Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Intermediate positions in linear movement during adaptive toolpath

« on: March 22, 2021, 06:33:56 PM »

I actually made this test with the 2D contour and the machining was slower. Also the way it handles the corners is less optimized or maybe I'm not optimizing it well; basically when it approach the corner in the first stepover the load on the tool can be much higher then in the rest of the machining and to get rid of this I need to add more stepovers where, except for the moment where it approach the corners, the tool is cutting air. I can thing of solutions with a sketch geometry placed to round the corner and then a contour around the stock without the sharp corners. I'm a beginner so I'm 100% sure there are many other solution possibly inside the 2d Contourn tab itself.

About the main problem. I optimized Windows settings according to the suggestions on the smoothstepper (my board) webpage. Today I used an adaptive toolpath and I had no problems.
More testing is needed.

Thanks for the help.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Intermediate positions in linear movement during adaptive toolpath

« on: March 22, 2021, 08:16:16 AM »

Adaptive is much faster then other strategies.
Also I'm now thinking that maybe I have stalling between every line of gcode, like other few people in the forums, and that I noticed it only thanks to those intermediate lines in linear movement. I'm asking support on smoothstepper side. The other people with this problem seem to haven't found a solution.
I will also try some tweaking on the CV settings but it wasn't positive for other users. 

3

General Mach Discussion / Intermediate positions in linear movement during adaptive toolpath

« on: March 21, 2021, 09:44:17 AM »

Greetings,

 
I'm a beginner and I'm working on a DIY machine running on mach3.

I posted a similar thread on a Fusion 360 forum to solve the problem on the CAM side but I'm almost sure that this problem can be solved also through mach3 settings, maybe CV settings.

 
I was testing an end mill with an adaptive toolpath and I noticed that in some points there was a sort of micro-stalling (like a lost step in the stepper motor) in the linear motion and I thought it was a stiffness problem. After running the contour toolpath for finishing, which ended up having a width of cut comparable to the roughing pass due to my concern about stiffness, I noticed that this stalling was absent. I looked at the toolpath and noticed that in the adaptive strategy in single axis movement there were intermediate positioning command. Basically suppose I'm in A in order to go to D the adaptive toolpath commands to go to B and then to C and finally to D; contour instead simply commands to go to D (which  is equivalent in the example).

 
I'm confident that the micro-stalling in the machine is not related to stiffness but that the machine stalls when it reaches this intermediate position and then it starts again after few milliseconds. Like if there is a deceleration before reaching point B.

I can't post the video here so this is the link with the post on autodesk forum where you can see the video     https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/intermediate-positions-in-linear-movement-during-adaptive/td-p/10172952

In the video you can see the stalling event with no load. The code is from another run but for example lines 81, 82 and 83 seem useless to me.

Is there something I can check?



Thanks. Sorry for any English problem.
Stefano Prato.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Square wave input in Mach3

« on: October 11, 2020, 07:57:39 AM »

Maybe I can use and Arduino to read the pulse frequency and then transmit a byte,that rappresent the flow, every x second to smoothstepper and use the getByte macro to read it. This way I should be able to have everything inside mach3 (not because I need it or I think is better this way, is just a sort of experiment).

5

General Mach Discussion / Square wave input in Mach3

« on: October 11, 2020, 06:44:54 AM »

Hello,

I would like to add a flow measurement tool to my system to measure the flow of water in the spindle watercooling circuit. Probably this is not very useful but I still would like to do it just to get confidence with the input management of Mach3. These flowmeters output a square wave signal, the frequency is a function of the measured flow(liters/min). So to get the flow I should get the pulse frequency and then write a code that convert it by using a constant that depends on the various models of flowmeter.
It is not clear to me (I'm a new user) how to manage this kind of input. All the inputs in "ports and pins" seem to be intended as some sort of switch more than a measuring input and also I don't think this kind of instrument should be treated as an encoder (also noticed that encoder inputs are very limited in Mach3).
I searched for programming macros that can read a pulse frequency but I haven't found any and I don't know if running a while cycle to count pulses can be ok.

I'm using smoothstepper with an MB3 BoB.

Thanks.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Pending signal managment on mach3

« on: June 05, 2020, 03:37:01 AM »

Hi thanks both for the reply.
Actually I was pretty sure that doing something like this would have been not good for the “fluidity” of the program execution. I was just trying to image a way to close my motor loop at a software level instead of driver level in a way that is not just sending an alarm signal that stops everything but actually correct the positioning error. I also checked if it was possible to implement a linear scale reading and automatic correction with mach3 but it seems very hard to even find a motion controller and bob combo capable to handle this, same or even a worst problem at the software level. I thought that a sort of algorithm similar to those used in lan communication could have solved the problem somehow.

7

General Mach Discussion / Pending signal managment on mach3

« on: May 29, 2020, 08:55:44 AM »

Hello.

I have a closed loop stepper motor with a stepper driver that can output a PEND signal that, if I understood correctly, should be used to comunicate that the last order was completed and the driver is waiting for the next order. Is there a way to implement a sort of closed loop software management on mach3? Maybe something that tell to mach3 to don't send the next order as long as the PEND signal is not active.
Is it possibly present in mach4?

Thanks.

8

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: RnRMotion breakout board and STEPPERONLINE VFD

« on: March 14, 2020, 03:56:40 PM »

Have you looked at this page?

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=41002.msg269919#msg269919

Thanks for the help.

I have watched pretty much everything without finding anything to solve my problem but now I actually have solved. I managed to control the spindle speed with AVI signal even if VFD frequency it doesn't perfectly scale with 0-10V signal, probably because I gave 12V instead of 10V as an input. I also haven't yet managed to get spindle reverse rotation function.



Once I will be sure that everything works I will update the thread for future users with my same configuration.

9

Third party software and hardware support forums. / RnRMotion breakout board and STEPPERONLINE VFD

« on: March 14, 2020, 07:14:17 AM »

Hello,

It's 4 damn days that I'm trying to connect my RnRMotion bob to my STEPPERONLINE VFD and control the speed of the spindle.
If I simply follow the wiring diagram that i found online I should connect the AVI to AI1, ACM to GND and OUT2 to X1(forward signal). Nothing work this way.
When i give M3 command to activate the spindle the 24V tension is from OUT2 to 24V and not from OUT2 to DCM.
Also I haven't understood if I have to provide the board whit a 10V input in order to use AVI PWM signal.


With countless combinations the best result I got was controlling spindle on off and spindle speed but even when PWM signal was at full voltage the vfd frequency never exceeded.

Has someone ever used this combination of VFD and BOB?

This is the board https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B076VFT59G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the VFD (manual at the bottom)  https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/it/variatore-di-frequenza/stepperonline-cnc-vfd-37kw-5hp-17a-220v-inverter-del-motore-di-azionamento-a-frequenza-variabile-per-il-controllo-della-velocita-del-motore-del-mandrino?mfp=252-tensione-di-ingresso-v%5B220%20%28monofase%29%5D