Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Random E-Stop on Mach?

« on: December 14, 2013, 11:37:20 AM »

My machine keeps giving me an "external E-stop" and shutting down in the middle of jobs at random. Sometimes it will run thru a job with no issue and other times I cannot get a single job completed before getting this error. When I go to diagnostics the Estop input is blinking but there is no real estop input on the port. The machine will not allow me to reset the condition until AFTER I give it a real estop and then it will let me reset it. I am using a G540 for breakout inputs/outputs and operation. Electrical noise has never been an issue with my machine and today is very wet outside and so very little if any static discharge would be possible.

Any thoughts?

Is there a debounce timer in Mach for the inputs if it is a noise issue?


Thanks,

2

General Mach Discussion / Serial input to Mach3

« on: December 08, 2013, 06:01:49 PM »

Hi all. I am wanting to be able to input a analog value to Mach3 to control the feed rate of my machine. I understand that Mach is configured to operate within the modbus protocol and that the modbus analog digital value could be used to control the feed rate. I have a couple of ways that I can digitize the analog value and send it to Mach. 1, use a small PLC that I have on hand to read the value and send it out of the modbus serial port or 2, read the potentiometer with a PIC micro and serial the data out to Mach.

I have a couple of questions?

1. My PC does not have a modbus port that supports true modbus electrical signals, do I just use the serial DB9 port and an adapter so it can receive the 5 volt signals?

2. Does Mach allow for any other serial data input other than modbus? In other words could I simply send the data in ascii or hex format and map it the control the register I need in Mach? This would make things very simple as far as a micro is concerned.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Scott Sutton

3

General Mach Discussion / help in understanding CV stop at >

« on: January 11, 2012, 07:03:51 PM »

I recently enabled the CV stop at > "60" on my machine. I also changed lookahead from 20 to 200. This is an attempt to compensate for gantry vibration that occurs at high speed when I change sharp directions. (my gantry weighs about 60 pounds and is 60 inches wide)

I cannot tell if anything changed at all. I am using a plotter pen and drawing for my test. I does not appear that Mach decelerates to a stop and then changes direction and accelerates from 0 when it changes direction > 60. Also, the corners of my squares are rounded, shouldn't they be square if Mach is stopping at corners?

Thanks,
Scott Sutton

4

General Mach Discussion / How does Mach Ramp?

« on: August 20, 2011, 11:58:01 AM »

I have noticed over the course of time that my machine has a tendency to jerk, or maybe better said a lack of smoothness. I never seem to lose steps and the machine works fantastic when just cutting along, BUT, when i am cutting something with lots of tiny little lines like an arc that has been broken up into lots of tiny strait lines I begin to see the gantry become unstable and a noticeable amount of bounce becomes apparent.

I just noticed today that when I am approaching a soft limit and Mach begins to ramp down that the same exact bounce begins to occur. This makes me think that when Mach is accelerating or decelerating that it does it in discrete steps and not a linear ramp. If this is the case, can I change a setting that defines the amount of the step?

Thanks to all, without this group I would have never been able to have my machine running at all!

Scott

5

General Mach Discussion / Help understanding Mach emergency stop

« on: July 31, 2011, 03:04:14 PM »

Sometimes Mach will stop on an apparent emergency stop for some unknown reason. When I go into diagnostics I am NOT showing an estop input and Mach will NOT let me reset the condition. Only restarting Mach will allow me to reset the condition.

I am using a G540 drive.

Any thoughts?

Thank you to all.

Scott

6

General Mach Discussion / Questions about hotkeys and keyboard assignments

« on: April 19, 2011, 08:39:09 PM »

Hi,
I would like to configure my machine so that I can use the keyboard for "RESET", also I would like to be able to keyboard position data into X,Y, and Z without having to first click on the fields of them as well.

I have opened the hotkeys config and it makes no sense to me, could someone help me with this please?

Thanks,
Scott Sutton

7

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 behaving strangely

« on: March 11, 2011, 07:14:48 PM »

I have a new install of Mach3 Demo to set up my machine. I have configured my travel limits to all come in on 1 port pin because of limited inputs from my breakout board. This works fine, for a few minutes. Here is the situation, when I first start Mach and begin to jog my machine if I hit a travel limit the machine stops and tell me in Mach that a travel limit has been tripped. I reset Mach and all is well. However, after jogging a few minutes the travel limits no longer stop Mach from operating. When I go into diagnostics I can see that the travel limits are in fact coming on when I press them but Mach continues to run. This happens every time I start Mach after about 5 minutes of machine motion.

Anybody know what could cause this?


Thanks,
Scott