Topics

11

General Mach Discussion / How to reverse axis direction ?

« on: December 04, 2011, 01:38:16 PM »

I have everything running ok except for the axis direction.

The following Pic will explain:





From the middle of the table ( Home all Ref) moves  X & Y to the home position.

To move away from home requires a Neg-  move on both X & Y.

I have tried  changing the input pins  to active low on home switches & homing limits to Neg/Rev and it tried to home in the opposite direction.

Do I need  to change the wiring polarity from the drives to the motors  ? Which wires on the Gecko need to be reversed also?

Maybe there is a setting in Mach to do this without changing the wiring.

Thanks for the help everyone. 

JAckal

12

General Mach Discussion / E-stop halts movement, but Mach keeps running in the readouts.

« on: November 27, 2011, 10:58:59 AM »

I've got everything working, but when I  hit the E-stop.

The movement stops. No charge pump running, and the E-stop lights on the B_o_B indicate E-stop.


Mach keeps running??? The readouts count along just like nothing happened.

It used to be that when I hit E-stop, Mach went into Reset Mode and you had to clear the switch, and reset Mach.


When  I was trying to get  that pendant board to work a few weeks ago, is when it changed.

What should the inputs really be for the E-stop & Reset mode?

Right now it shows to be an emulated input.

Thanks,

JAckal

13

General Mach Discussion / question about limit travels

« on: November 25, 2011, 12:37:42 PM »

I am setting up my limit switch travel limits.

Here is a pic  to help explain:



The machine is jogged into the home/limit switch, then backed off until the switch is cleared of error.

The digital readout is zeroed.

The machine is jogged in the opposite direction until the limit is tripped,  then backed off until the  switch is clear of error. <  ( It now reads 13.070 inches.)

I want  to set the machine: HOME= .100" off of the trigger, and soft limit .500 off of trigger.
    Opposite  soft limit is .500 from the other trigger.

How do I put this info in  the  following configuration  box:




Would this work:

Home offset .100"

Slow Zone  1.00"

Soft min   .500"

Soft max 12.500"

I'll have to mess with the Home neg and reversed to see which direction I need, and the speed will be 10% for the slow zone.

Are there any recommendations for Auto Zero ?

I would like for the Z axis to home before the X & Y home out.

If this is confusing let me know.

Thanks in advance.

JAckal

14

General Mach Discussion / Pendant works, but need help setting increments.

« on: October 23, 2011, 08:20:17 PM »

The machine is now where it will jog with the pendant.

It will  select; X, Y, or Z axis, from the pendant.

The settings have me puzzled, though. If it is in step/velocity mode, the axis won't jog until you have made a second revolution with the hand-wheel.

Then it jumps about 2 or 3 inches at once, and coasts to a stop.

If it is set to lower counts or velocity in the MPG setting, it jumps about .250 in per click. 

There is something simple that I'm not getting.

Does anyone have some suggested starting points for tuning an MPG?

It would be nice to have it rapid close to the part, (with MPG) and then be able to move in .001 at a time to touch off with an edge finder.

Another concern is sometime it will only jog in one direction -.0 only, with the hand wheel turning either  direction

Also in velocity mode, it will run-away and you have to hit "ESC" to stop it.

There may be some loose pin connections in the pendant, or cable end DB 25 connector.

Thanks for all of the help,

JAckal

15

General Mach Discussion / Mach won't let me tune motors. Dialog page won't open??

« on: October 18, 2011, 09:14:01 PM »

During my  mission to get Mach to recognize the #2 parallel port, Windows XP went crazy.

It kept saying "new hardware device found" every 10 seconds, and doing other wild stuff.

My .xml file was saved/backed-up, so I just reformatted my computer.

Now,I have loaded Mach 3 and  the .xml with all of my tuning.

For some strange reason when I go into the "Config" tab, it shows the motor tuning, but the motor tuning page won't open.

It is something I hit by mistake.

Thanks a lot,

JAckal

16

General Mach Discussion / Another 2nd parallel port question

« on: October 11, 2011, 08:25:14 PM »

I ordered the Rosewill  parallel port that was recommended and tested by Simpson:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815166007

My Mach is up and running with a PMDX 126 board & 107 spindle controller. I have the machine where it will jog around on all  3 axis.

Spindle & VFD are  working fine.

The computer won't recognize the 2nd port. I've installed and removed the drivers, 2 or 4 times.

The pendant is a cnc4pc :

http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=162

It is connected by this pendant board recommended by Arturo at cnc4pc:

http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=159

I have installed all of the brains associated with the c22 card and pendant. Disabled and enabled all or some of them, at various points.

The port doesn't seem to be recognized.   I don't want to mess with running the sample .xml from cnc4pc, because all of my settings for my motors and VFD/spindle are already  there.

