Messages

91

General Mach Discussion / Re: picaxe microcontroller input to parallel port in mach

« on: February 25, 2015, 12:35:44 PM »

Thanks, but the output from the picaxe is 5V, and in order to trigger the input pin on the BoB I need to ground it, as far as I understand. Hence using the 5V to energise a relay which closes a switch between input pin and ground on BoB. Unless I'm missing something, which is highly likely.

92

General Mach Discussion / Re: picaxe microcontroller input to parallel port in mach

« on: February 15, 2015, 05:34:33 AM »

I may well do that. I did think maybe I could use the picaxe signal to close a relay and ground the pin, nice and safe, but means building more stuff.

93

General Mach Discussion / picaxe microcontroller input to parallel port in mach

« on: February 14, 2015, 01:19:06 PM »

I need to interface a picaxe microchip with my pmdx122 breakerboard, so it can give a signal to mach to proceed when certain conditions are met (picaxe outputs to mach when an analogue light sensor's output drops by a certain percentage.)

The input pins on the breakerboard measure 2.8V unconnected, and my usual way of triggering them is to ground them using a switch... I have no idea how to trigger an input signal to mach using the picaxe's 5V 20mA output.

I can get mach3 to switch the picaxe on and off in VB script, that's working fine.

Having read the pmdx122 manual, it suggests that the voltage when the data bus buffer is tri-stated is approx 3.2V. I don't actually know quite what that means... apart from the fact that if I just connect the picaxe's output into mach's input, something may get fried?

Anyone done this before, or anything at all similar?

94

General Mach Discussion / Re: pci parallel port drivers

« on: February 05, 2015, 07:40:48 AM »

Having fired up the machine, I find that it works with mach on the new machine, so I maybe don't need to know too much about mach and Epc/epp now...

95

General Mach Discussion / Re: pci parallel port drivers

« on: February 04, 2015, 07:20:52 PM »

Also, its input range starts at 8400; would this be a valid port address, or does it need a prefix? I seem to remember oX or something from my previous machine.

96

General Mach Discussion / Re: pci parallel port drivers

« on: February 04, 2015, 06:56:50 PM »

Ok, found drivers (http://www.drivers-download.com/en/downloadlist.php?id=162), installed successfully, it now calls itself an 'EPC' port in device manager now; that doesnt sound familiar, is EPC good or bad for Mach?

97

General Mach Discussion / pci parallel port drivers

« on: February 04, 2015, 06:33:39 PM »

My pc refused to boot up, has been replaced. Very annoying. I was running 2 parallel ports, built in and a moschip  MCS9865 pci card one. I have the driver cd for it, but having run every instance of setup on the CD, I still get 'no drivers installed' in device manager under 'pci parallel port'. This despite the fact that it worked fine on the old pc.

Is anyone else using one? What drivers should I use for 32 bit xp? So many on the cd, none work so far.

Thanks.

98

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problems with For Next loop in script

« on: January 31, 2015, 06:36:17 AM »

Thanks for that, it works just as I wanted. Its response feels a bit slower that the 10Hz frequency suggests, although that might be my sense of expectation! It's only for the Z axis, which moves very slowly and can take a lot of slack, so it should work fine.

99

General Mach Discussion / Re: New to macros; do macros run only when needed?

« on: January 30, 2015, 09:18:54 AM »

To my amazement, I've found that homing works, and probably did from the start. I just didn't understand how G28.1 was supposed to behave. I'm sure I tried to read up on it prior to starting this little escapade, but I didn't understand the significance of the number after the axis letter.

I now realise that

a) Home switch will not trigger until axis is in its 'slow zone'. This information is not in the config manual; I have a stretched drive belt and a broken home switch now due to not knowing about that.

b) That the number after the axis letter denotes the point at which that slow zone will start. (Says so in the manual, but not clearly enough for me apparently)

I'd been trying to trigger the home switch with the axis 'out of step' by +/-50mm (simulating massive loss of steps), but with the slow zone setting at 1.00, and only using G28.1 X0, instead of slow zone of 50, and G28.1 X100.

I'm not blaming the author of the manual, it's my fault for not understanding something properly before using it.

I still need to have homing like behaviour on my Z axis that moves in the opposite direction to homing proper, so I'll still try a macro/macropump to achieve that, as in one of other current threads.

I think this may mean my problem is solved, we will wait and see...

100

General Mach Discussion / Re: New to macros; do macros run only when needed?

« on: January 30, 2015, 07:08:51 AM »

I wish it had said that on the website, I wasted a good 3 days of my life trying to get it to work. Never mind!