Messages

3491

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 or 4 with PMDX 126 & ESS

« on: December 14, 2015, 10:37:13 AM »

Does anyone know if I purchase Mach 3 and pay a little extra later on and move over to Mach 4?

Steve

Currently, there is no option for a Mach4 discount purchase price to existing Mach3 license holders (there is no upgrade at a discount price offered).

Tweakie.

3492

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor Tuning Math

« on: December 14, 2015, 02:40:31 AM »

Hi Richard,

Sorry, I know I've asked a lot here. Thanks to anyone that helps. Tweakie and RICH have been great to me, but I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

No fear of doing that my friend - ask as many questions as you need. 

From your calculations it would appear that your stepper driver is set to 1/8th microstepping.

I don't know the exact figure (I am sure that someone here does) but Mach3 supports a precision which is many times greater than the accuracy of any of our machines so you just need to resolve this Z axis steps issue you are experiencing. I think we have mentioned it before but you have thoroughly checked all the mechanicals for loose grub screws, slipping coupler, etc., etc. ??

Tweakie.

3493

Finished Screens / Re: New Touch Screen - mill

« on: December 13, 2015, 07:32:10 AM »

Excellent work, very neat indeed. 

(not sure I need a touch screen for my CNC but perhaps one day  )

Tweakie.

3494

CS-Lab / Re: CSMIO/IP-A plugin with win10 ok?

« on: December 13, 2015, 02:21:59 AM »

The best cure for this is to remove update KB3035583 and then untick the 'Give me recommended updates' under change settings.  No more nagging until Microsoft force everybody onto there latest pay as you go scheme.

Perhaps not all versions of Win10 are the same.
Removing an update does work but I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft puts it back ?
I can defer updates but as Microsoft says it makes little overall difference.

"Some Windows 10 editions let you defer upgrades to your PC. When you defer upgrades, new Windows features won’t be downloaded or installed for several months. Deferring upgrades doesn’t affect security updates. Note that deferring upgrades will prevent you from getting the latest Windows features as soon as they’re available".

Tweakie.

3495

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z-Axis Not Always Positioned Correctly

« on: December 13, 2015, 01:38:38 AM »

Do you think reducing the microstepping on the Z Axis driver so it takes less pulses to move 1" will have any impact on the results?

It should not make any difference unless you PC is just not up to the task.

The pulse width is set to 5us for step/dir on all axis. The TI driver has a minimum pulse width of 1.9us so this should be OK, right?

Try some experimentation here to get the smoothest motor motion (2uS gives me the best performance).

I was running the driver test and checking all frequencies. Even up to 100kHz it reports the system is OK. I noticed that up to 65kHz the CPU usage is less than 5% but 100kHz is ~50% but I don't see any reason to push it that high. When I look at Max Variation I see mostly repeatable spikes and values of 15us or 23us. This doesn't seem to change when I change the frequency but occasionally I see nice smooth line aith maybe variations of 5-8us. Is ~20us variation something to worry about? Should I break out the scope and see what the step pulses actually look like?

Unless you definitely need a higher kernel speed (to achieve the desired rapids) then use 25kHz.

Tweakie.

3496

General Mach Discussion / Re: Program Run Screen Tool #

« on: December 12, 2015, 02:36:17 AM »

I think it's almost impossible to guess at what you may have done so perhaps the best solution is the reload the screen .set file (standard screen is 1024.set).

If you don't want to re-install Mach3 then - If you have a spare PC install Mach3 on that, then copy the 1024.set (or whatever screen set you are using) file and transfer it to your machine PC. (Please be aware that your scripts for any added buttons are stored in the screen set file).

Tweakie.

3497

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z-Axis Not Always Positioned Correctly

« on: December 12, 2015, 02:21:18 AM »

Reducing the Feed-Rate and lowering the Velocity are two entirely different things as far as machine performance is concerned.

Try...
  
(as you have suggested) reducing the Kernel to 25kHz.
Reducing the Velocity for the Z axis to 60 (save the change).


Tweakie.

3498

General Mach Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: December 11, 2015, 07:21:30 AM »

Hi Guys, welcome to the forum.

Tweakie.

3499

General Mach Discussion / Re: The solutions to my false limit switch triggering issues

« on: December 11, 2015, 03:20:50 AM »

All this, I think, goes to highlight the benefits of our forum dwelling. We all learn from each other (sometimes from the mistakes and sometimes from the explanations) and the vast pool of knowledge we have all helped to create here has made our forum what it is today.

Keep up the good work guys.

Tweakie.

3500

General Mach Discussion / Re: Recommended Encoders

« on: December 11, 2015, 01:59:45 AM »

Hi Richard,

The 4th axis is generally just used as a rotary axis or slave for 2 motors driving one axis and not used to drive the spindle (although there will always be exceptions  )

The Gecko User's manual (http://www.geckodrive.com/geckodrive-step-motor-drives/g540.html ) gives details of connecting a relay which could be used to switch your spindle on/off - pretty much the same system as you are using at present.

Tweakie.