When you turn on the PC/Controller for the machine, the red led on the pendant lights up.  As windows starts to boot up, the led goes out.

The address for the 2nd parallel port card is :

A800-A807
AC00-AC07

A00-A007
A400-A407

I only use the first part of the address # ex: A800

In the hardware manager, there is (2) new ports listed: Port #2 & Port#3

The pin connector on the board must be for a ribbon connector to add another port   through the header.

Why is it showing 4 addresses for (2) new ports?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am running the pmdx in "normal mode" with charge pump.

Is this asking too much for a second parallel port, to have a pendant on it?

Not sure how many open inputs I have left, or outputs either.

The C22 board is supposed to  intercept  all of the commands and communicate through the second port.

There may be some conflict between pins on the pmdx board and the CNC4pc c22 board.

Thanks for all of the help,

JAckal

17

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3, PMDX 107 spindle board & Teco VFD configuration help

« on: October 07, 2011, 06:50:40 PM »

I bought a Teco JNEV-203 H1 VFD.

I hooked it up and programmed all of the settings manually, and it runs my spindle very well.

Now, I am trying to get Mach 3 to operate the spindle through my PMDX 107 card.

The 107 card is a daughter card that mounts piggy back on the PMDX 126 Breakout board. It is for spindle operation.

Here is a wiring diagram of how I have it wired:





This is the screen-shot of the MACH3 spindle  page:




It is probably something  set wrong.  I went through the programming of the vfd. It is really neat all of the different settings you can do.

After trying the different on/off/fwd/rev stuff, I quit before damaging something.


Does this need a relay to turn the spindle on/off & then the PMDX board just tells it which direction?

Thanks for all of the help,

JAckal

18

General Mach Discussion / Is this sound dithering?

« on: September 16, 2011, 11:10:07 PM »

Not all of my motors are mounted on my machine. The x axis servo is mounted and has a Gecko 320x driving it. When the machine is powered up and Mach resets, my X- axis motor makes a small clicking sound. It is similar to a Morse code message.

I can jog the motor a little bit and it goes away. It may come back in 5 minutes or 1 hour later.

My hearing is too bad to compare to Youtube videos of dithering.

Let me know of some of your experiences.

Maybe my machine is  sending me a message:

1) JAckal,
Hurry up and get me finished so that I can make some chips.

2) JAckal,
You lazy bum. Are you ever gonna finish this retrofit.


Thanks,

JAckal

19

General Mach Discussion / Jog speed is very slow

« on: September 09, 2011, 05:30:21 PM »

I have finally got a free weekend to work on my Hurco.

The X axis motor mounted and  working. The jog speed is super slow. (About 20 inches a minute) or ( .5 meters a minute).

Looking at the steps per revolution stuff, I am lost. The steps per unit has me messed up. My X axis is direct drive coupling, .200 pitch screws, 5 TPI.

Y & Z  axis are the same pitch screws, and they each have a 26 tooth pulley on the motor & a 26 tooth pulley on the ballscrew.  1:1 drive, isn't it?

Last night, under motor tuning, when the  steps is set to 4000, it jogs at a respectable speed.

But, this isn't right, it was just a test.

My encoders are set at 500 and the motors are set at 2000.

After looking at all kinds of overrides, jog%, etc. I can't find anything that will speed it up.

This is the sample MACH 3 download, it is at 25k kernel speed.

There must be something I am overlooking.

Before all of the motors are installed, does the encoder need to be set to a different count?

This, because the Y axis motor has to be wiggled around and slid through an access door in the knee to install it.

Also, my limit switches are all installed, but when I trigger them with a screwdriver, they don't react.

Is this because the  machine hasn't been homed out?

I don't want to get too many things going at once.

Just get the jog speed set for now.

I am using the sample .xml file from PMDX with  my limits & home switches  sharing  pin #12 ( I changed these inputs in Mach also)

By the way, my drives are Gecko 320x's.

Do the [gain] or [pulse multiplier] settings need to be changed?

This thing is close to running. I am probably making out the steps per unit, & motor RPMs more complicated than they really are.

 I hate to drag anyone into this with the machine not together enough to run certain things for test purposes , but I am at a wall.

Thanks for all of the help,

JAckal

20

General Mach Discussion / OT -question about sending circuit boards from the US to Europe?

« on: August 22, 2011, 12:56:43 PM »

I have some of the old circuit boards out of my Hurco CNC that someone in Wymondham, Norfolk is interested in.

The price with insurance & shipping will total around $950  US dollars.

Can some of you  from Europe tell me a little about the duty fees, VAT, etc?

Any guess to how much it will be?

Is there a cheaper way to ship, or declare it tax free?

Thanks,
JAckal