Messages

7131

General Mach Discussion / Re: Limit Switch Trips

« on: March 14, 2011, 09:15:49 AM »

I am on to a solution now and its not electrical noise as such.
At fast traverse there would appear to be a slight tight spot on the X axis which is causing an error signal on the closed loop controller. Turning the Jog speed down and running the table around a bit has got some oil into to the right places and reduced the trip frequency.

Paul,

It depends on the way your machine has been wired, but from what you have described, I doubt Mach would be able to detect this error has occurred. This being the case, the limit trip would be unrelated to the following error you are observing.
Very curious this one.

Tweakie.

7132

General Mach Discussion / Re: Am I loosing steps?

« on: March 14, 2011, 09:04:47 AM »

I don't think you need to use your best (or favourite) PC - A second user one would perhaps do.

Having said all this I have an old Dell Inspiron which works just great, but perhaps this is the exception. 

Tweakie.

7133

General Mach Discussion / Re: Limit Switch Trips

« on: March 14, 2011, 06:53:29 AM »

Paul,

It's not the button that generates the electrical noise - it's the wiring between the button and the input on the controller which can pick up the electrical noise.

Tweakie.

7134

General Mach Discussion / Re: Limit Switch Trips

« on: March 14, 2011, 06:31:22 AM »

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the forum.

My first guess would be electrical noise. Do you have an E-Stop fitted or any other inputs ?

Try increasing the debounce setting to 2000 and see if the machine still misbehaves.

Tweakie.

7135

General Mach Discussion / Re: Am I loosing steps?

« on: March 14, 2011, 03:18:25 AM »

That odd tick from a stepper is the symptom of lost (or additional) steps. On my machine one lost step would equal 0.003mm and you would be hard pushed to notice a few of those as an inaccuracy.
It is not recommended to use laptops with Mach unless a separate motion controller (such as Smooth Stepper) is used. There are many reasons why laptops cause problems and you could be lucky and locate the problem early on or you could be chasing this forever.
I would suggest you either get a SS or use a machine dedicated PC then use your IBM for internet / programming etc.

Tweakie.

7136

General Mach Discussion / Re: Impact/Laser engraving - something going wrong

« on: March 12, 2011, 12:30:23 PM »

Just to tidy up loose ends and for those that follow, this problem has now been resolved in the later version of the plugin.

Tweakie.

7137

FAQs / Re: new computer

« on: March 12, 2011, 12:22:10 PM »

Thanks Dan,

It's always nice when final outcomes are posted as there are many that follow, sometimes years later.

Tweakie.

7138

FAQs / Re: new computer

« on: March 12, 2011, 06:36:56 AM »

Dan,

The bad news is that you may never have it running from your laptop without using a separate motion controller such as the Smooth Stepper. I have no idea what your parallel to USB wire is capable of (driving a printer perhaps) but it is highly unlikely it would be suitable for Mach3 use.

Your best option IMHO is to obtain an old PC with a parallel port as a CNC dedicated computer and use that.

Tweakie.

7139

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Cylinder Heads

« on: March 12, 2011, 02:15:02 AM »

Brilliant Steve, I can just imagine the noise that would make. 

(I still have a couple of those little cox engines).

Tweakie.

7140

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps when milling slowly

« on: March 11, 2011, 05:36:41 AM »

What make and model driver board are you using for your steppers ?

Tweakie.