Messages

19371

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Can't override Feedrate

« on: April 27, 2009, 01:51:15 PM »

I have been testing a new version of the plugin that puts FRO back to Mach control and it works extremely well, there is a problem when the FRO goes too low, somewhere below 10% and it was found to be a Mach/SS problem. I have also tested a new version of Mach and this problem has been cured. Hopefully these will be released soon.
Hood

19372

General Mach Discussion / Re: problems with ports

« on: April 27, 2009, 01:31:32 PM »

Oh also meant to say try increasing the pulse width to 5 and see if that helps although I suspect it wont.
Hood

19373

General Mach Discussion / Re: problems with ports

« on: April 27, 2009, 01:30:26 PM »

Had a quick look at your xml and it looks fine.
 If you have a voltmeter you could remove the cable from the port and put it between  pins 3 and Gnd pin and jog the X axis one way then the other, the voltage should toggle between 5V and 0v  as you change directions.  If that checks out fine repeat for pins 5 and 7 jogging Y and Z respectively.
 If your voltage does change then put the cable back in and try at the other end of the cable.

 Do you use a breakout board?
Hood

19374

General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft limits problem, still confused

« on: April 27, 2009, 10:59:26 AM »

You wont be the first to have missed that and you wont be the last I suspect it will just be a matter of days before something similar will have me thinking for a while

Hood

19375

General Mach Discussion / Re: Soft limits problem, still confused

« on: April 27, 2009, 06:36:07 AM »

It seems that you will either have to alter the post processor or the code it produces or as you say swap the limit so that home is at the lowest position.
 I am not sure how the normal procedure is for Plasma as I have never had or used one but it does seem from what you are saying all Z moves are positive. You could probably keep your home switch where it is  and set a Home Off value for that axis as the travel your axis has. Example is if you home fully up and the distance down to your plate is 150mm then you would set the Home Off value to 150. When you homed the  Z DRO (in machine coords) would now read 150 instead of zero and as you jogged down to the plate it would  go towards zero.

The message regarding Mach 4 is nothing to worry about, there are a few things that have that as at one time there was going to be a Mach4 but the features were then integrated into Mach3 instead.

Your snippets of code mean
G53 = machine coords
G90 = Absolute distance mode
G40 = Cancel cutter radius compensation

F1 = feed of 1 unit per minute (in your case anyway)

S500 = means spindle speed of 500, although you will not have a spindle the plasma may be using the spindle function for torch height or some other feature.



Hood

19376

General Mach Discussion / Re: Problem cutting circles

« on: April 27, 2009, 06:23:27 AM »

Sounds like it could be backlash of some sort, especially if you notice the changes are at the cardinal points.
Hood

19377

General Mach Discussion / Re: 3-Axis Mill Retrofit, Servo and performance questions! Alot of functions?

« on: April 27, 2009, 04:36:11 AM »

Thanks for your fast replays...

Ok. today my DC servo drives have tooth belts from the motor to the ball screw. I have plans to change them to planet gearbox instead. But can the old parallelport handle backlash compensation?

Yes It can. how good it is I cant say personally as I have never used it.

Yes i understand that. i just wounder if this need system would need more cpu power. What kind of computer do you use for your machines? do you have one computer for every machine?

I use a Via Pico in each machine http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11693

I did mean if you have connect an pulse train out from your drives and into the mach or you dont do that? I do understand that with the fault signal. Do you have one fault input from every drive or all fault signals in one serie?

I have all the fault signals connected in series relays.

Ok. I have alot of Omron plc systems and i can communicate modbus with them, that is no problem at all. So then it will be possible to get the signals into the mach system? Do you know if the Mach 3 graphic interface has meters for spindle and axis power?

No but you can make your own screen or graphics to suit yourself, there is a utility for Mach called Screen4 which allows you to do things like that. You also can use macropump or a Brain too get the info into the DRO (or meter as you would see it in this instance)

Ok. but on your mill, do you still have your gearbox left or you have taken that away?

At the moment it is still there

Ok. and then you also use Allen Bradley motors right?

Mostly but have some others, Indramat being one type I used. I had to remove the resolver and replace with an encoder for my drives.

Im not so good in english yet, but that was exactly what i meant. How many tools? Will there come up on the screen when the machine would like to change tool then? Will the machine go out to a specified point in X,Y and Z when i change tool?

253 tools, could be 254 not sure never really needed that many
You can write macros to do almost anything you want with regards to toolchange

- Is it possible to make my own mach 3 "skin" Layout or whay you call it for my interface on my machine?

- What kind of PC display do you use for your applications? do you have touch screens? Size?

Best Regards
Oscar Larsson

Yes as mentioned above you can make a screen to suit your own needs with Screen4

I have 17inch touch screens on my machines.

Hood

19378

General Mach Discussion / Re: how to go to z without traveling dagonally

« on: April 27, 2009, 03:17:17 AM »

First thing to say is I reckon your attitude stinks. You have had many threads over the last few weeks and in everyone of them you have complained that the info you are getting is confusing and varied and you blame everyone for giving you confusing and contradicting info. The reason for that however is, as you have said yourself, that your questions are not asking what you are really wanting, for example it took you many posts in this thread before you actually said what you wanted, if you had said that in your first question the reply you wanted to hear would have been there right away.
 You need to lighten up and realise that people here try to help one another the best they can, no one is out to get you.

