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Messages - Jeff_Birt

1091
After squashing a self induced hardware bug today (cold solder joint), I moved my computer cart around to the front of the machine and thought I would try running the first part program.  I was greatly confused at first as all the X and Y axis were moving backwords (but homing OK).  It was then that I realized that when I had the computer cart on the backside of the machine (so I could run Mach and probe stuff withteh Oscope) that I set up the X&Y backwords!  So, after removing my head from my butt, I changes things around in 'Ports and Pins' and 'Homing' and now all is well.  All the home switches are infact at '0', so I had to remove my offsets in homing.  I now have the machine moving the table to about mid position after homing.  I tried to force the soft limits and machine coords on (and LED's) but my script will only toggle them (below).  Any idea what I may be foing wrong?

Thanks

Code: [Select]
DoButton( 24 )
DoButton( 23 )
DoButton( 22 )
DoButton( 25 )

'' Wait until the axis are done moving and then
'  Set to machine coords and move table to front
While IsMoving()
Wend

Code "G53"
Code "G0 X3 Y2"

'' Wait until the axis are done moving and then
'  set the proper modes
While IsMoving()
Wend

'' Make DRO and Screen reflect Machine coord mode
If GetUserLed(16) = 0 Then
DoOEMButton(107)
End If

'' <ake sure that we enter into soft limit mode
If GetUserLed(23) = 0 Then
DoOEMButton(119)
End If     

1092
General Mach Discussion / Re: Tuning keling motors in Mach3
« on: May 12, 2007, 12:26:26 PM »
You might need to take a look at what else is running in Windows at the time you are trying to run Mach III, there is an optimization how-to on the download page (I think) that will guide you through what to set things to (in Windows) for best results.  I had this problem trying to run a recently with my laptop (which I think was due to qt.exe).  I did a fresh Windows install on another PC (was going to anyhow) and now all is well.

EMC, uses a 'Real-Time' extension on top of Linux which allows it to have a bit more control over timing issues, the price you pay is the added hassle of dealing with the 1000 flavors of Linux, building updates for your system and sometimes dependency hell (which has been getting better in recent years).

1093
Brain, since the limits are at the positive extremes of all three axis I have added in offsets to that the machine coords are correct.  For simplicty I just want it to also set the local coords to the same values so the machine is forced into working in machine coords unless/until you reference to a workpiece/fixture.  This machine is used for a few classes I teach where I only have one semester to give an introduction to CNC, PLC's, robotics, MMI's, etc; so I'm thinking that having the local-machine after a home (in a known state after a 'reset') will take some of the guess work out of it for the students. I think I found a post about this yesterday referring to adding some addtional code to the 'Ref All' button.

1094
I hooked up the new PC today, did a fresh and lean XP build on it yesterday, installed Mach III, ran driver test,  copied over the profile from my laptop and finidhed tuning.  Got the velocity up to 20 IPM for jogging, 25 IPM seemed OK 30 IPM was too much.  I did find that the infamous qt.exe was running on my laptop which could have been causing the problem.

I got the homing mostly figure out BUT...the home switches on this machine are at the far positive end of each axis, I got homing set up so it homes and sets the machine coords with the proper offsets.  But the local coords are not affected, I would like it to reset the local coords to the machine coords on a home.

1095
Well, tuning went so-so today.  I can't get eth velocity above 7.5 Inch/min without missing steps.  I suspect that even though my laptop appears to pass the driver test, that it may be the source of the trouble.  And yes, Brian Sherline mode did help a bunch.

1096
Thanks Brian, that's good to know.  I know the optos on my isolation board are fast enough, but I have no idea about the drivers themselves.  I guess maybe that is where the problem might lie.

Thanks again, I'll get her tuned up tomorrow.

1097
Well, it is alive but not tuned.

We had an old Dyna 2400 table top CNC mill in the lab with its wonderful 900 line Conversational control.  A few years ago I wrote a drip feed program and modified a MasterCAM post processor enough that it would work (most of the time) feeding the program line by line from the PC.    Enter Mach III, I whipped up a homebrew 4 axis opto-isolation board with a charge-pump safety circuit (still have to add spindle control).  It is fully opto-isolated and will run on 3.3 or 5V LPT and it steals 5V from a USB port (for PC side of circuit), the existing machines +5 and +24V power supplies were retained.  As the machine was already stepper based and the OEM drivers were a standard Step/DIR control not much else was needed.

So, now I have to do is motor tuning and get homing set up and we should be good to cut some parts!

1098
James,  I watched the macropump video this morning and indeed Art does say that the macropump is blocking and will run to completion.

1099
Is the macropump script blocking?  Could it be that the script engine is trying to launch the macropump script again before the first instance in finished?

1100
VB and the development of wizards / Re: Error handling
« on: March 14, 2007, 12:19:35 PM »
James, the MCC board ships with a .dll a.k.a. the 'universal Library'.  I was just trying to avoid having all the declare statements for the various dll functions in the script itself (rather put them in a header file).  No big deal, just messier looking code.

Idealy, the interface for the MCC boards would be through a plug-in.  But I'm not ready to try that yet.  For now being able to turn things on/off via a script will be fine.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'll work on this a bit more tonight.