Messages

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 22, 2010, 10:17:33 PM »

Oh, by the way, I tried it also on my laptop that also has Thai XP on it.  (From the same CD I used for second XP partition on my Quad).  It didn't crash that, but the timings were rather bad.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 22, 2010, 10:08:02 PM »

Bs, thanks for the info.
I gave up on it.  EMC2 works like a charm and this Mach3 was for me just waste of time.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 08, 2010, 07:54:18 PM »

Yes, I saw it.  For me it would definitely involve some learning curve I don't have time to get on.  The TI chip is a different matter.   ArtSoft should have done it a long ago (in my view), or someone interested in making $20 of selling such standard output plugin might be interested.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 08, 2010, 11:17:27 AM »

Yes, Hood.  They all have their own plugin because no one has disclosed his (well, G100 did a not so good one a few years back, which as I understand was then improved by SS).  I can understand that guys wanting to sell >$1000 HW don't want to make a plugin that could be used also by someone else.  But there are many <$10 MCUs that can be programmed for the pulsing task and if someone would make a standard positioning output plugin, guys that know how to do the code for a particular MCU would not have to worry also about messing with Mach3.  Although I would be willing to do the code for TMS320F28335 (as I can use it for other things later), I can make no money of selling $99 TI HW and no incentive in putting time into Mach3 plugin.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 08, 2010, 06:23:07 AM »

Thanks Hood. 
That’s a bummer.  I wouldn’t mind putting time into writing pulsing code for the TI chip, but I don’t have time to be writing code for positioning commands from Mach 3.  There isn’t any standard one (e.g. for servos) except that LPT steps generator (which obviously doesn’t work on all PCs)?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 08, 2010, 02:55:21 AM »

Mike - point well taken, although I don't remember this computer ever locking on me like that (except crashing on Mach 3 install, of course  )
I appreciate the link too, but as I'm in Thailand it's not much good for me.  Computers are a little more expensive here, but the other perks make up for that  )
But that switch idea is a good one.  Actually, my monitor has two ports (I use DVI now, VGA is open) so maybe I won't even need a switch (have to consult the manual).
In any case, if I can get some input on how to get those positioning commands from USB/serial port, I'm still contemplating that.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation crashing my computer

« on: November 07, 2010, 09:30:35 PM »

Mike - you say Mach 3 should run on "trash pile rejects"?  Hmmm...  I guess more powerful is not better, then.
The way I look at it I have 3 options (if I want to use Mach 3):
1 - Buy another PC  (but even a trash pile reject with a monitor is going to cost me several hundred $$$ and some realestate); 
2 - Buy the $155 SmoothStepper (probably lower cost and better performance); and
3 - Use TMS320F28335 docking station (a $99 TI kit I bought for another project, http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tmdsdock28335.html) as the pulsing generator.  That thing can do all that SmoothStepper can, but how do I get position commands from Mach3 over USB or serial port?  (Subject for another topic, or should I just look it up somehere?).  If I do the last I probably won't get my router running this week (month?)

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 07, 2010, 02:11:00 AM »

Well, I tried to put Mach 3 on another partition on my PC with the "latest-greatest" version of XP - the same thing happens.  The port driver installation is crashing it.  This Mach 3 thing just doesn't like my PC, and as it is a fairly new and powerfull (1 year Core 2 Quad) I wonder, if I buy another, will it like that?

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 01, 2010, 06:16:27 AM »

Thanks for the comment, Hood.  If timing is the only issue, I think a Quad 2.66GHz system should be sufficient to generate three 25kHz pulse streams.  Your comment made me try that EMC after all and I have to say I was impressed.
 
The standard download version let me run the Ubuntu/EMC2 from the CD without actually installing it.  Not that I knew much what I was looking at, but nothing crashed and when I was running something called "latency test" it was showing some numbers that seemed reasonable.  Plus UMC is apparently not meant to run as a standalone app.  The latency test actually prompts you to "abuse" the system to see impact of, say watching a movie, on it.

Comming back to XP was like being hit with ugly reality again.  Right after the boot up I was prompet to install that Mach3.sys driver again, which surprised me because I run the Mach 3 uninstall utility before shutting down.  That seems to have worked not too well too.  It's been many years since I tried Linux and at that time it couldn't compare with XP, but things have definitely changed by now and I very much like what I saw.

In any case, to get to the topic, looking at parallel port setup in my BIOS, it has 4 mode options: Normal, Bi-directional, EPP and ECP, the last one being the default.  Could this have anything to do with my problem?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Installation craching my computer

« on: November 01, 2010, 01:00:33 AM »

Thanks for the suggestion, Tram.

I've just looked at the EMC specs and it appears EMC is not going to work on my MB (ASUS P5G41M-LE [http://commercial.asus.com/product/detail/18]) due to onboard video sharing the CPU memory (I think).  Can it be the problem also with Mach3?