Messages

3431

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: July 21, 2014, 11:43:52 AM »

Hi Art,

The addition of the changeable registers is nice and much better to select Freq. / PWM rather than the odd / even signal.
My system seems to run better with a 2uS step pulse although it is difficult to be certain – one thing for sure is that anything >2uS causes me step problems.

Just out of curiosity, in the future, will we have any commands to operate in a similar manner to the M11P1 / M10P1 ?

Tweakie.

3432

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help with Spindle RPM. %90 done jsut cant get MACH to see it

« on: July 20, 2014, 08:35:35 AM »

Hi Chris,

I am led to believe that Mach4 will handle the speed compensation perfectly but it may be some time before Mach4 is fully operational and ready for release. It should be noted that Mach4 will not be outputting a PWM signal directly, it will be the responsibility of the various, third party, external motion controllers software / hardware to interpret the Mach4 output data and generate the relevant PWM duty cycle accordingly.

If you Google "rc gov esc" you should find a few links of interest.

Tweakie.

3433

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: July 20, 2014, 08:30:19 AM »

Sounds great Art, I particularly like the idea of 1000 discrete power levels.

I look forward to following your progress on this and maybe even following in your footsteps although I keep saying 'the Impact / Laser engraving plugin is going to take a lot to better'. 


Tweakie.

3434

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help with Spindle RPM. %90 done jsut cant get MACH to see it

« on: July 20, 2014, 06:31:21 AM »

Hi Chris,

As far as I am aware (but I am always pleased to learn something new) Mach3 just shows the change in spindle RPM proportionate to tool loading and as G97 (constant surface speed) does not work correctly in Mach3 there is no speed compensation via the PWM duty cycle.

My approach would be to use a Constant Speed ESC as this would be a simple solution to providing the necessary RPM compensation in relation to variable tool loading.

Tweakie.

3435

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems communicating with CNC

« on: July 20, 2014, 05:53:22 AM »

As Ozymax mentioned you will not be able to use the parallel port with a 64 bit OS.

Not that it will help but I also notice that you entered the address 0x800 as your Port#1 in Mach - it should be 0xC800.

Tweakie.

3436

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to use a 4th axis on a 3 Axis system

« on: July 20, 2014, 05:44:26 AM »

Hi Pat,

As far as I am aware that cannot be done.

Why not just configure your existing parallel port system to use the A axis and that would then be your 4th axis ?

Tweakie.

3437

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: July 19, 2014, 08:21:59 AM »

Tweaky: did you have to add time before to the pulse widths?

Hi Art,

Yes, in Mach3 I am using 2uS for the step pulses.

Tweakie.

3438

FAQs / Re: New Guy; Questions About Controllers, Threading

« on: July 19, 2014, 08:13:20 AM »

Hi Chips OTool,

Welcome to the forum.

I know nothing about lathes but I have been using Mach2 / Mach3 with a router & mill for 10 years now and I am convinced that it is the best choice.

The SmoothStepper does have it's problems but no more or less than any other external motion controller, in my opinion, so the decision is yours but I would recommend taking some time to read other posts on this forum (experience of others) before committing myself to any particular option.

Others have had excellent results with threading and there are many video's, here on the forum, to prove the point but you have to have your configuration set-up correctly and the Mach3 manual may be a good source of reference with regard to index pulse etc.

Hope this helps a bit.

Tweakie.

3439

FAQs / Re: SCALE PROBLEMS

« on: July 19, 2014, 07:40:08 AM »

Hi Marlondave,

Welcome to the forum.

Just take it one step at a time...

In the MDI screen if you Zero the X axis then enter G1 X10 does the axis move exactly 10 units ? (repeat for each axis).
If it does not then your steps per unit are wrong (check forum members documents for how to calculate steps per unit).

Report back on the results then we can move on to the next stage 

Tweakie.

3440

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: July 19, 2014, 05:28:32 AM »

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the compliment - I am far from being smart - I am perhaps just lucky    I also had a lot of help from Art.  I have it working on WinXP and Vista but so far have had no luck at all with Win7.

If it's any consolation I could not get B axis working either (as you say it is probably a limitation).
I have not yet tried v.1888 but I am fairly certain the Metric / Imperial issue has been sorted.

I start loosing occasional steps, only on blended moves, when using a Pulse Count above 27000 but up to that the motion is beautiful so I am guessing it may be something relating to your PC but I have no suggestions as to what it may be.  Does 'Disable VBO Tool Path' make any difference ?

Tweakie.