Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Setup problem

« on: June 12, 2008, 08:58:30 PM »

Rich, thanks for the info, and the thread reference. Seeing as I spent not much over $200 for my Optiplex and monitor, it pains me to think about spending $155 on a card, and eventually another $155 on Mach3 (the latter being anticipated...) Heck, I've got an older tower that I could use, but like you I wanted the smaller form factor. I wished I had read your post before getting the Optiplex!

I'll give the Optiplex another hour or so, then see if I can't switch to my old tower. A SmoothStepper sounds like a viable solution, but my funds for this project are limited..

-Jeff

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Setup problem

« on: June 12, 2008, 06:58:26 AM »

Whoops, my bad - I did mean parallel cable. I'll be happy to provide any other details, but as far as hardware there's not much more to it:
Dell Optiplex desktop (2.something GHz... not a speed demon but certainly capable)
Windoze XP
Parallel cable to stepper drivers
3X stepper drivers - Camtronics design, I put them together from kits
Drivers to Sanyo Denki steppers
Steppers attached to ballscrews on my own Mill/Drill conversion

I watched the video and assigned the correct Parallel port address (the default was OK) and Step and Direction pinouts for the parallel cable. These settings matched those in CNCpro. All ports for X Y and Z axis were set to "1"

As you said, the program looks highly configurable, so there's probably more I can set up, but I'm not having any luck yet. The fact that I get "something" from the Z-axis tells me that at least it's getting signals from the driver, I'm guessing I just need to tune the parameters to make it work correctly. Still though, with the exact same hardware, it's odd that X and Y don't work. In fact, if I plug the X motor into the Z driver, the X works fine.

3

General Mach Discussion / Setup problem

« on: June 12, 2008, 01:05:12 AM »

Hi All,

I've searched the threads but haven't found a similar situation to what I'm encountering.

For the last 7 years or so I've been using CNCPro on an ancient laptop to drive my Dan Mouch Camtronics stepper controllers. I decided to upgrade to a real desktop so I could do CAD and CAM on the same machine.

I downloaded the Mach3 demo and set up the ports just as they were set up in CNCpro. I also went to Motor Control and set up the correct number of steps to match the CNCpro setup info. What I end up with is a Z-axis that works... kind of... sometimes..., and no X or Y axis. When I plug the serial cable back into my laptop, everything works fine.

One thing I noticed in the CNCpro settings was a setting for X Y and Z Positive Direction, either HIGH or LOW. I couldn't find an analog in Mach3... am I missing something? Also, why does only my Z axis work (very "chatter"y, but I think I can even out the motor via the settings) and I get nothing from X and Y? I've double checked my port assignments and they're all OK.

I must be missing something... any thoughts? I really want this to work... looks like a great CAM solution for my small hobby shop.

Thanks,
Jeff