Messages

1001

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper Motors Heating Up

« on: September 13, 2009, 10:55:38 AM »

Thanks MechanoMan,

Thanks for your explanation on the stepper motors. I'm just trying some of the programs in the wizard of Mach 3 trying to understand how to write or modify the wizard programs. I'm a complete newbie so I need all the help I can get. There are so many questions I could ask now but I'll play with what I have for a while before bothering the forum here until I understand the code better. But I do have one question that you touched on briefly in your reply to my overheating question.

As far as I understand G54 is a command that I place in my program after I set the  home position for that command. Please correct me if I'm wrong but this is how I'm setting the G54:

I open the MDI Alt2 screen in Mach 3.
(jog mode in constant) Jog the work piece in the vice so the 1/4'' end mill is just above the work piece (block of wood for now) then (jog mode in step) jog down to approximently 2 thousands above the work piece using a piece of paper then zero out the Z axis.

Do the same with the end mill at the bottom left of the work piece on the X and Y axis's and using the paper then enter -.125 for both the X and Y axis's.

Then enter into the INPUT command line G54 and enter.
Then I enter G00 X0 Y0 and enter and the table moves to the home position which seems to work ok.

Now when I turn off Mach 3 and the controller and turn them back on at a later time it looses the home position. I thought it should remember the home position. I am also placing G54 in the beginning of my programs. Do I have to set the home position each and every time I turn on the Mach 3 program and controller?

Any comments about that?

Thanks in advance
jessey
 

I'm not sure you're description is quite right, as I can't see it behaving the way you describe.  When using fixtures, you want to select the fixture, then set your zeroes IN that fixture.  So, if you want to use G55, move the machine to your zero position, select G55, *then* zero your DROs.

When Mach exits, it will save all current fixture offsets, if you tell it to.  G54, however, is treated differently.  The G54 offsets are not saved.  Why this is, I do not know.  However, there is an option, in Config->GeneralConfig to load the G54 offsets from G59.253 on startup.  I get around this two ways:  Either don't use G54, or, before exiting Mach, move the machine to 0,0 in G54.  Then, when I restart, just re-zero the DROs before moving the machine.  If using steppers, you may be off by a few microsteps.  Generally, though, I just use G55-59.

Regards,
Ray L.

1002

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool probe strange behavior.

« on: September 12, 2009, 04:30:09 PM »

Ray why does it seem that you are tryng to discourage bug reports???

Not knowing the internals of MACH how is the average user suppose to determene if it is code or bug???

Best to just let them report what they see and let others determene bug or code.

Seems to me the code should work the same way EVRY time IF not then there may be a problem.

There are plenty of bugs still there TIME to flush them out and sqiesh them.

(;-) TP

Terry,

I'm not trying to "discourage bug reports".  I've been doing software SQA for 30 years.  Anyone who has ever done software QA can tell you that 99% of all "bugs" reported by users are not bugs at all, but operator error, or a failure to RTFM.  It does not help Brian, in fact it does him a great dis-service, to file a bug report every time a user finds something that doesn't work as he expects, as *somebody* will have to spend time reading, categorizing, investigating, testing, etc., etc., and the *somebody* is most likely Brian.  We should endeavor to not pass anything along to him until we've done our own due-diligence, and made sure, to the extent we can, it's not *our* problem.  A process should be undertaken to try to *prove* that the behavior is a) reproducible, and b) has at least a reasonable probability of being an actual bug.  When it comes to macros, and it seems probing macros are about the peskiest of the bunch, we should be doubly, even triply suspicious that it is a macro problem, and NOT a Mach3 bug.  *If* nobody here is able to talk him through the problem, then perhaps it makes sense to report it as a possible bug.  The first step has been taken - he's posted his macro code, so somebody can look through it for problems, and hopefully give him some things to try to at least narrow down where the bug is, if there is one (which, personally, I very much doubt in this case).  What he describes is quite egregious, so the odds of it being an actual bug are very slim, considering how many people are performing the same operations on a continual basis with no similar problems.

Of course, I'm also totally baffled by the whole concept of probing at 75IPM.  That sounds like a terrible idea....

Regards,
Ray L.

1003

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tool probe strange behavior.

