Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd stepper motor control issue.

« on: August 14, 2013, 03:46:40 PM »

Tried a known good XML file, still same scenario. Did quite a bit more playing with it, & cannot seem to make it work. May just be a hardware issue with the COM port.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd stepper motor control issue.

« on: August 13, 2013, 12:44:12 PM »

I did not look directly at the XML file, just a side by side with the working PC in the ports & pins menu of each. Still very possible though. I'll check it as soon as I get back to it.

3

General Mach Discussion / Odd stepper motor control issue.

« on: August 13, 2013, 12:31:39 PM »

A little back story; I've been tinkering with a plasma table project for a few years & am finally at the point of actually attempting some cuts. Keep in mind I've had the gantry with 2 axis hooked up & working perfect for quite some time, just a few weeks ago got the 3rd axis built & other than needing some scaling, all worked perfect. Fast forward through the basic tests & hooked up the relay for the actual plasma trigger. (I don't believe this is related, just happened in the same time frame). Once relay was all hooked up & working, I turned every thing on, homed the table, tested the trigger a few times (plasma machine not on, just watching relay for operations). Turned everything off & called it a day......

Now, when I came back 24 hours later, turn everything on, & have no x, y, or z movement. Mach appears to be working correctly, DRO's all move, driver test says good. My first thought was stepper controller failure, but then realized that the relay for the torch control still worked. (That's the odd part I can't wrap my head around). Luckily I had another older PC that I first started this project with, so I plugged it in, & everything works perfect. Other than some tuning / scaling changes, all port/pin assignments seem to match.

For reference the computer at fault is a Dell D600, found a link a while back to "trick" it into believing it was a desktop, & to supply full power to the COM port pins. (once again, I've played with this exact setup for hours & never had an issue).

I've pretty much pinned it as a PC issue, I'm just curious if there's potentially a software issue, or is it most likely hardware failure. Just looking from some opinions from the bigger brains. Any help or advice appreciated.