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Messages - sshneider

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251
General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Needs Help!!!
« on: July 24, 2006, 04:35:33 PM »
Aggie,

The enable loop in Mach is just a switch.  It is designed to provide a signal via one of the pins on the DB25 parralell port connector which in turn will either open or close a circuit.  Definition Active High = when the swich is closed the enable circuit is active (this is the way a switch and a lightbulb in your house works- turn the switch to the ON position and the light turns on.  Active Low = when the switch is open the enable circuit is active- this is the oposite of the previous example- when the switch is in the OFF position, the Lightbulb is lit/On.

Mach is just telling the switch to turn on or turn off- it's up to you to then do with that control circuit whatever it is you need to do to enable your drives.

In MY case I need a 5V signal runing to my Driver board to enable my drives/motors.  I have  5V entering a normall open relay and when I click the reset button on Mach, it sends a signal via the parallel port pin to the relay, closes the relay and allows that 5V to go to the Driver board.  When the Driver board sees the 5V it will then energize and accept commands from the M3 program and start turning the motors.  In YOUR case it sounds like you need a GROUND to enable your drives.  Hopefully from this description you can figure out how to do the wiring so by clciking the reset button it will close a switch (relay) which will then pass the ground through to your driver/interface board.

I hope that makes sense- it is hard to talk about wiring with words-

Sid

252
General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Needs Help!!!
« on: July 24, 2006, 10:33:49 AM »
Can you jog your motors?  I thoughyt you said you could.  Have you loaded your G-code by going to the "Program Run Screen" and then clicked the "Cycle Start Button"?

The red Enable 1 LED should not be a problem, it is just a red LED (instead of a green LED).  It shows the same thing as the reset button (i.e. when the reset button blinks the enable 1 LED should NOT be lit, when the Reset button is Steady, the enable 1 LED SHOULD be lit up RED).  When the machine is enabled, MACH will respond to MOVEMENT commands when disabled it will not.  BTW- active low is not really a normal way to configure the enable pin- who set it that way?  Manufactureres recco,emdation?


Furthermore, this enabled status can be connected to an output pin in the DB25 connector in order to energize/deenergize other peices of equipment (i.e. the driver boards which control the motors)

This enable is like the main circuit breaker on your house with a remote control.  It is a switch that shuts off all the subsystems.  How you implement this 'switching is kinda up to you.

Most ppl  define a pin which will carry this enable signal and connect it to their driver board.  That way, when you push the reset button, the computer will no longer respond to movement command requests and your driver boards will also deenergize creating a safe "parked" situation in which to do something like (load a new part on the table for cutting or maybe change the cutter on your router).

The pin configuation in the mach manual doesn't have anything to do with your machine, it is just an example.  Every user must configure Mach to work with the driver boards they are using.  YOU need to tell mach what pins are controlling what axis as defined by your driver board.  This info usually comes in the manual of your machine/driver board

253
General Mach Discussion / Re: Newbie Needs Help!!!
« on: July 24, 2006, 01:24:38 AM »
When the reset button is blinking the machine (computer) is not enabled therefore the drives should not be enabled.  I beleive this is a safety feature.  HTH

Regards,
Sid

254
LazyCam (Beta) / Re: Can Lazycam be used to carve text?
« on: July 17, 2006, 08:49:46 PM »
I had trouble with this also...  I did a search on the web (I think I typed TTF to .dxf and I also tried .jpg to .dxf)  I found this ..

http://home.carolina.rr.com/gcodemcode/ttftodxf.htm

I also wanted to do some fubky curved things to text in my Graphics programs.  I saved as .jpg and converted with http://www.img2cad.com/

both of those will get you into .dxf format which will get you into Lazycam (or another .dxf to g-code converter)

HTH  Good Luck!

Sid

255
General Mach Discussion / Re: motor tuning stepper motors
« on: July 04, 2006, 01:27:01 PM »
Maybe your Geckos are set to 1/2 step mode?  I don't have Geckos but I understand there are DIP switches somewhere that set the mode.

You also might want to try using the Axis Calibration feature on the settings page- it works good.  After you have your steps per set, then you can mess around with velocity and acceleration till you get max speed without missing steps.

HTH,
Sid

256
Tangent Corner / Re: First past 1000 ( Congrats and thanks to Brian )
« on: June 26, 2006, 01:27:11 AM »
Just saw this thread today ...

I'll 2nd that- THANKS BRIAN!!!

257
General Mach Discussion / Re: which Breakout Board
« on: June 26, 2006, 01:16:56 AM »
Just a shot in the dark here but this almost sounds like a bad motor wire connection.  Might be worth looking at all your solder joints?

HTH,
Sid

259
Hood,

That's friggin' brilliant!  How in the heck did you figure that out?  Experimentation?  or is that documented somewhere?  I had no idea.  Nice to learn something new!  Thanks!

Regards,

Sid

260
General Mach Discussion / Re: Limits HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
« on: June 11, 2006, 11:46:21 AM »
Billyjack,

Good advice from both Graham and Hood but, in case you are still stuck...  try this

http://www.machsupport.com/videos.htm

There is an excellent video tutorial on Homing and limits.  23 mins of your time and I think you'll be good2go.

Regards,
Sid

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