Messages

571

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 08, 2018, 09:53:02 AM »

It said system excellent the whole time

Disregard the messages. Watch the pulse rate, and make sure it is fairly sable the whole time.

It could be that the voltage on the dir lines is on the low side??

572

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 08, 2018, 08:38:44 AM »

0V in one direction, and 5V in the other direction.

As I said, run Drivertest.exe in the Mach3 folder, and check the results.
I have a laptop that is unusable with Mach3 when setup as ACPI, but works perfect when configured as Standard PC.

When using the parallel port, Mach3 seems to work best on much older PC's.

573

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 08, 2018, 08:26:19 AM »

If you are talking about the Z axis only, I still think it's losing steps due to being underpowered. This is a very common occurence, and has happened to many people.

If you see this with all axes, then I'd look at the voltage of the direction signal. Many people have issues where the machine tends to move in only one direction, which is an issue with the voltage on the direction pin.

574

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 08, 2018, 08:22:07 AM »

Have you run Drivertest.exe in the Mach3 folder?
You may be getting poor quality step pulses.
Or you may be seeing resonance from your drives, causing lost steps.
There are probably 100 different issues that could cause lost position.

The G-code isn't one of them.
Mach3 will follow the g-code exactly, regardless of the size or location of the moves.

575

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 07, 2018, 08:48:54 AM »

grbl likely puts out a better pulse stream than the parallel port, which could allow higher velocity and acceleration.

576

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 07, 2018, 07:36:24 AM »

Because you're likely losing steps from trying to move faster than the motor is capable of.
And it's helped many others in the past.

577

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z zero (plane) moves upwards with every Z dir movement

« on: April 07, 2018, 06:46:59 AM »

Reduce your Z axis acceleration by 50%.

578

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing operation does not pulls back enough to get away from switch?

« on: April 06, 2018, 09:16:14 AM »

Unless you are running geared reduction or high reduction belt drives, i.e. an unusual setup, the steppers do not have the power to do too much damage if they run away or you jog into the end stop.

There's a bit more to it then that. You have to consider inertia. Think of a battering ram. It's not the speed it's moving at, but the weight that's moving. The moving mass has far more power than the stepper motors.

If you jog an axis up against the stops, and then jog into the stops, the force is only what the motors can deliver. Now run into it at high speed, and the force is much higher.

Sort of like placing a brick on a glass table, vs dropping it on the glass table from 10 ft up. Big difference.

579

VB and the development of wizards / Re: VB / LUA evaluation- no license key

« on: April 06, 2018, 06:37:15 AM »

you have to enable Auto Tool Changer, then M6Start and M6End will be executed.

That's not correct.

Stop Spindle, wait for cycle start will run M6 Start, then M6End AFTER Cycle Start.

Automatic Toolchanger runs M6Start Only.

Ignore tool changes runs no macros.

580

VB and the development of wizards / Re: VB / LUA evaluation- no license key

« on: April 05, 2018, 07:36:23 PM »

Are you sure you are editing the right macro? Meaning in the correct folder?

I haven't had any issues with VB macros like Craig is talking about, and have a few thousand people using the macros in my screenset.