Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can read THC input signals but spindle doesn't move

« on: September 28, 2012, 03:25:29 PM »

Garf,

   Thank you for that information. I'm sure your experience will help a lot of other people in the future with Parallel ports becoming obsolete and USB becoming practically the only option available these days. Glad to hear you are finally up and running!

Steve

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can read THC input signals but spindle doesn't move

« on: September 25, 2012, 12:02:35 PM »

Garf
   Any luck solving that problem? I'm just curious what was causing the issue.

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can read THC input signals but spindle doesn't move

« on: September 20, 2012, 12:54:27 PM »

Very Strange. If you have an e-mail address I can send you a copy of my XML file. It probably won't work on your setup but you can at least look at it and compare it to your setup.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can read THC input signals but spindle doesn't move

« on: September 20, 2012, 10:12:08 AM »

I am using a run of the mill parallel port. It's an older computer that has been consigned to the exclusive task of CNC control and had a port already available. I looked at the smooth stepper, looks like a great product. Just from my uneducated point of view I can't see a reason it wouldn't work. There IS one difference between your initial test and mine that I observed. Initially, my Z axis started moving up but not down. I finally figured out it was the conflict I mentioned. The point being I always had some kind of movement. You said you are seeing the signals in the Mach3 Diagnostics. If you are getting signals, I think SOMETHING should happen. I assume you enabled THC UP and THC Down in the Pins and Ports. Can you jog the Z axis from the keyboard? It sounds like a problem in Mach3.

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Can read THC input signals but spindle doesn't move

« on: September 19, 2012, 07:23:16 PM »

I have a similar setup and a Proma THC Controller. I wasn't going to wire it in but I decided to run the test and see if there was some kind of problem with using it. Took a bit of doing but I was able to get it to work and my z axis moved up and down just like it was supposed to. I followed the Proma guide for Mach 3 except for the in signals. I tried pins 10 and 11 as in their example, but there was a conflict. I ended up using pins 10 and 13. I can only speculate that pin 11 is inverted in a parallel port and that confused the setup.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem configuring plasma table

« on: September 18, 2012, 07:07:04 PM »

OK  FOUND the problem.
Under  Config>Ports and pins >port setup and axis selection  Max NC node had Max CL Node checked and that caused the motor outputs to go weird.
After I unchecked it everything works great!

Steve

7

General Mach Discussion / Problem configuring plasma table

« on: September 18, 2012, 12:33:03 PM »

Hi,

       Not sure what I am doing wrong. I have Mach3 running to a plasma table and in Mill configuration, everything seems to work and I get proper movement. When I try to use the Plasma configuration the motors do not respond correctly to the hot keys. Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks

Steve