Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 18, 2011, 06:11:34 PM »

where did you procure the water jackets?  It seems to be a good stop-gap solution.  I had been thinking about putting aluminum fins on the motors but the water jacket would be much more efficient.

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:33:56 PM »

max speed is set at 250 on x and y.  It will go up to 350 with no problem.

43

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:29:07 PM »

z-axis limit is shielded and bonded.  all others are well away from any other wiring.

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:14:55 PM »

I had already grasped that straw.  Tried all settings (restarted program between changes as advised).  It seems to make no difference.  Limits not shielded except for the z-axis.  all others are well away from anything else.

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 12:05:32 PM »

I tried speed/acceleration adjustments to no avail.  What next?

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 11:57:06 AM »

My stepper motor output from the drivers to the motors is shielded and bonded to the equipment ground.  My control wires from the interface card and stepper drivers are bonded to each other.

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 17, 2011, 10:31:09 AM »

I'm still futzing with the setup.  By increasing micro steps and increasing baud rate I have eliminated the hot motor problem but I am still losing steps.  The motors are not now overpowered but with the better mechanical advantage the run very rapidly.  I am futzing with the acceleration rate to see if that fixes the lost step problem.  I may have to insert g28.1 lines into my code periodically to get things back on track.

48

General Mach Discussion / losing steps - hot motors

« on: March 04, 2011, 08:24:10 AM »

FWIW - I was having serious problems with losing steps.  I tried everything including adding mechanical advantage to stepper motors, increasing microsteps, increasing pulse frequency, increasing pulse duration, bonding signal cables to floating ground, bonding motor cables to equipment ground at power supply.  Nothing seemed to work until I decreased acceleration of stepper motors.  Apparently the mass of my gantry was overpowering the steppers.  I have my steppers accelerating at 10 in/s/s with top speed of 150 in/min.  Question - My stepper motors whistle while idle and get hotter than a 2 dollar pistol when running.  Is this normal or is there something that I need to do to correct this situation?

49

Share Your GCode / nativity scene silhouette

« on: February 20, 2011, 10:13:21 AM »

Looking for Nativity Scene Silhouette dxf files.  Not interested in re-inventing the wheel.
Bob

50

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing Trouble

« on: February 20, 2011, 08:57:03 AM »

Fixed!  Thank you Hood for the good information.  My machine is now working with a debounce of zero.  I suppose that running the limit switch wiring within the same wire chase and and wire loom as the stepper motors made for a neat installation appearance-wise but was electronically sloppy.
Bob