« on: September 11, 2009, 12:07:54 PM »

Guys PLEASE take the time to fill out a BUG report on this issue.

Thanks (;-) TP

AFTER there's reason to believe it's an actual bug!  Right now, it's FAR more likely a bug in the probing macros being used....

Regards,
Ray L.

1004

VB and the development of wizards / How To Tell When A G-Code Program Is Running?

« on: September 10, 2009, 12:17:29 AM »

How can you tell, in a VB script, if a g-code program is currently running?

Regards,
Ray L.

1005

General Mach Discussion / Re: limited lines query

« on: September 07, 2009, 07:05:52 PM »

I would assume 10 lines executed 10,000,000 times would be just fine.  The limitation is due to memory constraints, due to internal data structures, and perhaps limitations in the G-code parser.  A 10-line program would have a tiny parse tree representation.

Regards,
Ray L.

1006

General Mach Discussion / Re: jogging off limits not working for me.

« on: September 07, 2009, 04:05:19 PM »

Hi,

I have connected all limit switches in series with e-stop. I have Automatic overide on and when I hit a limit, I cannot jog off the limit.

I have all limits energizing a relay back at the control. (G540) then locally wiring into e-stop. The limits are working and dropping the relays. I have no noise issues. I never get an e-stop until I hit my E-stop button or limit switches.

Any ideas?

I am still using trial Mach3. Is this the issue? I plan on buying Mach3 once I figure I can get everything working on my machine.

Thanks,

Bob

Do you literally have limits and E-Stop connected together?  If so, this is unnecessary at best, and undesirable at worst.  Mach will stop *all* axes as soon as *any* limit is triggered.  Once you trigger a limit, can you get Mach out of E-Stop?  If not, you won't be able to jog off the limit.  The series-connected limit switches should be connected to an input, and that input should be configured in Config->Ports&Pins for ALL limits.

Regards,
Ray L.

1007

General Mach Discussion / Re: MACH3 is reassigning motor pins by himself

« on: September 06, 2009, 04:40:04 PM »

Thank you for answering.

I tryed several times this routine, with saving, exiting, reinstalling,
I even tryed to install older versions of MACH3, it has no effect.
After around 8000 lines it looses the pin assignment.
I thought that others may have encountered the same problem and solved it.

Is the XML actually changing, or just the setting within Mach?  Try setting the pins correctly, saving the XML, then make the XML read-only, so it CAN'T change.  This could indicate a memory problem with your PC.  Are you running any plug-ins or macros that might be corrupting memory?  What version of Mach are you running?  ON what kind of PC?

Regards,
Ray L.

1008

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper Motors Heating Up

« on: September 03, 2009, 01:34:46 AM »

Hello Everyone,

We've had our MicroMill DSLS 3000 System with Mach 3 for a couple of months now and I was wondering if someone could come up with a solution to prevent the stepper motors from heating up while the controller is on and not running a program?

After running a program we have to shut off the controller otherwise the steppers motors heat up (actually get quite hot in not too long of a time) which is probably because the stepper motors are in a holding position? Is there a M or Gcode command that I could place at the end of the program to release this holding torque and thus prevent the over heating problem?

I'm just assuming that's what causing the overheating of the stepper motors so please correct me if I'm wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance...
jessey

There is a big difference between getting hot and "overheating".  Stepper motors DO get hot.  That is a fact of life.  But they are designed to handle it.  Most are rated for 85C.  So if they're not getting hotter than that (and I bet they're nowhere near that), then they're fine.

Regards,
Ray L.

1009

General Mach Discussion / Re: Do i need a bigger pc for mach..

« on: September 02, 2009, 09:54:01 PM »

RAY if you do not have the MEM for mach to load the file into RAM windows will start spooling mem off to disk and that makes MACH choppy.

(;-) TP

Terry,

So you're saying that statement on the ArtSoft download page is wrong??  If so, shouldn't somebody fix it??

1010

General Mach Discussion / Re: Do i need a bigger pc for mach..

« on: September 02, 2009, 06:20:23 PM »

From the Mach3 download page:  "Mach3 has a limit of 10,000,000 lines of Gcode even after licensing"

Regards,
Ray L.