Messages

51

General Mach Discussion / Re: Motor Tuning Math

« on: December 14, 2015, 02:50:58 AM »

Let's try and simplify the maths a bit.

Thread pitch = 2.5mm so one turn of the leadscrew means you move 2.5mm.

1.8 degrees per step is 200 steps per revolution.

So 200 steps divided by 2.5mm = 80 steps per mm so we've both come to the same answer on that one.

Check your stepper drive settings. 640 steps/mm would mean your drive has to have the microstepping set to 8.
(My Gecko drives are set to microstepping of 10 so instead of 200 steps per revolution I get 2000 steps per revolution).

If your stepper drives do have there microstepping set at 8 then yes you have 8 times as many steps per revolution BUT from what I have read you cannot rely on those microsteps for accuracy, i.e. they may not yield exact physical movements of 1/8th of a normal full step movement. Like I say that's just what I've read. If that is true and excellent accuracy is required you may be better off gearing things down instead.

Hope that helps, I rushed it all because I'm in a hurry to do something.

Keith.

52

General Mach Discussion / Re: setting up a new xp system for Mach3

« on: November 23, 2015, 08:55:45 PM »

so just asking, is there a way to convert the PC to standard or do I need to format and reinstall windows to follow the list of optimizing?

I always do it when fresh installing (I always fresh install when I obtain a PC). When installing XP you'll get a message comes up something along the lines of "Press F6 to install a 3rd party...................." You press F5 instead and it will soon take you to where you can select "Standard PC". You have to scroll up until you get to "Standard PC".

I recently had a PC that would not work with Standard PC mode, it just froze. Of course it was a Dell, which I hate, and have had many problems with due to their proprietary nature.

Keith.

53

General Mach Discussion / Re: setting up a new xp system for Mach3

« on: November 20, 2015, 03:55:00 PM »

I personally go silly with killing whatever I can on my PC. My motto is if it's not needed then kill it.

Regarding XP SP2 someone once swore that he had tested SP1, 2, & 3 and 2 was the ONLY one that didn't give some random issue. Now I believe his system was one of the older Candcnc plasma systems (MP3000-DTHC) which have a plugin written for Mach3, so whether the issues were related to the plugin or Mach3 itself I have no idea.

You need to install XP in "Standard PC" mode. This is detailed in the "XP Optimisation" guide which I believe is available from the Mach site. Search for "optimization" on this site or even Google Mach3 XP optimisation and you might come across it. It's normally a .txt file.

I disable anything in the bios that I think is not needed.

No other programs running or installed, the PC is a machine controller. I uninstall any XP programs like Internet Explorer, etc. My ethernet is disabled.

I even go into "services.msc" and turn off & disable a whole bunch of things that are just XP crap and are not needed. Google about disabling XP services and use your own judgement about what you think you can turn off. I'm no expert so don't want to recommend things in that area.

I hear all sorts of stories about how Mach can be happily chugging away for hours / days then capow it suddenly goes wonky and smashes a tool. Was that some service running in the background that caused it, no idea, but the less things there are running the less chance of one interrupting the program flow.

This is what I personally do and no-one has recommended I do this, it's just a calculated guess I made that maybe this will make Mach3 more stable.

I've occasionally found a PC that just doesn't work with Mach3, no matter what I do. I seem to have had best luck with Intel motherboards and quite a few of those have gave me a good driver test right up to 100Khz.

Keith.

54

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 or Mach ?

« on: November 01, 2015, 05:14:04 PM »

Gary,

first set in your mind that this will take time to learn. Take it one step at a time.

I've only used Mach3 but what I'd suggest is look at the training material, videos, etc available for both. For me that has always been the battle. Software is no good without knowing how to use it. Last time I looked there seemed to be more training materials for Mach3 than Mach4 but Mach3 is getting old and requires either a PC with a parallel port and XP (some have had success with Windows 7), or an external motion controller board (UC300-LPT or Smoothstepper).

Take a look at other options too like UCcnc + UC300-LPT, by Cncdrive.com

As for what TP said, I couldn't agree more. I haunt another forum and get very irritated by how many "button pushers" there are. They seem to have a strong refusal to learn and understand gcode. As a matter of fact I just got tired of suggesting single stepping through gcode as a troubleshooting method, because it fell on deaf ears most of the time. Point is understanding the gcode is a very powerful tool. I'm not genius at it but I learnt what I needed to make life a lot easier for me.

Keith.

55

General Mach Discussion / Re: Create hard disk image in a different PC ???

« on: October 16, 2015, 12:36:23 PM »

Thanks very much guys, I'll check them out.

Keith.

56

General Mach Discussion / Re: new guy

« on: October 15, 2015, 04:30:28 PM »

And a PDF manual.

57

General Mach Discussion / Re: Create hard disk image in a different PC ???

« on: October 13, 2015, 02:10:00 AM »

using a live linux cd like gparted works great for cloning drives...... it will make an exact duplicate.... one downside is you have to copy to the same size drive or bigger. it will run from the cd and nothing gets installed on the drive. it copys raw data so it doesn't matter what operating system you are copying.

Thanks Patton,

that's an interesting one but it might be a bit expensive LOL. I'm mainly interested in imaging because I can store all the images of all drives in one place.

BUT that gparted could also be useful to clone just one PCs hard drive, the one in current use. That way I'll be back in action in a heartbeat if a replacement drive is ready to swap out.

Keith.

58

General Mach Discussion / Re: Create hard disk image in a different PC ???

« on: October 13, 2015, 02:04:44 AM »

There are some OS that will not let you change the hard drive to another PC without reregistering the OS to the new hardware.

Just a thought, (;-) TP

Cheers Terry,

don't suppose you know off the top of your head if XP is one of those. I'd be happy to dedicated one of my old PCs to just this job.

Keith.

59

General Mach Discussion / Re: Create hard disk image in a different PC ???

« on: October 12, 2015, 03:02:03 PM »

Thanks very much Tweakie, good to know.

Keith.

60

General Mach Discussion / Create hard disk image in a different PC ???

« on: October 12, 2015, 03:16:24 AM »

Yet another PC died on me, and it was the hard disk this time.

Started to go through my spare PCs and found another hard disk had died, maybe they don't like being stored in a cold damp tin shed.

So this has got me wondering about creating hard disk images so I can just write the image to another drive and away I go again.

BUT here's the thing, I want to avoid doing the imaging on my Mach3 computer. I tend to strip XP down to the bone and disable all sorts of services, and I don't want to install any other software.

So is it possible to temporarilly remove the hardrive from the Mach3 PC and install it as a slave drive in my "imaging PC". Then I create the disk image, save it to file, then put the hard drive back in the Mach3 PC.

Likewise if I need to replace the Mach3 hard drive, I put a new drive in my "imaging PC" (as a slave drive), write the image to it, then put it in the Mach3 PC.

Feasible ?

Keith.