Messages

3641

General Mach Discussion / Re: Manual control via keypad is missing - help

« on: February 06, 2016, 04:16:08 AM »

Have you accidentally clicked the Jog ON/OFF button ??

Tweakie.

3642

General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC router shudder and jerky / jitter doing 3D toolpaths

« on: February 06, 2016, 02:48:24 AM »

Motor torque diminishes with increased microstepping.

Basically if your drives are set on full step resolution you will get your motors rated torque, however the torque diminishes via the following equation

T actual = Torque Rated x Sine of (90 / microstep setting)

Hence if you are running say 16microsteps.... you get about 9.8% of your motors rated torque...

Hi Rob,

Once, this info was correct but it is now many years out of date and still the myth continues to be perpetuated.

The manufacturer's of the various stepper driver chips (eg. Allegro/Toshiba/etc.) are well aware of the stepper motor characteristics and design their circuitry accordingly. Basically their chips are ‘smart’, using a form of back emf to proportionally increase the current through the energised windings to balance the available torque in relation to a micro-step position and shaft loading.
It’s a few years now since I carried out comparative angular deflection testing between a number of different manufacturer’s chips and I can confirm that the test stepper motor’s rotational shaft deflection, under a controlled load, (which is basically, holding torque) was within a knat’s whisker between whole step positions and micro-step positions.

Tweakie.

3643

Brains Development / Re: DRO feedrate to control solenoid cycles?

« on: February 05, 2016, 05:51:59 AM »

Interesting idea Ian.

I suppose it may be possible to use the X & Y axis Step pulses which could be electronically scaled (divided) and combined with the Direction signals so that pulses would vary with speed and only occur when travelling in one direction. I haven’t thought about the quadrant math’s for the circular paths but how hard can it be ?? 

Tweakie

3644

Brains Development / Re: Aiming axis

« on: February 05, 2016, 05:39:32 AM »

There are a couple of issues but some versions of Mach3 work better with Tangential than others (unfortunately I do not have a definitive list of which are best) and yes it will work with 2D files.

Tweakie.

3645

Brains Development / Re: Aiming axis

« on: February 05, 2016, 03:21:05 AM »

Could you not just use Tangential Control ??

Tweakie.

3646

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: 4 axis foam cutter

« on: February 05, 2016, 02:18:07 AM »

Cool.
The part of the video of the Maja making it's fully automated landing was extremely impressive - I could use the electronics for that 

Tweakie.

3647

General Mach Discussion / Re: Microsoft Windows 10

« on: February 04, 2016, 08:32:49 AM »

Mach3 runs just fine under Windows 10 but you will need an external motion controller (ESS Smooth Stepper, or similar) because the parallel port cannot be used from OS versions after win7.

Tweakie.

3648

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Getting up and running in Vista

« on: February 03, 2016, 08:33:03 AM »

Don't jump !! 

Windows Device Manager will show the address of the LPT parallel port which you have installed. The first 4 digits are the address you should enter into Port#1 (Mach3 will add the 0x ).

Hopefully, this is all that is stopping movement being achieved.

Tweakie.

3649

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Getting up and running in Vista

« on: February 03, 2016, 07:45:58 AM »

Please help with this if you can?
I am a new beginner. I purchased mach3 which appears to have installed ok but I had to install a parallel port (com 3) the address for this that I was told to use is 0x040 can anyone tell me if this is correct please?
The software seems to run okay but I get no movement from the cnc 3040T. I am hoping this is because the port address is wrong. I am running vista any asdvice would be appreciated and could stop me jumping out the window

Who did you purchase Mach3 from please ??

Tweakie.

3650

General Mach Discussion / Re: Simple question but I guess lots of opinions

« on: February 02, 2016, 04:05:06 AM »

Just a very general observation…
From forum activity it appears that new users are going with Mach4 and (at this moment in time) established users are staying with Mach3.

So I think the decision is yours and I also think it is a tough decision to make but remember that both Mach3 and Mach4 are there for you to ‘try before you buy’.
My CAD/CAM software cost me upwards of $2000 so the license fee for Mach3 + Mach4 is perhaps small change – why not do as I did and buy both. 

Tweakie.