Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Wave form??

« on: July 24, 2008, 01:36:02 AM »

Thanks for the reply...I was able to get the wave form. Is 25,440 a good frequency? I could not get my motors to move with Vista so, I switched over to xp. I still seem to be having the same problem and beginning to wonder if I am setting my pins correctly. I can test motors with the driver board test button (OK), cable is good with all pins active, port address is 378, when I go into mach folder and click "Get Port Address", it displays "&H378". Is this normal?
If I go to Diagnostics page in mach, it shows three pins active or green??...these pins are 4,5&6 if you are counting from left to right on the top row. I am not sure if I am understanding this correctly. Can you shed some light on this for me? Thanks

12

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 Wave form??

« on: July 23, 2008, 10:21:16 PM »

I have installed Mach3 on xp, had a wave form initially then lost it. How can I get it back?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: June 01, 2008, 03:02:17 PM »

Hood,

As I am finding out about possibly changing the OS, is it still possible to have port issues even with XP on this computer?
If I were to dedicate another computer for mach only, it would eliminate me having to lug this back in from the shop each time I need it inside the office for drawing. This current computer has a dual core pentium, will mach3 v2.0 perform properly, would I need to upgrade mach if there is an upgrade for the dual core or does it even matter? I have just heard that if my software does not utilize this processor's capability it could actually decrease in performance. I don't know if this is true or not.
I am sure there are people running this setup however, they are more savy than I. I would like to know the basics of how to troubleshoot a problem when I am confronted with one, I just don't want to know more than I need to. At my level, (which is low)I was hoping for a more "plug & play" enviroment rather than the "plug, troubleshoot & experiment this deep" enviroment. Isn't this what Windows was all about in the first place?

Colin

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: June 01, 2008, 12:26:46 PM »

Why would Vista tell me everything for this card is working fine but, deny access to mach3?

What would be considered a recommended processor size in an older computer to run mach only? I am keeping an eye out for one for the right price and maybe I can at least get started with it while the other issues get worked out.

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: June 01, 2008, 11:27:02 AM »

Thank you all for your advise,

I think I should backup to BobCad for a minute here and tell you how I approached Mach3 initially as this may or may not be relevant to my current issues...When I loaded bobcad, it would not load beyond the "Demo"status.  Bobcad had me changing the compatibility settings to XP, run as administrator, disable desktop themes and so on. I Thought I needed to do these things with anything else that may not have been necessarily Vista compatible. Mistake on my part?...

Back to the current posts. After installing the card, not seeing a specific Vista driver on their CD, I got online, ended up in moschip, I relied on them to give me a compatible driver since I didn't feel confident on picking one. I do remember seeing Vista 32 driver in there on my computer after that, everything showing no conflicts, driver working properly at this point. I am sure the "get port address" folder was there, I just didn't see and think I needed to go anyplace the software was not directing me to and maybe I didn't need to. This happened to be the first sign I saw that Vista was denying Mach3 access to the driver. I have a much better understanding of what is happening here and it sounds like your advise to remove mach3, shut down, remove the card, reboot a couple of times etc.?? is what I should do. I am able to go into bobcad and can access the files that I had in there. Does this mean I have a problem with Vista and need to go through a Vista reload?

I don't mean to sound stupid here but, I could not quite figure out how to put the XML Hood gave me back into the mach folder. Vista is different to me compared to XP. There is no "save as" as I was expecting. I did what I thought was right. It may have been wrong...I don't feel the user friendlyness here with Vista. It also freezes up every now and then. This could be bad for my application as well??

I did not reboot twice as Kristen suggested but will do that. I am not a computer expert here however, with fairly precise instructions I feel confident I can handle the card issues, I do not feel comfortable enough to handle the OS stuff though. When I took mach off the system this last time, it seems like I didn't even take it off. Nothing changed so, not sure if I did it properly. Not quite sure how far back I need to take this?

I hope I am making a little sense here and apologize if I am not. I appreciate everything your doing for me, I am keeping the XP option on a seperate computer (older one) on the back burner.

I do not feel it is fair to me "the consumer" to iron out Bill's R&D issues (at my expense and your time), sit back and watch while he lobbies Congress to educate and exploit the worlds poor for his benefit while our "Lifestyle justified income & educated" are jobless . Sorry for the Political statement! I wish I could be just asking mach3 related questions at this point.
I will be monitoring this until early pm EST today and will have to be away until next weekend

Thanks Colin

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: May 31, 2008, 12:14:24 PM »

Hood, BTW, I tried to go into the loader and pick which xml to use but, it would not let me. It kept going back to the last config I made when I sent the xml to you. It let me make or create "one" profile. But, once I deleted the one I made, that was it. I am trying to remember everything that happened. Colin

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: May 31, 2008, 11:17:57 AM »

Rich, Thanks for the reply, it's sounds like it could be some of my issue's. I have done so many things to this computer, mach and everything else, I am not even sure what I have done. I am desperate right now.

Hood, thank you for your reply as well, the pictures I loaded here are what I have since uninstalling everything and reloading it. It seems that something may not be quite right here. Is it possible I have not dumped & reloaded everything properly. If I have done it correctly, then something is wrong and not sure what I need to do to fix it. Colin

Rich, to answer your question about the card it is; NetMos, dualport, PCI nm9815cv, spp/epp/ecp mode, multi I/O controller card made in china. Hope this is enough info. as it's about all that is on the box. In the instruction sheet, it said nothing about Vista however, on the CD that comes with, it shows something about Vista 32&64 somewhere in the file. I'm not sure if it is compatible. It took some playing around with the ports just to get the printer to go through the printing motions. It never did print (with ink anyway) what I sent to the printer (Ink Cartridge was old and crusty) but it did respond and go through the process as if it did. I replaced the cartridge and with all the excitement of "Wow I actually made some improvement" forgot to remove the tape from it and wedged it right on in there and clamped it down (TIGHT). Once I figured out why this piece of junk would not still print, I removed the tape and still would not lay down the ink. So, I don't know if I broke it or not.

I certainly would be grateful if you could investigate this port to see if it is compatible.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: May 30, 2008, 11:03:57 PM »

If I click on the "get port address" in the mach folder, I get the following windows and "access denied". Does this mean that Vista is denying Mach3 access to the pp driver? I have uninstalled mach3, drivers for the pp port, rebooted and reloaded, still is not right.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: May 30, 2008, 08:01:47 PM »

I did not have any luck here, as it would tell me that it was not a licenesed version of mach4 and it was aborting. What's up with that?
Therewas a "get port address" file inthe mach folder I do not remember seeing prior, went into that and it seemed windows took some time and would not allow it. I have no idea what is going on with that either. Is there any way I can connect this computer so you could look at it?...

I am thinking about uninstalling everything and starting over. There's no telling what I have done to this thing. Colin

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Should I scrap Vista for XP?

« on: May 30, 2008, 11:01:46 AM »

In the Device manager, Moschip LPT1,resources-LPT1D800 & Moschip LPT2, resources-LPT2 DC00. I must also leave for a while. Thanks for all your time and effort thus far. Colin