Messages

201

General Mach Discussion / Re: Getting Outputs to work?

« on: August 10, 2007, 06:10:57 PM »

You might have open collector port and you have to supply the weak positive supply, or a faulty port, or if you have two ports, you might be measuring the wrong port. Also remember that the port has weak pull ups in some cases, so if you are connected to a breakout board, remove the plug and check the port on its own, i.e. unconnected.Some newer ports only operate at 3.3V and not all are necesarily 5V tolerant, so depending on your hardware, it is not easy to say what your problem is. Can you check the functionality of the port with a parallel interface printer?

There is also a port pin test program for windows, if you need it, ask me.

Whacko

202

General Mach Discussion / Re: ports

« on: August 07, 2007, 03:45:31 PM »

Go check this link, all the info you need under Parallel port interfacing. http://www.beyondlogic.org/
You need ECP for bi directional control. The difference between the modes is explained in detail on the link site

Whacko

203

General Mach Discussion / Re: I NEED SOME HELP // DOES ANYONE HAVE A ROUTER LIKE THIS?

« on: August 07, 2007, 03:28:04 PM »

Did you get the complete system from them i.e. the controller and software?

Whacko

204

General Mach Discussion / Re: Pendant/control panel with PIC 18f4221.

« on: August 06, 2007, 06:40:22 PM »

If you have never programmed before, youre up for a steep climb. I use PICS for many years, from 8 bit to 16 bit dsPICS. I would suggest you purchase a demo board (PICDEM2 PLUS) and an ICD2 from Microchip, but if the cash is low, there is another way. I implement the modbus on the dsPIC30F6014A and the dsPIC33 range which gives 40MIPS. The modbus is advanced programming, you need to implement CRC (Cyclic redundancy Check).

Whacko

205

General Mach Discussion / Re: spindle encoder?/

« on: August 06, 2007, 06:29:08 PM »

Just for interest sake, check out http://www.usdigital.com this is the so called 10 dollar encoder company. They really sell a 10 dollar encoder, and it's good quality. I've used many, many of them, and in fact, Wescan (Linatrol) CNC uses them on their CNC controllers, I have sold their controllers coupled to flatbed CNC machines we manufacture, off course until I found Mach3, much, much cheaper. Just don't try to order the encoders from Linatrol, You'll pay 200 t0 300 dollars!

Whacko

206

General Mach Discussion / Re: Max distance parallel printer cable

« on: August 06, 2007, 06:21:42 PM »

There is a way to get your parallel to 1000 meters or more. I wouldn't go more than 3 meters on a standard parallel cable, reason is the capacitance in the cable returns a negative spike when logic level goes from 1 to 0, and if your pulser is doing 25 khz etc, the capacitive reactance could load the port registers beyond what they're capable of. If you want to increase this lenght, ask me how.

Whacko

207

General Mach Discussion / Re: Complete circles from nowhere?

« on: August 06, 2007, 06:11:21 PM »

Seems like you got the absolute and incremental settings screwed up in the General config setup! Then you will get circles where there shouldn't be any.
Try setting xy as abs and IJ as incremental. Or vice versa! Not sure which is which, I'll hav to check, but I think that's what you got!

Regards,
Whacko

208

General Mach Discussion / Re: 4 axis problems

« on: August 02, 2007, 02:16:42 AM »

Yep, I done that one too!!

William

209

General Mach Discussion / Re: 4 axis problems

« on: August 01, 2007, 06:38:02 PM »

If you select the "MDI" screen, and type a line of code in the manual data entry textbox, does the machine respond correctly to the commands?

William

210

General Mach Discussion / Re: Clarification of charge pump frequency

« on: August 01, 2007, 06:30:52 PM »

I haven't scoped mine, but I run the signal through a MCP1407 and a pulse transformer, so if there's no frequency, there can be no transferred signal via the pulse trafo. Works very well. Are you having a problem with the low frequency? Is the rest of your hardware/software working?

Regards,
William