Messages

3781

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

« on: July 02, 2015, 01:35:28 AM »

Hi kj7u,

Welcome to the forum.

It is best if you post questions as a new topic, however...

To reverse the operation of the X axis you could change the active state of the X axis 'Dir Low Active' in Config / Ports & Pins / Motor Outputs.

There are many to choose from but a very basic, free and easy to use CAD/CAM software is G-Simple http://www.gsimple.eu/

Tweakie.

3782

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

« on: June 30, 2015, 02:00:38 AM »

Hi Guys,

Welcome to the forum.

If you have a specific question it would be best if you post it as a New Topic in the General Section where it will be seen by more people and stand a better chance of a quick reply.
There are many extremely talented and experienced members here so it should not take too long for them to resolve any problems you may be experiencing and get you up and running and making chips 

Tweakie.

3783

General Mach Discussion / Re: USB to Serial

« on: June 20, 2015, 12:45:14 AM »

There are a number of different external motion controllers and this is just one of those available http://www.warp9td.com/

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

3784

General Mach Discussion / Re: USB to Serial

« on: June 19, 2015, 06:11:53 AM »

I assume that your mill control box was connected to your PC with a 25 way parallel cable and Mach3 configured to use the parallel port. You were not using serial communication.

The USB / Parallel port adapters will not work and as Rich has suggested, you need to either get a PC which has the 25 way parallel port and use the setup as you did before or else purchase an external motion controller to use with either the USB or Ethernet port of your new PC.

Tweakie.

3785

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: MACH4 Tangential Knife

« on: June 19, 2015, 01:44:21 AM »

Hi Dani,

I really have no idea. 

I decided to take a back seat with regard to using Mach4 and wait a while for everything to get sorted out. This process seems to be taking a lot longer than I had envisaged so I now don't plan on using Mach4, at least within the next year or so.

Tweakie.

3786

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor locks, but no turning.

« on: June 15, 2015, 03:51:53 AM »

There are a number of different 'so-called' TB6560 boards and they each behave slightly differently. Quite honestly, they are hardly worth wasting time over - however, just a few suggestions...

Check that your parallel port output is to the 5 Volt TTL standard as opposed to the 3.3 Volt TTL standard.
Change the Mach3 Active High / Active Low state of the step pins and see if that makes a difference.
Check that the Mach3 keyboard jog buttons are not disabled.
Check your PSU voltage and current availability to the board.
Check that the board's motor drive current DIP switches are set to match your motors.
Use a multi-meter just to re-check that you are connecting your motors correctly  ( A - a / B - b ).

There are many settings within Mach3 that are important for correct operation so it may be wise to read the manual through a couple of times to see if there is anything you have missed.

Tweakie.
 

3787

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Minimum PC requirements vs real life (Newbie)

« on: June 09, 2015, 03:11:31 AM »

If you are going to use the parallel port with Windows 7 then you are limited to a 32 bit OS.
An external motion controller will be necessary if you are planning on using a 64 bit OS and this (external motion controller) may be the best route to take as it will then allow use with Win 8 etc. and also future update to Mach4 if you are looking that far ahead.

Tweakie.

3788

General Mach Discussion / Re: Changing computer

« on: June 09, 2015, 02:39:40 AM »

Hi Colin,

Just a few observations...

If you are using the parallel port then you need to have the 32 bit version of Windows 7.
Windows 8 does not support use of the parallel port.
An external motion controller will be required for 64 bit OS versions and/or Windows 8.

Tweakie.

3789

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: total newbie - sorry

« on: June 09, 2015, 01:15:42 AM »

My pleasure sir.

Tweakie.

3790

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Re: total newbie - sorry

« on: June 08, 2015, 12:56:20 PM »

Hi Paul,

You may find this link points you in the right direction http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,24580.0.html

Tweakie.

(basically all the information you need to know is right here on the forum and in the Mach documentation but searching can be difficult if you are not quite sure what you are looking for).