Messages

931

General Mach Discussion / Anyone here installed an Anilam Quill Drive?

« on: October 20, 2009, 08:37:09 PM »

I'm trying to get some information on how the Anilam quill drive installs.  If you have one, or you've ever installed one, please speak up!

Regards,
Ray L.

932

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach memory cache annoyance

« on: October 20, 2009, 03:31:12 PM »

Well it appears to be one in the same problem that others have alreay reported i.e. the toolpath display is not always correct and needs to be refreshed.
us
I guess some refresh as a matter of normal operation (presumably becuse they see it doesn't look right) and don't think twice about the fact that it  should not be wrong in the first place.

I guess I'm just ponting out that the toolpath display is incorrect quite often.
We can all just keep pressing the button and be done with it or we can request that the programmer have a look and possibly fix a simple oversite such as forcing a refresh everytime the toopath display is activated.

Just trying to make suggestions for improvement here.

(I don't suppose anyone is compiling a list of the little bugs that get noticed from time to time ?? )

Sage

Given the massive changes being made to the basic structure of the code for the up-coming v4 release, in particular the de-coupling of the display code from the main motion code, this problem has, in all probability, already been fixed.

Regards,
Ray L.

933

General Mach Discussion / Re: Edit Button -- Code for Jog Speed?

« on: October 19, 2009, 10:29:17 PM »

Sweet, that worked, I think originally when I tried what you said I forgot the 'call' part as I overlooked it as part of your sentence. What does the number '3' reperesent in your example? I already got it working, just curious. Thanks.

Actually, the "call" is optional - a vestige of (very) old-style Basic.

Regards,
Ray L

934

General Mach Discussion / Re: minimum PC requirements for Mach3

« on: October 19, 2009, 06:54:47 PM »

Is there a list of required windows components that are required by Mach3?  I know about the optimization list but would like to go all the way with Nlite and make a 'perfect' XP or 2000 installation that will give maximum performance on my 'old' hardware.
Steve

What do you hope to gain by this?  Just following the optimization instructions will get you down to a pretty bare-bones system with very low overhead (typically 1-2%).  Going beyond that is not going to give you any measurable, much less perceptible, benefit.

Regards,
Ray L.

What can be gained is a whole lot less 'crap' running that we don't need.  I can easily get windows 2000 to a 65 meg footprint.  This runs very nicely on a modest under 1 gig processor with 512 meg or ram.  This will boot up in about 15 seconds.  Nlite allows you to remove IE and Outlook express plus a ton of other crap - IE and Outlook are big security leaks and we are better off without them (they also take up ram even when not in use.)  I will happily post a data file that Nlite can use so users can create an optimum version of 2000 and XP once I figure out what can be killed.
Steve

That may all make you feel better, but in terms of actual performance, it'll make no measurable difference whatsoever.  Perhaps it'll free up a few Megs of RAM, but that too will not map into any measurable increase in performance.  IE and Outlook security?  They're perfectly secure as long as you don't USE them.  Having services loaded that are not used costs essentially nothing - they'll be swapped out if memory is tight, and they'll be using no measurable CPU, since they're be forever asleep, unless you actually use them.  Doing all that work won't make Mach3 run one tiny bit better or faster.

Regards,
Ray L.

935

General Mach Discussion / Re: Spindle Speeds x3cnc

« on: October 19, 2009, 06:41:04 PM »

Good Morning Ray,
There seems to be no backup with these cnc machines, are you able to recommend a board ect that could cure the problem ?
Best Regards,
Melv.

I use a Homann Designs DigiSpeed DC-03, which works wonderfully with my VFD, and is very nicely made and cheap.  But, what works best for you depends on the motor controller you have, and I've never worked on an X3.  I would contact Peter Homann (peter@homanndesigns.com), and ask his advise.

Regards,
Ray L.

936

General Mach Discussion / Re: New Guy with Mach3 install problem

« on: October 19, 2009, 05:30:02 PM »

I tried it, there is no file in my Mach3 folder named drivertest.exe.
Any other possibilities?

Thanks,
Chris

What version are you installing, and where did you get it from?  Drivertest.exe absolutely is part of the install, and if it's not there, then delete the Mach3 directory, re-boot, and re-do the install.

Regards,
Ray L.

937

General Mach Discussion / Re: Does demo Mach 3 do pwm output?

« on: October 19, 2009, 04:41:01 PM »

Ray,

Would you care to share how you use the pwm to control hot wire heat? I have a controller board without documentation. I have managed to get everything working but the pwm output.

Thanks,

I use it for controlling a spindle, not a hotwire, but the configuration is pretty simple - Go to Config->Ports&Pins->SpindleSetup.  Check UseSpindleMotorOutput and PWMControl, then set the PWM frequency.  Set the min and max speeds for Pulley1 in Config->SpindlePulleys.  In your case, you probably just want to set 0 to 100, so you can control the wire in %.  Then do an "M3 S*********" where ********* is any number between the Min and Max spindle speeds you setup for the pulley, making sure Pulley1 is selected on the Settings age, and it should work.

Regards,
Ray L.

938

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gcode questions pt2

« on: October 19, 2009, 03:55:36 PM »

put the revised # value in square brackets -

#100 =[#100+0.010]

this should work now

Thank you! I wonder how many others besides me puzzled over this one? I vaguely remember years ago dabbling in GW-BASIC and the # declared a double-precision variable, a $ was a string etc.  But arithmetic operations used parentheses not square brackets.
So just out of curiosity, where does the square bracket come from?
al

My guess is parameters and doing arithmetic operations on them, came along after the first version of G-code was created.  Parens could not be used, since they were already allocated to enclosing comments.  So, square brackets were used instead.  I'm sure G-code, like most languages, evolved over time, rather than being all planned out in advance, which always leads to such minor syntactical oddities.

Regards,
Ray L.

939

General Mach Discussion / Re: Does demo Mach 3 do pwm output?

« on: October 19, 2009, 02:43:22 PM »

Never used PWM myself but I am 99.99% sure it is available in the Demo version.
Hood

It abo*********ely is, I've used it.

Regards,
Ray L.

940

General Mach Discussion / Re: minimum PC requirements for Mach3

« on: October 17, 2009, 10:54:35 PM »

Is there a list of required windows components that are required by Mach3?  I know about the optimization list but would like to go all the way with Nlite and make a 'perfect' XP or 2000 installation that will give maximum performance on my 'old' hardware.
Steve

What do you hope to gain by this?  Just following the optimization instructions will get you down to a pretty bare-bones system with very low overhead (typically 1-2%).  Going beyond that is not going to give you any measurable, much less perceptible, benefit.

Regards,
Ray L.