Ok if you are still reading  its onto your question, I am not sure if what you are wanting would be the best way as you would need to make sure any motion had halted before you reset your machine coords for the A axis to zero, that would require a bt more complicated code in the macropump so that as soon as the DRO reached your set amount it wouldnt screw things up. It would be much simpler to either just press the Ref A button every now and then (presuming you dont have a home switch on the A) and the machine coords will be reset. You could also write a macro (rather than a macropump) and place it in the macro folder for your profile, if you named it M111.m1s, for example,  then every time you called M111 from code or MDI your macro would be executed. All you would need in that macro is
DoOemButton(25) 

or you could have

SetMachZero(3)

They would both do the same thing as far as machine coords for the A is concerned.


Now as for the linear axis, I am taking my life in my hands here again risking you complaining that I am giving you false info again. However you may be misunderstanding what has been meant and I will give you an example of my coil winder. I have the spindle of the coilwinder set as A Axis, I have it set as a linear axis, ie 1 rev of the motor equates to 1 unit in motor tuning. Mach doesnt know or care whether it is moving along a straight line or actually roatating, all it does is move it one unit when its asked to do so. If I want to do half a revolution I would comman G0A.5, 1/4 rev would be G0A.25, 100th of a Rev would be G0A.01 etc etc.
 Whether that would be of use to you I do not know but just thought I would try to clear it up.

Hood

 

19379

General Mach Discussion / Re: 3-Axis Mill Retrofit, Servo and performance questions! Alot of functions?

« on: April 27, 2009, 02:52:35 AM »

3) Ok. But every time i startup the system i will need to reference drive my mill in all axis? I tought if i used absolut encoders i would not need to do this? My drives can handle booth inkremental and absolut encoders.

Yes you will need to home on every restart but really you would need to do that in anycase whether you had absolute or incremental as Mach itself is open loop.

5) What do you mean with backlash?

Backlash compensation is where if there is play in a ballscrew you can compensate on axis direction change to take up the slack before the motion is registered. In my opinion backlash adjustment is a waste of time on machines such as a mill because the tool will pull the axis around and backlash compensation cant stop that, much better to sort the backlash mechanically.

6) Ok. i have been looking at this card. Just so i have got everything right. I take the USB from my computer to the SS card and from that card over to the brakeout card right? Will the SS card and drive on my computer need more CPU power or it don't need more power to get this high frequency?

Yes thats correct, Computer USB to SS to Breakouts to machine.
 The SS should actually allow you to use a less powerful computer as it takes the pulseing away from the computer and does it externally.  However I still recommend that you go with a computer that meets the minimum specs for Mach.

7) But i can also use A / B  pulse train for the position wheel and connect to my brakeout card?

Yes you connect them to Inputs and set up in Mach for MPG

8 ) Do you connect your drives to the mach 3 so you can se the position?

Not really sure what you mean here. I have my drives fault signal connected to Mach so that they would inform Mach they have faulted and Mach would stop execution of code and go into reset.

(9) Ok. But then i will have to put the analog inputs to my plc? Do the breakout bord have analog inputs for this?

No breakout boards dont have analogue inputs, or at least none that I can think of. You could use a PoKeys to do that but it only has 0 to 3.3v analogue so your drive would need to be able to scale the analogue signal to that which is unlikeley. If using a PLC you will need to use one that is capable of ModBUS, the DL06 from Automation Direct is the one most people here use.

10 ) Do you have any gearbox then on your mill?

 My mill does have a backgear gearbox but I intent not to use it. Previous to me fitting the servo on the lathes spindle it had a normal induction motor and this was driven through a gearbox. The gearbox had electromagnetic clutches which could be changed to give various speeds, I controlled that via the PLC and a spindle speed macro in Mach. I have since done away with that and fitted the AC Servo which gives me infinite speed control from 0 to 2000rpm, the original setup had 16 speeds.

It seems like you are using this alot, What kind of servodrives do you use in your machines?

I use Allen Bradley DSD drives

All things like tool data and so on are supported by the software?

Not really sure what you are meaning here but if you are meaning a tooltable with length and dia offsets then yes, there are tool offsets available

Is it possible to have one home position with the switches on my mill and then have more zero points, Like if i put up my work piece and make X, Y and Z zero to that piece? I hope you understand what i mean.

You can set 253 different offsets and call them via G54 to G58 and G59P7 TO G59P253

Do you have an postprocessor on the outside were you make all your G-Codes?

A lot of CAM software already has Post Processors for Mach, you can also use the wizards within Mach for doing simple stuff like Bolt Circle, Pockets (circular and square/rectangular) and a lot more. You can also purchase an addons package from NewFangled solutions which will allow you to chain a lot of different things such as pockets, circles, bolt holes etc and produce code for a completed part, all depends on how complex your work will be whether you will need a CAM package or not.
Hood

19380

General Mach Discussion / Re: problems with ports

« on: April 27, 2009, 02:18:13 AM »

Do you see a pulse frequency and a Time in Int on the Diagnostic page?
 Do you have the correct port address set up?
Can you attach the xml for the profile you are using, you will find it in the Mach3 folder. If you use the standard Mill profile it will be called Mach3Mill.xml, you will need to copy that to a different location on your drive and rename it before the forum will accept it, suggest you rename to wtxrcdog.xml

Hood