Messages

61

General Mach Discussion / Re: How do I switch from Smootstepper to Parallel port????

« on: September 23, 2010, 10:08:06 PM »

I don't know if this matters, but this is a PCIe ECP parallel port. In windows it says it is installed on LPT1 and is working properly, but I think there is a problem here. Another funny thing is I deleted Mach from my control panel, but when I reinstall it all of my ports and pins settings are installed?

62

General Mach Discussion / Re: How do I switch from Smootstepper to Parallel port????

« on: September 23, 2010, 10:01:58 PM »

Thanks Jeff, I checked the box that asks if you want to do this every time on start up. I now have the pp selected. BUT I don't get any movement. I checked my LPT! address which is CC00, I put this in the Port 1 window in Mach, but this seems like a funky port address. When I install Mach it said that I should run the driver test or something like that, but I do not know where to find that.

63

General Mach Discussion / How do I switch from Smootstepper to Parallel port????

« on: September 23, 2010, 09:25:42 PM »

I've had about enough of this smoothstepper, I bought a pp card and I can not get the smoothstepper removed. I have downloaded a fresh install of Mach and it still is looking for the smoothstepper. What a persistant thing this smoothstepper is!

64

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 22, 2010, 10:49:17 PM »

Should be interesting to see what the new motors will do. A motor that dosen't get warm is not doing any work, the more work the motor does the hotter it will get. As long as the motor is operating in a temp range below the rated insulation you should be ok and with age it would be prudent to operate it taking age into consideration. Greater than 140F  you can't hold your hand on it very long and can get burnt. The motor case temp you see is influenced by the how well heat is being removed from it so dirty fins or evan different paint thickness and location can influence it. So relatively small temp changes of say 10 deg diff is subjective for any conclusion.  I have motors on my mill that are  are older than me and work great. don't be suprised if you see a difference in microstepping position as i found different motors required small change in the steps per unit and would attribute that more to the quality of the motor. Let me remark that it's within a roatation or very small moves.
Just some comments on the motor end they are  generalizations.
RICH

I agree with what you said, I think what was happening is there is a very small amount of error that adds up over time. I normally don't run programs that are this long so I never noticed this problem although I am sure it always existed. Now i need to figure out backlash and see if that changes anything.

65

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 22, 2010, 10:24:49 PM »

Success at last! I gues I should get at least two parts finished before I start celebrating. It appears that the motor change has made a difference. My finished part is not perfect, but it does fall with + - .005 tolerance. I probably need to check the backlash and see how bad that is. I might try to slow my finishing cuts down a little also. Thanks to everybody who has helped and especially to Hood.

66

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 22, 2010, 05:44:37 PM »

Motors are installed and we are making chips. Hopefully my next report will be of a completed part.

67

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 22, 2010, 12:26:46 AM »

Well another scrapped part, just like the others, off in the Y axis. I don't know if it will make a difference but I picked up to new steppers today. Tomorrow I will see if this solves the problem, if it doesn't then I'll start to look elsewhere. One thing that I discovered by accident is last night I accidently left my machine on, this morning I checked the temperature of the stepper motors, the x motor was 96 degrees, the y was 126 degrees. I didn't even think of checking the z motor. It only reaches 96 degrees when running.


Hood, what IPM do you cut with on your BP?

68

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 20, 2010, 10:57:40 PM »

Well I ran a few different programs to see if I can replicate a lost move, but I failed. I Well I ran a few different programs to see if I can replicate a lost move, but I failed. I am cutting a part at a much slower IPM to see if that will show anything. One thing I am doing is I am keeping track of the temperature of my motors. So far the x and y motors have gotten up to 135 degrees each. The y motor retains heat longer, I had to run an errand and when I came back the toolpath had finished, the x moltor was 109 degrees and the y was 123 degrees. I don't know if maybe there is a breakdown in the one motor when it gets hot? Right now I'm running at 3 IPM, the x motor is 106 degrees and the y is 124 degrees.

69

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 20, 2010, 06:37:08 PM »

I don't know what you mean by start and finish in the same direction. Well I haven't been able to get my machine to act up again. I know that .0008 isn't much, but that was in a 5 minute program, I thought in a longer program it might compound. I am now trying to run a pocketing program and see if I can get any errors. At this time I haven't made any progress, I think I will slow down my feeds and try running another part and see what happens. I don't have a whole lot to loose at the moment.

Is this forum running slow today?

70

General Mach Discussion / Re: Loosing steps or backlash

« on: September 20, 2010, 04:37:27 PM »

I just ran a few test programs, on the last program I noticed that when the machine came back to 0,0 it was off by .0008 in the y axis. I am running another test under the same settings to see if this happens again.