Messages

71

General Mach Discussion / Re: Compatability Question

« on: January 15, 2009, 10:41:24 AM »

That doesn't look too promising,  the first two prints indicate the 25 pin connector is a serial interface comm port.   Mach3 cannot control it over that port.

You might be able to dig deeper into the machine controls and find a place where Mach3 can talk to the motor driver boards by giving them step and direction pulses, but not here at this serial interface port.

What I would do is open the machine up and look for the motor drivers and get nameplate info on them ( they will usually be a discrete module for each motor, either a servo driver or stepper driver) Then post that info and maybe someone can help.

Arnie

72

General Mach Discussion / Re: thread problem

« on: January 15, 2009, 10:31:52 AM »

Tubular,

You said you watch the X axis moving slowly positive over the 6 inch length.  Is your X axis DRO actually showing it moving out during the threading pass?   It should be rock solid during the pass unless you are doing some sort of a tapered thread.

Arnie

73

General Mach Discussion / Re: ellipse code using limited number of arcs

« on: January 14, 2009, 11:56:25 AM »

Are you milling or turning?  Have you tried it with exact stop off?  Or maybe accel and decell could be too slow?

74

General Mach Discussion / Re: "Limit Switch Triggered"

« on: January 14, 2009, 11:48:17 AM »

This is a good one to keep in the back of your head when you have tried all else!!

75

General Mach Discussion / Re: Slave Axis in Mach or in driver

« on: January 14, 2009, 11:44:05 AM »

The only down side to using Mach3 is you will be using up more of your sometimes limited outputs, and you will also use up some of the bandwidth.   

I would go with the slave directly from driver to driver, if it is pretty straightforward on programming and wiring.

76

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need HELP with Mach3 Setup

« on: January 14, 2009, 11:38:33 AM »

John,

You mentioned earlier that sometimes you were getting motion and sometimes you were not.    Almost sounds like an intermittent connection somewhere,  maybe something to do with the enable line?

Another place to check (I got bit by this once) signal commons.  

I converted an old machine once for the local high school that bought this machine 10 years earlier, used it for 1 week, and it died and the mfg was no longer in business.   I didn't use a breakout board just wired the parallel port directly to drivers and switches using pullups and current limiters, but forgot to bring the parallel port ground over to the 5v signal common.   It would run fine sometimes depending on what outlets it was plugged into,  then other times only half the machine would work.

Arnie

77

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need HELP with Mach3 Setup

« on: January 13, 2009, 01:06:45 PM »

What are you using for step value?

78

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Just got a lathe to retrofit

« on: January 12, 2009, 06:18:54 PM »

That the baby, should work fine.

79

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can Home Switch be -- limit switch...

« on: January 12, 2009, 12:48:34 PM »

If the only time you experience the problem of the limit switch tripping is when doing a homing routine,  it is probably true switch contact bounce,  that is where they came up with the term debounce. 

If I were you I would probably try to wire it up Normally closed,  you would probably not get a bounce when opening the switch.

Or look for better switches, maybe a non-mechanical type, optical, capacitive or inductive switch.

With a scope you could examine the single as it closes, or as it opens and see if you are getting a bounce but this would probably be redundant since you have pretty much nailed down the problem anyway.

Arnie

80

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Just got a lathe to retrofit

« on: January 12, 2009, 11:03:41 AM »

it is a real simple chip,  NTE 2631,  it is a quad input differential line driver,  you can do up to 4 channels of differential output,  4 inputs.   No resistors needed.

Works great, if you need a work-around before getting one you can slave an axis and invert it to get the same thing if you have a lot of outputs and bandwidth to spare.