Messages

5521

Third party software and hardware support forums. / Re: Mach3 and Toshiba VFD spindle control question and some Help needed.

« on: July 08, 2011, 11:13:08 AM »

Take a look at Chris Humphris document here http://www.cjh.com.au//PWM%20Spindle%20Control%20using%20Mach3.pdf it contains a lot of useful information.

Tweakie.

5522

General Mach Discussion / DC-03 DigiSpeed GX V3

« on: July 08, 2011, 02:47:01 AM »

Darcy,

This is a pretty old thread but it is straightforward enough to connect the analog 0-5Volts to the laser PSU and it is again straightforward to setup the spindle control within Mach to output the PWM (do a search for PWM and you will find the details). This works just fine for vector cutting but if you decide to do raster work using the Impact/Laser Engraver plugin it all goes pear shaped.
There are more details in these threads (if you have a bit of time to spare  );

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,16446.0.html

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,12444.0.html

Hope this helps,

Tweakie.

5523

Tangent Corner / Re: Ooops !

« on: July 08, 2011, 02:35:40 AM »

Mikee,

Shielded cable is best to use for limit switches and only ground the shield (screen) at the controller end.

Tweakie.

5524

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lost Steps

« on: July 07, 2011, 07:22:27 AM »

Hi Stefan,

Don't know if this helps but I couldn’t get anything, error wise, from your crossover file so went back to look at your earlier files.
I am trying to understand your “surfboard file top” and “surfboard file bottom” but the conventions used are rather unusual, at least for my machine.
You seem to have the X axis as the long axis and Z zero at the bottom of the work rather than the top. The final GCode lines of taking Z to zero, switching off the spindle then returning to X0, Y0 would break my cutter but you seem to have your Z axis reversed.
By convention +Z is usually upward (away from the work) and –Z is downward (towards the work).
I ran this file 4 times without error (just cutting air). I had to exchange the X and Y axis in the code so it would fit my machine table (the Y axis is usually the long axis by convention) and scale it down a bit but other than that it ran OK and my machine returned exactly to Z zero each time (using feeler gauges to check).
The GCode compilation is generally weird particularly with the jumping feed rates from F200 to F13000 for no good reason and there is a small Z axis glitch halfway along the long axis in both directions which I cannot understand so I would only score this 4 out of 10 for nice GCode to use.

Tweakie.

5525

General Mach Discussion / Re: when motors reverse, they stall then slowly pick up speed. HELP!

« on: July 07, 2011, 03:47:16 AM »

Vincent,

Try increasing your acceleration from 5 to 16 and save the settings then try again and see what happens.

Tweakie.

5526

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lost Steps

« on: July 07, 2011, 03:37:21 AM »

Brave try Stefan but for some reason the code did not attach. (try zipping the file perhaps).

Tweakie.

5527

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lost Steps

« on: July 07, 2011, 01:59:18 AM »

And yes I did save the settings and even opened up setting tab to be sure they changed.  You don't need to reboot Mach for Motor Setting Changes do you?

Sounds like you did it right.

If slowing the Velocity to 1000 made no difference then it blows my theory out of the water.

If it was a problem with Mach itself then I am certain it would have also been discovered by others, after all thousands of professional and semi-professionals use Mach on a daily basis.

Could you perhaps post or email me a section of GCode where this problem happens so I can try to duplicate the same error here ?

Tweakie.

5528

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lost Steps

« on: July 06, 2011, 05:24:46 AM »

Just answered my own question 

OK just looked at your .xml and the steps per mm for your Z Axis are only 83.333. Your velocity setting for this axis is probably way too high for this ratio thereby reducing the available motor torque considerably.
By comparison, for my Z Axis I use a velocity of 1500 but my steps per mm are over 500 and that represents a reduction gear ratio of around 6:1 over your 83.333.
I think you should reduce your Z Axis velocity to around 1000 or less and try again to see if the error still persists.

Tweakie.

5529

General Mach Discussion / Re: Lost Steps

« on: July 06, 2011, 05:00:26 AM »

It is kinda like an odyssey without really going anywhere

You are right there.

What are the steps per mm that you have set in motor tuning for the Z axis ?

Tweakie.

5530

General Mach Discussion / Re: when motors reverse, they stall then slowly pick up speed. HELP!

« on: July 06, 2011, 04:17:46 AM »

Hi Vincent,

Welcome to the forum.

There are quite a few Taig owners and Xylotex board owners here - someone will know the answer to this one.

I suggest you set the kernel to 25kHz initially, it is seldom necessary to go higher. The problem could be that the X and Y Axis Acceleration is set too low and the Velocity is set too high in motor tuning. You could perhaps go through the motor tuning procedure again.

Tweakie.