Messages

1

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Circle gcode only an arc

« on: August 14, 2011, 06:20:09 PM »

THANKS!!!!   

2

LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Circle gcode only an arc

« on: August 13, 2011, 09:59:33 AM »

I just finished building my Joe's Hybrid 4x4 and was trying to test a couple of shapes to make sure it was moving correctly. If it could do a circle than I would feel confident that everything was tight. I haven't purchased any software yet because it's all very expensive and I don't want to make the right choice.

Thanks for the help. I am sure I will be back.

3

LazyCam (Beta) / Circle gcode only an arc

« on: August 12, 2011, 04:37:09 PM »

I made a circle in illustrator to do a test on my cnc using mach3. I imported a dxf into LazyCam bit it was an octagon. I imported a pct and it was a circle. I then saved the gcode to import into Mach3 but Mach3 only sees an arc. I am new to all this but it seemed that is should have worked.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

« on: August 01, 2011, 08:24:13 PM »

Thank you! 

Your confidence that it was an address problem got me to retest everything again. I unplugged the PCI card and and put it back in. It lookes like LPT2 and LPT3 switched places. With the charge pump off on the g540 and with it disabled in Mach3 I am able to to move the motors. Mach3 responds when I hit the estop but I don't see a fault on the g540 when I hit reset, but that may be normal.

I was worried I had a faulty PCI card or even worse something wrong with the computer.  Now to figure out how to get the charge pump to work.

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

« on: July 31, 2011, 09:01:57 PM »

I am testing pins 2 and 3 (separately) using pin 25 as the ground. No signal. Zero.

The cable is good becuase I checked all the pins.

I really want to spin the motors.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

« on: July 31, 2011, 05:19:23 PM »

It looks as if there is no signal coming out of either of the parallel ports (my meter is not very good so I will need to try again with a diffenet one). The device manager says that both ports are working properly.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

« on: July 31, 2011, 11:10:37 AM »

If I turn the charge pump off on the g540 I get a green light. If I hit the estop I get a fault but no response from Mach3.
If I disbale the charge pump in Mach3, while it is turned off on the g540, I get the same response. No response from Mach3 when I hit the estop and no fault on g540 when I  hit reset in Mach3.

8

General Mach Discussion / Gecko G540 adn Mach3 won't talk (win 7)

« on: July 30, 2011, 11:34:23 PM »

I have done the basic wiring of  the Gecko g540, i.e. power and estop. When I turn the charge pump off, I get a green light. I hit the estop and I get a red light.  So far so good.

In Mach3 I have enabled  the motors  in the the Ports & Pins config and set the charge pump to port 1, pin 16 under the Output Signals tab. The Rosewill has two ports and I have tried both of the first hex values found in "i/o range"   under the Device Manager -> Ports -> Resources. Still only getting a red light from the gecko.  I am using the LPT3 hex C00.

I have looked at three different set up guides and think I covered everything they told me too. I know the cable works because I did a circuit check on each pin.

Windows 7 Home Premium
Dell Inspiron 560s
Pocessor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5800 @ 3.20 GHz 3.20 GHz
INstalled Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Sysem Type: 32-Bit Operating System
Rosewill RC-304 2 port Parallel PCI card with the moschip driver.

Geckodrive G540
48V 12.5A switching power supply

9

General Mach Discussion / Re: Jog Hot keys don't work.

« on: July 27, 2011, 12:51:27 PM »

It worked  .

I clicked the check next to the axis in the "motor output". I am doing the "dry run" and it didn't say anything about enabling the motors.

Thanks.

10

General Mach Discussion / Jog Hot keys don't work.

« on: July 27, 2011, 11:45:10 AM »

I just installed Mach3 on a Dell Inspiron 560s running 32-bit windows 7 and a Rosewill 2 port Parallel Universal PCI card, Model RC-304.

The installation seemed to go fine and I started doing a dry run. The jog “fly-out” screen  would not change the values on the axis DROs when I clicked on it and when I would enter in in the MDI (ie G00 X1.6 Y2.3 ) the axis DROs would not change. I reread the manual about about  the driver test program and realized I was running the Rosewill driver. I went to the device manager and disabled the mach3 driver. The axis DROs now change when I enter values in MDI and they also change when I click on the buttons on the Jog “fly-out” screen. The Jog hot keys do not work. (I set them to the correct ones (From 999) in the key configuration.)

I am (obviously) new to the CNC world and want to make sure everything is working as the manual indicates before plugging in my machine.