Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / MPG/Homing problem

« on: August 05, 2015, 09:15:58 AM »

Hi,

Any ideas on this one guys?

I am using Mach3 (.062 ver) with the "d" SmoothStepper plug in and get some odd problems.

1. Using the Mach3 fly out MPG, when I hit "-Z" the spindle moves up, but when I press again it moves down. If I press it repeatedly I do not know if it is going to move the spindle up or down. If I press "+Z" I get the same random behaviour.

2. Z axis will jog (but as above behaviour). BUT if I try to home Z I get motor noise/vibration/juddering but screw does not move.

If I change pin outs in Mach3 and use Y's pin out for Z, when I ref home spindle bounces off BOTH hi and low switches....it will do this forever until I hit reset. Position value soars to thousands. Axis does not seem to know where it is. Limit switches WORK (if I jog spindle I can arrest movement by manually hitting the switch).

This afternoon I am going to move the Z motor wires to the Y smoothstepper and see what happens. I have reinstalled Mach amd the plug in...no change. I am running win8

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Weird problems with Mach3 MPG on Z-Axis

« on: August 02, 2015, 11:40:08 AM »

Thanks Roger. Searching the Net for similar probs seems to suggest it is either insufficient current or as you say a bad connection. The vibration in the steps can be solved by upping the current on the SS pot....I will try this. If it is a bad connection or break in the wire I will try a meter on it. Thanks again

3

General Mach Discussion / Weird problems with Mach3 MPG on Z-Axis

« on: July 24, 2015, 12:39:40 PM »

I am getting several inconsistent problems with the Z-Axis on my router:

1. MOST OF THE TIME...... when "referencing all home" Z motor judders/excessive noise and will not home (I have to press RESET in fear of burning the motor out).
2. OCCASIONALLY...... Z will home and zero.
3. Pressing -Z on the flyout MPG moves the spindle BOTH UP & DOWN (seems to randomly go up or down midd travel). +Z does the same. Also, when hitting -Z (up spindle) jog repeatedly, the spindle bounces off home and then goes back down all the way to the table. The DRO does not zero out and I get a wrong reading (kind of adds the up travel to the down travel when it bounces off home....sometimes positive sometimes negative).  I have rewound the screw by hand back to the home switch and zeroed the axis in Mach, but it does not stick for long. i cannot set cutter on the work with any confidence as the reading is wrong everytime.

Anybody got any pointers? All this has just cropped up and no config has been changed. I am using smoothsteppers.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Abnormal condition alarm

« on: March 07, 2015, 12:15:37 PM »

Rich,

Do you have an answer to my actual query?

BTW, I have been using laptops on cnc for over 10 years. Only people that do not know how to change/understand the power management on laptops say not to use them! I changed my laptop to never sleep/standby and always have the mains lead in when running lengthy progs ...... and I have never had a stall.

5

General Mach Discussion / Abnormal condition alarm

« on: March 06, 2015, 06:01:26 PM »

Looking for help regarding a number of problems with a Dell laptop running win 8 and Mach3. Worked OK up until I installed DELL software auto updater. Since then I have the following issues:

1. Abnormal condition alarm: one or more axis enabled or disabled.
2. Remote pendant will not work
3. Cont jog only yields small steps (ALL AXIS)
4 (as a result of 3) will not "ref all home".

Both Mach3 software and plug in (smoothstepper) have latest drivers. Also motot outputs in ports & pins have xyz enabled

Any ideas guys?

6

General Mach Discussion / Mach error UNABLE TO LOAD..FTDI USB DRIVER ftd2xx.dll

« on: December 22, 2014, 05:43:41 PM »

Hoping to get a solution to a Mach3 error on start up:

Smoothstepper v17fc: "unable to load the FTDI USB driver ftd2xx.dll" followed by a 9991 triggered error and forced close down.

Is this a Windows 8 compatability problem? Note, I had a forced Windows Op update on my laptop (been putting it off and off but was forced in time to accept an upgrade. I have had SS problems with Win 8 previously.

7

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 conversion - any engineers?

« on: March 03, 2014, 04:55:41 PM »

Are there any engineers in the UK that do Mach conversions?

I have a Denford Quatromill (a Bridgeport type) that I would like converted. I do not have the time or know-how to do it and just want to pay someone to do it. Any contacts would be welcomed. Thanks!

8

One on one phone support. / Re: G92 being ignored in Mach??

« on: March 29, 2013, 05:14:16 AM »

I am talking about G92 co-ordinate system, not toolpaths. It ignores the G92 "go to" at the start of the prog. Sure, I appreciate Mach is not Fanuc, but I understand it behaves much like Fanuc, and besides in this circumstance G code is G code.

9

One on one phone support. / G92 being ignored in Mach??

« on: March 28, 2013, 04:00:07 PM »

Is there any reason why Mach seems to be consistently ignoring G92 commands?

OR is there a config to set up for it?

BTW, before anybody asks to see the code, code is good and runs on my Fanuc m/c without issue.

10

One on one phone support. / Re: More Windows 8 problems with MACH

« on: March 26, 2013, 05:37:19 PM »

This thread outlines the same problem that ocurred when Windows 7 was new:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/diy_cnc_router_table_machines/112509-vectric_cut2d_output_mach3-3.html

The problem lay with Mach. It does not say if the scheduled new version of Mach solved the problem, only that an unofficial registry hack, neither endorsed nor supported by Mach or Vectric personnel, fixed the issue (though some users did apply it all the same, perhaps in desperation that no timely software patch was forthcoming from Mach).