Messages

7041

General Mach Discussion / Re: help please

« on: March 29, 2011, 03:50:09 AM »

Could be.
Look to see if 'Safe Z' under the config tab is enabled.

Tweakie.

7042

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z limit Switch with a touch pad

« on: March 29, 2011, 03:45:00 AM »

Glad to hear you got it sorted.

Tweakie.

7043

General Mach Discussion / Re: Y-Axis Sticking

« on: March 28, 2011, 12:13:49 PM »

The printer port LPT should be set to ECP.

I updated my earlier post to add more info.

Tweakie.

7044

General Mach Discussion / Re: Y-Axis Sticking

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:55:36 AM »

Grasping at straws here now.

Have you tried changing the state of the step pin active high / active low in motor outputs ?

There is another issue which keeps causing problems mainly with new computers in that some parallel ports now output 3.3Volts TTL instead of the old standard 5Volts TTL. Some driver circuits / boards will not work reliably with 3.3Volt TTL and some will just not work at all.
If you have a voltmeter then it may be an idea to measure the voltage on a direction pin whilst jogging the axis in one direction then in the other. This voltage should be approx 5V in one direction and approx 0V in the other direction. The voltage on step pins cannot be measured in this way only the voltage on a direction pin.
If  you find the voltage to be approx 3.3V this could explain why the setup worked OK with your old computer but now does not work well.
The easiest solution would be to fit a PCI parallel port card (assuming you have a free PCI slot) which does output the full 5Volts TTL signals.


Tweakie.

7045

Mach SDK plugin questions and answers. / Re: Motion plugin for virtual hardware(for tests) - lets share our knowledge

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:50:31 AM »

Something you may find interesting.

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,17992.0.html

Tweakie.

7046

General Mach Discussion / Re: Y-Axis Sticking

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:40:47 AM »

Is that steps per inch ?
If it's steps per mm then I think you need to retune your motors from scratch.

Tweakie.

7047

General Mach Discussion / Re: download and install MACH 3

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:36:11 AM »

Also the onboard graphics can be a problem unless you have a seperate PCI graphics card fitted and selected in BIOS.

Tweakie.

7048

General Mach Discussion / Re: Y-Axis Sticking

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:21:03 AM »

Just a thought.

Go to config, ports and pins and put a check in the sherline 1/2 pulse mode box. Then try.

Tweakie.

7049

Tangent Corner / Interesting ?

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:10:21 AM »

This is an interesting eBay item perhaps.
Says it need no driver to operate from the USB with Mach3 - Is this a load of old **** or what ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-axis-CNC-USB-Card-Mach3-200KHz-windows2000-xp-vista-/260759887366?pt=UK_BOI_Industrial_Automation_Control_ET&hash=item3cb6801e06#ht_8263wt_1139

Tweakie.

7050

General Mach Discussion / Re: Y-Axis Sticking

« on: March 28, 2011, 11:03:18 AM »

Is the stepper making a screeching sound when it is not working ?

Tweakie.