relay board, all other components are as wired by the manufacture and earthed. the machine is 240v and earthed to the mains correctly. there is no link between pc and control except the usb cable.
do we need to run and extra earth along side the usb to link these 2?
thanks for the reply and dont worry its not taken as any offence help is good from any angle but we are fairly experiancnd here and the install is to a high standard just think of the room the machines in to see hte level we had to go to to get iso approvall

9

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 11:56:10 AM »

ok thanks for those suggestions
i have removed the ss and refitted a breakout board on the end of a parralell cable and all issues have gone away

as for putting the ss in the computer the reason for buying the ss was to avoid 2 par cables and to increase what we could do onboard. (and for laptop control in the future)
i have to say it seems a common fault reading other posts and i am disapointed in the product if it has this flaw, surly is should be either protected during the manufacturing process and have io opto's as standard or come with at least a warning or instructions to say "fit it in its own box to prevent noise and use i/o opto's" then i think iwould have not bought one, its sold as a complete solution and an upgrade from 1 or 2 p/ports
personally, as a manufacture myself, i consider any product cable of hanging a computer and producing potentially a dangerous uncontrolled machine as not fit for purpose, no matter how badly it may be considered it is installed, the machine we own is just 6 years old and all i have done is to remove the oem (with onboard relays)control from the oem box and replace it with a ss and relay board.
i will try to earth systems seperatly but as the fault occurs on the stepper lines (with all else diconnected)which are opto isolated at the driver end anyway and use a good quality industrial machine cable back to the ss i think we will bin it as i dont want to have a system that may fault at some random time in the future.
its not just us thats experianced this problem perhaps warp9 might like to comment and look to develop this issues out, seems from the post ive read that both art and warp 9 have said umm dont know.... to it. maybe they have seen more problems and can comment further?

thansk

10

SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper hangs mach3

« on: June 09, 2009, 09:33:10 AM »

i also see that one guywith same probs put his ss in side the pc and ran out 2 parralel cable for control
did this work for him?
and if so why for him but others do not have the same issue

thanks