Messages

1461

General Mach Discussion / Re: Somethings missing......?

« on: September 14, 2010, 04:29:21 AM »

Hi Arnold

I reckon Hood's probably on the money with the parallel port address but here's a handy utility for checking out your parallel port. For example with it running alongside Mach you should see the LED activity as you jog back and forth etc.

http://www.geekhideout.com/downloads/parmon.zip

Cheers

Ian

1462

VB and the development of wizards / Re: How can i activate a signal until a LED turns on?

« on: September 14, 2010, 03:57:34 AM »

Hi Jank - welcome.

Can you explain what it is you actually want the machine to do? i.e. you want to turn a signal ON to do what and you want to turn it off when WHAT happens. Don't worry about code at the moment - let's just get a clear idea of the overall picture.

1463

Tangent Corner / Re: cnczone

« on: September 13, 2010, 12:17:55 PM »

Hmmmmmmmmm. Now you have me thinking....

I changed DNS as I said, after advice, and things seemed better - for a while!
Now I've changed them again - after advice - and I've changed them to - guess what - google public DNS....

Ian

1464

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to recover from power interuption?

« on: September 13, 2010, 09:46:53 AM »

Bivouac - a question for you. Have you tried doing a feedhold whilst your machine is actualy cutting? - just wondering.

Ian

1465

Tangent Corner / Re: cnczone

« on: September 13, 2010, 06:30:14 AM »

Thanks Gerry.

Well it seems like I wasn't entirely correct with my reply to Tweakie when I said I hadn't changed anything. A while back after discussion on my ISP forum I changed DNS servers. It turns out I wasn't very well advised as one of them was openDNS - which I now know to be not the best choice in the world.

Now I've switched to different DNSs and flushed the DNS cache, things generally seem a lot better. The zone is still not the fastest - but a lot better. Early days for a real comparison of before/after but fingers crossed.

Ian

1466

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can Mach3 work on stepper driver with RS232 interface

« on: September 13, 2010, 06:14:18 AM »

Thanks! But how could Mach3 work with XYZ or more than three-axis serveral parallel port drives?

Only two parallel port pins are needed for each motor driver. A "standard" parallel port has 5 inputs and 13 outputs. More than enough to run 3 motors, spindle on/off, dust exctractor, limit switches, home switches etc.

1467

Modbus / Re: Arduino Mega with MACH3

« on: September 11, 2010, 12:13:34 PM »

I've had a bit of a play with this http://sites.google.com/site/jpmzometa/arduino-mbrt - seems to do what it says on the tin.

1468

General Mach Discussion / Re: motor settings

« on: September 11, 2010, 06:04:11 AM »

Can I just add for anyone who's wondering, that uppercase is regarded as SHOUTING and AGGRESSIVE on forums.

Jeff was quite right to respectfully ask for lower case. Good on you Jeff.

1469

General Mach Discussion / Re: How to recover from power interuption?

« on: September 11, 2010, 05:53:13 AM »

What type of home switch is available that can hold to 0.0005 or better?

Note that my scheme above doesn't require the use of the home switches.

How would Mach3 know that the power is off? Would I have to use one of the inputs that are in short supply? Maybe a second parallel port!

That would be my choice.

Is it possible to have the keyboard monitored by Mach3 for some combination of keys? I could fix a solenoid to operate on mains failure?

Not the route I'd personally take.

1470

General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft stop at limit switches

« on: September 11, 2010, 04:34:58 AM »

Nicolas

I (for my own machine) want a ramp for slower deceleration, because at my machine, the "crash" to the dead stop is much softer than the stop made by Mach.

OK - by replacing the word "crash" with deceleration. what you've just said is:
"I (for my own machine) want a ramp for slower deceleration, because at my machine, the deceleration to the dead stop is much softer than the stop made by Mach."

Therefore: why don't you just arrange your limit switches to be triggered towards the end of the deceleration caused by your "dead stop". So "at limit" your machine hits your dead stop - slows down with your "softer" deceleration and then hits the limit when it's almost stopped.

Others want a ramp because for their drive deceleration works faster with a ramp.

Then they're going to get a harder "crash" than at present. Do they understand this?

Ian