Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / thc delay oem code 177

« on: March 12, 2013, 02:25:06 PM »

 has anyone gotten  oem code 177   to work? i have been trying it out with a dro on my screenset with version 066.  could not get any torch height control delay. have tried version 022 without any success either.

2

General Mach Discussion / add 50% jog speed button to screen

« on: December 12, 2012, 08:50:01 PM »

hi all. has anyone added a button to the main screen to  make the jog speed slow to 50%? like click on the button and the dro for the jog speed would be set to 50%. another button to return to 100%. i change it often for manually parting off leftover sections of sheet with the plasma.

3

General Mach Discussion / pulse frequency dro erratic

« on: March 09, 2012, 10:27:01 PM »

i have been using foxconn d425 atom motherboard with 1.8 gz , onboard video  and 1 g ram for the last 2 years with mach3 running a plasma cutter. always had good pulse frequency showing in the dro on the diagnostics page. had a hard drive crash so decided  with a solid state 64 gig drive. with ease i installed xp with sp3, mach , my license file and that little nugget of gold, the backup xml .  the pulse frequency is  bouncing up and down from 1 to 68 back to 1 to 100 sometimes to 24350. tried the special driver, no change. reinstalled xp  no change. drivers are all updated. have decrapped xp as to the optimising instructions and using standard pc.  the motors wont turn.
tried different versions of mach. tried .58, .22 still nothing. driver test shows excellent with mostly a flat line .i've been a user of mach since 2007 so thought i knew my way around.  its driving me nucking futs! before i get out the BFH, is there something i am missing?

4

General Mach Discussion / random ramping to a stop .

« on: October 25, 2011, 12:04:01 PM »

i have a problem with mach randomly ramping to a stop in the middle of a gcode file. i cut panels 144x30 with holes and slots cut out. no problems with the holes but when the outside of the panel is cutting, mach will ramp to a stop randomly 4 - 5 times. i have changed the look ahead numbers but did not help. this is on a plasma cutter.cut speed 200 ipm. i tried turning off preview . did not help.

running out of memory? no other apps running besides mach and xp.

5

General Mach Discussion / plasma probing routine

« on: April 07, 2011, 09:19:00 PM »

i cut a lot of hr steel , mostly 12 ga. to 16 ga. multiple parts nested to use all of sheet, sheet sizes 144x72. i have the z jog to +3 before moving to the next cut. then jog to +.5 to begin the probe for surface before firing the torch. it all works well except if the next cut is at a buckled area of the sheet. sometimes the sheet will oilcan up as much as 1 ". during the probing routine the torch will touch the sheet before it has moved to the commanded position of .5 above the sheet.when this happens mach goes into a loop and
stops movement. what i would like to happen is the torch is moving down rapidly, if encounters the sheet before .5 " retract 1 " and then attempt to probe again. is this possible? anyone tried it? would it require a brain, or a macropump?

6

PoKeys / problems with latest software

« on: February 20, 2011, 08:43:16 PM »

i am using the latest software and firmware to setup my mill control panel. using screen 4 , i created my own hotkeys and have setup and loaded into the pokeys. this is where the problem starts. something is causing my keyboard to stop functioning. trying to click on a desktop shortcut just brings up shortcut properties. trying to start the pokeys software and changing the configuration , cannot access the menu. have to start in safe mode and system restore. have tried reinstalling the pokeys software same thing. i did a lathe panel like this 1 year ago with no problems. none of the switches is in the closed position.all have signal inverted. 

7

SmoothStepper USB / smoothstepper install triggers error in mach

« on: March 01, 2010, 08:29:28 PM »

today i decided to install a smoothstepper on my hardinge chnc 3 . reading others success with threading with the smoothstepper vs the parallel port . installed the ss and the driver . installed the latest ss plugin. in mach 3 loader , created a new profile (smoothstepper)
and cloned from my previous mach3turn settings. start mach, open configure plugins, check the ss plugin. under plugin control, the ss plugin menu is not there. so thought, mach3 needs to be restarted. close mach3 and get" mach error 99991 ". mach crashes. completely reinstall mach3 version 38. install plugin. clone from mach3turn. repeat the above. mach gives error message and crashes.if i do not clone the machturn profile, then the plugin is there. but all the port and pin settings are not. any solutions anybody, besides going thru  my previous mach port and pin settings and writing them all down.

8

General Mach Discussion / threading success with mach turn today.

« on: February 18, 2010, 09:22:56 PM »

i have been trying to eliminate threading  problems for a few months now.probably ran 100 test pieces , from 1/2" to 5", different pitches and depths, different versions of mach, index settings, ramp and acceleration settings,could not stop the double tracking while threading.about 6-8 passes would be fine then would  lose position. today read a post about editing the 1076 macro, changed false to true, and now excellent threads.   more testing with threads , from .625 hot rolled to 5" dia 12 tpi piece and all were good. question is why does the g32 work and the g76 not , for me anyways ? all my test pieces had the code generated by the mach wizards, and with poppabears quick threads wizard.

9

General Mach Discussion / hiccup with threading x axis

« on: February 05, 2010, 02:53:10 PM »

i have been having trouble with the x axis during threading. version is 3.041 36. machine is hardinge chnc 3 with servos, 500 line encoders, gecko 320 drives. parallel port , cnc4pc breakout boards. am using the cnc4pc index pulse from the spindle. rpm will display from 100 to 2500 . spindle is 7.5 hp drive is allan bradley 1336 impact with encoder feedback to drive.commanded  spindle speed is steady . during threading tests, x axis will make a random hiccup, like jump +- a few thou and then continue to cut thread. position of x is lost. thread is ruined. perhaps bad encoder on the x axis so did test with indicator. ran x for 1 hour back and forth . 0 error. i can turn pieces all day and the hiccup does not happen. only when threading. frustrating.

10

General Mach Discussion / mpg ports and pins

« on: January 14, 2010, 06:25:31 AM »

i have been having problems with mach turn and an mpg. i had a mpg connected to a pokeys , in ports and pins /mpg/ had port 10  pin 1 for A.port 10 pin 2 for B.decided to use pport  instead and so chose port 1 pin 10 for A. port1 pin 11 for B.so i save and works properly. when mach is shut down and restarted, the configuration of the pokeys, port 10 is there.if wont stay changed to port 1.