Messages

6461

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:23:33 AM »

Thys,

What make and model breakout board are you using ?
A picture would be helpful.

Tweakie.

6462

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: First sign on my First CNC Router

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:09:07 AM »

Thanks Dave.

I am just starting out on VCarve so I have a couple of years of catching up to do   

The reason I queried the method is because I engraved a sign, some while back, using a raster toolpath and the darn thing took all day to complete (using an engraving point with 0.1mm stepover) 

Tweakie.

6463

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 05:51:26 AM »

Thys,

The driver test prog only tests your PC and its capabilities to run Mach. If the driver test runs then the drivers are installed OK.

If you built your own motor driver board then have you measured the outputs voltage from you computer's parallel port ?  If it is 3.3 Volt then have you tested that your driver board will work reliably at this voltage ?

There are many different cables which have the DB25 connectors fitted and look like parallel port cables (some have a crossover function intended to connect two PC's together and some are just serial comm cables) so it is good to check that the one you are using has pin1 to 1 etc.

Tweakie.

6464

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 05:01:02 AM »

Thys,

Run the 'DriverTest.exe' file in the Mach directory, if you have not already done so, this should check the drivers.

Check your parallel port cable with a multimeter to make certain that all pins are connected and that pin1 goes to pin1, pin2 to pin2 etc.

Tweakie.

6465

General Mach Discussion / Re: Asolutely dumbfounded guy!????

« on: May 09, 2011, 02:56:28 AM »

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the forum.
Just a couple of bits of info taken from the Gecko website.......


Your step pulse width must be at least 2uS wide and the pulse polarity for the step and direction signals are ACTIVE HIGH.

STEP 7: ADJUST TRIMPOT

The G540 is composed of four individual G250 motor controls, each of which has a trimpot on board to adjust low speed smoothness. In your CNC program set the axis being adjusted to move at 2 revolutions per second and use a non-conductive screwdriver to turn the trimpot in the ADJUST hole on the top of the drive. If you do not have a non-conductive screwdriver you may use a standard screwdriver, but be careful not to touch any components other than the trimpot. The trimpot has 270 degrees of motion and will have an audible “sweet spot” when it is in proper position. This position will change with each motor so be sure to readjust if you change motors.


Don't know if this helps,

Tweakie.

6466

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: MODEL 629 S&W MAGNUM

« on: May 08, 2011, 04:48:41 AM »

You'r probably right Arnie, it's difficult to see from the picture.

Tweakie.

6467

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: First sign on my First CNC Router

« on: May 08, 2011, 04:45:27 AM »

Nice job Dave.

Was the figure vector pocket cut or did you do the whole thing as a raster ?

Tweakie.

6468

General Mach Discussion / Re: multiple sessions

« on: May 08, 2011, 01:58:41 AM »

Hi John,

The code you have there is the standard Vectric startup string. It is not all necessary for any particular machine it is just a general thing to cover almost all machines. It may be a good idea for you to look at the GCodes and MCodes (buttons of front page of Mach) to see what each item does and then decide if it is necessary for your machine.
Within Mach, go to General Logic Config page where you can enter an "Initialization String" to include any of the G or M codes you need.
Oh and don’t press stop to halt your program, use feed hold (space bar) – this brings the machine to a smooth halt without loosing steps.

Tweakie.

6469

General Mach Discussion / Re: nidet help

« on: May 07, 2011, 08:15:10 AM »

  You asked for that Hood 

Tweakie.

6470

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Impact engraving plugin

« on: May 07, 2011, 07:42:30 AM »

Hi Stitos,

I think we are going round in circles on this and perhaps ending up just where we started. 

The mode of operation of this plugin is through the pixels of an image? A pixel is a bit.
 1 bits white-----  laser ON
 1 bits black ------ laser OFF

This is not quite true because the images that we use have individual pixels which could be 1 bit but are more usually 8 bits per pixel. The plugin has to resolve each pixel into a stream of single bits (laser on/off) with relation to time (distance travelled).

The working speed has no effect?

This is not quite true because each single bit (laser on / off transition) is related to time and distance travelled so the working speed has a profound effect. Time x Distance = Speed.

You have already established that if you slow the speed down the laser does not fire.

And I tried it and it goes well, I see strange is that when I very low speed (30cm/min) will not turn on the laser. "Should be activated at any speed?

The dynamics of the plugin are related to laser characteristics which are :-  'more depth of cut at either higher power or lower speed' and 'less depth of cut at either lower power or higher speed'. Only Art knows exactly how his mathematical calculations achieved this but it is darn clever because it works.

With my use of the plugin I am only able to resolve 5 variations (3 shades of Gray plus Black and White) from any given 8 bit pixel, not sure exactly why this is but the end results are acceptable so I am happy.


Tweakie.