Messages

1021

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Customization/Macro Programming Documentation

« on: August 27, 2009, 12:22:48 PM »

HIYA RAY, ARE you far enough along to release a sumary of the VB commands BEFORE you start to write the novel?

Terry,

I've decided to do the "legacy" VB reference first, and I'm probably 1/4-1/3 through it.  I'll release a draft as soon as it's complete - probably 2-3 weeks.

Right now, I'm tearing my hair out trying to make sense of the Modbus functions....

Regards,
Ray L.

1022

General Mach Discussion / Re: Wierd Raggedy Pulsing.....

« on: August 26, 2009, 06:55:31 PM »

A little off the subject as i don't have use any BOB. But sometimes i think they should rename BOB to mean
BAD OPTIONAL BOARD.   
RICH

Rich,

I agree.  This was has been nothing but grief.  I've had to modify it just to make it work as it should.  Then I had to modify it again, to make it work with the SmoothStepper.  Now I'll have to un-modify to work without the SmoothStepper.  I just built up a new E-Box, and used two of Peter Homanns nice, simple buffered BOBs.  They just work, and the're dirt cheap.  And his spindle speed controller works about 1000X better than the one on this BOB ever has - very linear, and very accurate at all speeds.  This other one, there were whole days it just wouldn't work, and I had to just find something else to do, since it's kinda hard to do much milling if the spindle don't spin.

Regards,
Ray L.

1023

General Mach Discussion / Re: Wierd Raggedy Pulsing.....

« on: August 26, 2009, 05:42:26 PM »

Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this point - It was a  BOB problem, just the latest of many.  It's working now.

Regards,
Ray L.

1024

General Mach Discussion / Re: Wierd Raggedy Pulsing.....

« on: August 26, 2009, 04:57:02 PM »

Ray, dumb question but is it possible it's the X and Y axis on the machine that's sticking since it's been sitting?

Dave

Dave,

No, they turn very smoothly and easily.

Regards,
Ray L.

1025

General Mach Discussion / Wierd Raggedy Pulsing.....

« on: August 26, 2009, 04:41:39 PM »

This morming I decided to finally get off my lazy butt and ressurrect my old X2 CNC, to use for drilling and tapping.  I grabbed the old E-box off that was on my knee mill until a couple of weeks ago, and the old PC that was running the knee mill until a couple of months ago, installed some G201s, and connected everything up.  After re-configuring Mach, and installing the same version I've been using for months (3.042.020), it's working.  Well, sorta....  kinda....  The Z axis works fine, nice and smooth and fast.  But X and Y are *really* ragged, and very slow.  Funny thing is, they're all running on the same parallel port!  I looked at the pulse timing on Z, and the pulses are nice and consistent, and pretty evenly spaced.  On X and Y, they're all over the place!  How can that be?

I ran DriverTest, and, despite the fact that this is a lowly 540MHz machine, DriverTest says it's excellent, even at 45kHz, though I'm only running 25kHz.  I ran this machine for years on both the X2 and then the knee mill, and it always performed very well, and I never had a single problem that was positively pinned on the low CPU speed (though it is a dual CPU machine).

I also tried moving to a different printer port (I have 3), and they were no better.

So, how can I get good pulsing on Z, and lousy pulsing on X and Y??

Regards,
Ray L.

1026

General Mach Discussion / Re: When will Next Release of Mach be Available?

« on: August 26, 2009, 03:06:13 PM »

I do probing in all three axes about a hundred times a day, and it works perfectly.  I'm using 3.042.020, which has proven reasonably stable over the last 6+ months, and the "ogb" plug-in.  You might want to give that version a try.  It is, for reasons I do not understand, sometimes seemingly necessary to put a Sleep(100) in your macro after writing a DRO, and before doing anything that depends on having the DRO updated.  But I don't believe there's any problem with the SS itself.  I have never once had a problem with probing, since using the above combination of code versions.

Regards,
Ray L.

1027

General Mach Discussion / Re: When will Next Release of Mach be Available?

« on: August 26, 2009, 02:58:56 PM »

Perhaps there is no specific timeline, but does anyone have a rough idea of when the next release of Mach will be available?  Will it be Mach4? I am having some issues with a SmoothStepper and Mach and I hope a new release will address the issue.

Thanks,
Kent

It'll likely be at least a couple of months.  Brian is making a LOT of changes, all very much for the better.  Much of the most critical, core code has been completely re-written, and a lot of new stuff is yet to be added.  It will be Mach3 v4, but it will be a very different, and greatly improved, animal from the existing Mach3.

I hear Greg is also working on a new SS plug-in, to resolve the few remaining issues.  In addition to fixing the few, rare, remaining synch issues, I understand he will also be enabling FRO over 100%, and a number of other nice new features.  I believe either he, or perhaps it was Brian, made a post on the Yahoo group in the last week listing some of the changes.

Regasrds,
Ray L.

1028

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle is turn on when using touch plate or probe

« on: August 26, 2009, 11:25:41 AM »

Oooh!  That's not good!  Sure won't do your touchplate any good!  That's got to be a wiring or grounding problem.  Not likely anyone here can do much to help find it.  You need to very carefully double-check your wiring and grounding.  It is especially important that all grounds tie back to a single point.  Never daisy-chain grounds!  Put a voltmeter on the control input of the SSR, and see what it does when you ground the touchplate.  It should be at 0V and stay there, but I think you'll see it is jumping up.

Regards,
Ray L.

1029

General Mach Discussion / Re: Go To Zero

« on: August 25, 2009, 09:05:27 AM »

GoToZero does not "home" the machine, it simply sends all axes to work coordinates 0.0000.  RefAllHome homes the machine.

Regards,
Ray L.

1030

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 Customization/Macro Programming Documentation

« on: August 25, 2009, 12:52:06 AM »

I think it is use to sync the homing on the slave axis.  What do you need to know?

(;-) TP

Terry,

I'd like to know *exactly* what it does.  My impression is it causes the slave axis to move step-for-step with the master axis.  But, isn't that what it would do anyway?  And what happens when that function is turned off?  How does the motion change?

Regards,
Ray L.