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General Mach Discussion / Can't get 4th Axis to Work

« on: March 07, 2015, 10:18:34 PM »

Hello All,
I've recently added a 4th axis (rotary table with stepper motor) to my mill and cannot get it to work right for the life of me. I've searched and read every thread that had to do with 4th axis setups and despite all the good info and screen shots, am coming up empty handed. It's an X3 mill using Gecko G540. Axis of rotation is parallel to X.

Problems are:
1. Steps per inches or degrees. I can manually type G0 A90 etc and the rotab will rotate 90 degrees, and can always go back to zero.
When I run a file (CNC Wrapper, Cambam Wrapper Plugin, or GCode Ripper) I get a mess of lines all stacked up on top of each other. The axis suddenly seems to switch to linear, the Gcode will call for A18 and the axis will spin round and round (1.898" diameter PVC pipe) until it gets there. The original DXF was drawn to the size based on what the calculator in CNC Wrapper told me I needed for a 30 degree wrap.

2. After running a failed file, when I hit Go To Zero, the other axes are ok but the rotab only moves a few degrees and stops somewhere which was not the original zero point I started with.

I used 200x10x72 / 360=400 which got the steps right for manual gcode entry and also tried 200x10x72 / 3.142 which I've also seen posted here as a suggestion, which is correct?

3. I can't remember if I fixed this or not, but at one point, the rotation was only going in one direction despite the Gcode for A going low to high to low again.


Settings:
Config Screen
all 3 Rotational boxes are unchecked
A is Angular is checked

Toolpath Configuration
X-axis
A-Rotations enabled
User Radius for feedrate
all checked

Settings Tab F6
I tried the diameter and radius in the Rotation Diameter DRO with no luck

Ports and Pins
Also tried checking the Emulated box for Input Signals for the Z-- row

Any help is greatly appreciated!

2

General Mach Discussion / 4th axis/spindle swapaxis confusion

« on: October 09, 2012, 01:39:56 AM »

Hi everyone,
Trying to figure out how to do the whole "setup A axis as a spindle and use swapaxis back and forth" thing with a stepper. Been searching for days...

The first thing that confuses me is the wiring/setup, I have my 4th axis stepper wired up and can rotate it via g-code, hotkey, etc. But I cannot get it to act as a spindle. M3 S********* in the MDI code line does nothing.

In Mach, I have set up the A axis as pins 8 and 9. I changed the spindle pins to 8 and 9 as well. I used a simple g-code to confirm X,Y,Z,A movements. I then added the macros posted by another user here to call and reset the swapaxis functions of Mach 3.

I also added M3 S********* to the code and I see the spindle rpms (on screen) ramp up and then immediately back to 0, can't figure out how to keep it spinning for a longer duration. Also, at the end of the code, if I have an A movement command after the swapaxis has re-set, my Z axis moves. However, it moves according to the A axis commands and the 4th axis DRO numbers move with it. I checked in ports and pins and saw my spindle numbers were now 6 and 7, same as the Z axis...

I have a Gecko G540, Mach 3 Version R3.042.033, X3 deluxe CNC setup.
My config based on my searches here.

Toolpath Configuration
Axis of rotation=X, A-Rotations Enabled box and Use Radius for Feedrate is checked

Spindle Setup
Use spindle motor output box is checked
step/dir motor box is checked

General Config
A is angular box is checked
Rotational section, no boxes checked



A question for the future once this is all figured out...how can I physically bring the spindle's step/dir signals out of the G540 so I can route it to a separate board? The G540 has the VFD outputs, but I'm not sure that's what I want to use?

Thanks!

3

General Mach Discussion / Home and limits stopped working

« on: July 08, 2010, 01:28:03 AM »

Hey guys I have an X3, CNC Fusion, G540, Mach 3 setup. Homing and limits were working perfectly for the past couple of months, then all of a sudden, the switches aren't stopping the machine.

They are, NC, in series, and not showing any yellow trip lites in the Mach diagnostics screen. I tested them with my DMM and all are working fine, I also checked the wires and there is continuity all the way around, I manually actuated the switches and checked that the loop opened.

Is it the G540? I tried another input terminal and still no good. My edge finding probe setup using a cnczone.com member's screen also stopped working at the same time. Or is it something in Mach 3? I've attached my XML.

Help!