Messages

161

Promote and discuss your product / Special Gecko Power Promotion

« on: June 17, 2013, 12:28:17 PM »

For the rest of this month receive free shipping on orders that contain the Gecko 201, 210, 203, and 213 stepper drives. These are some of the most compact and feature packed drives on the market today. Not only do we offer the best quantity discounts on these drives but we will also pick up the shipping cost as well! **

 Don't forget that when you create an account on our website that you also receive Reward Points on your purchases. Reward Points are equivalent to getting a 5% back on your merchandise total to use on future purchases. That is a deal that just can't be topped!

 Use coupon code: GeckoPower when checking out to receive free shipping on your entire order containing these Gecko drives. **

 **Free shipping is available in the continental US only, excludes large heavyweight items such as machine tools. If your item contains an ineligible item we will contact you.

162

General Mach Discussion / Re: do they not simply make a wireless break out board?

« on: June 14, 2013, 07:35:00 AM »

Why not? I think wireless stepper motors would be great too. 

163

General Mach Discussion / Re: Should this work - Emulated Input Signal

« on: June 13, 2013, 09:11:03 AM »

Generally you can't simulate any 'real time' signals as they have to handled by the motion device (parallel port driver, SmoothStepper), this means the probe input needs to also be directly input into the motion device. When you do a G31 the motion device has to watch for the input and then immediately decelerate when it sees it.

164

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Ethernet Smoother Stepper can't get motor movement

« on: June 06, 2013, 04:16:26 PM »

When you start up Mach3 look in the lower right corner of the screen. The name of the profile you are using will be printed there. Now shut down Mach3 and open the Mach installation directory C:\mach3. Look for an XML file with the same name as your profile, i.e. "machmill.xml".

165

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Ethernet Smoother Stepper can't get motor movement

« on: June 06, 2013, 01:35:30 PM »

Can you post a copy of your profile here?

166

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Charge Pump problems

« on: May 30, 2013, 08:17:41 AM »

You are using the same profile and just switching the motion control device? Have you checked to see if a signal is coming out of pin 9 on the SmoothStepper? If you don't have an oscilloscope you can use a voltmeter. When the charge pump signal is off you should read zero or five volts and when it is running you will read about 2.5 volts.

I've seen a few strange problems in the past where a corrupt profile caused external motion devices to work one way and the parallel port a different way. One test is to start a profile from scratch and see if that changes things.

167

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need help setting up Mach 3 for my table.

« on: May 17, 2013, 12:40:52 PM »

If you paid for the machine via credit card then call your credit card company and dispute the charge. If they provided you with a bogus license and bogus equipment I don't think you would have an issue getting at least part of your money returned. You can also file a complaint with their local Better Business Bureau, if you were provided with a pirated license you can even file a complaint with the FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/ipr/ipr .

168

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hall of shame

« on: May 16, 2013, 09:53:04 AM »

Some OEMs will get a block of licenses at a time so they don't know up front who the license will wind up going to. What you get from Scott is a license with the serial number after the .dat (so mach1Lic.dat.12345678). I add the customers name after the serial number (so mach1Lic.dat.12345678.Joe_Miner) and keep a copy, that lets me keep the customer name and serial number in coordination. If someone looses there license I can just sort the license folder by name and find it quickly.

Most of the instances of bogus licenses I have come across are from folks buying the cheap Chinese machines off Ebay and similar places. If it says it comes with a Mach3 license and it is from abroad I would be suspicious. The whole deal is bad for everyone involved. I'll be happy to see the new Mch4 licensing system take effect.

169

General Mach Discussion / Re: Back to Laptops… Thinkpad T42

« on: May 11, 2013, 09:30:54 AM »

Eddy, all the stuff they build into laptops to make them work good as laptops, that is all the processor speed changing and other power savings features will give the parallel port driver fits. It depends on very precise timing from the PC so all of the processor speed changing, etc is exactly the opposite of what you want.

There are several external motion boards out these days. They basically do the job of the parallel port driver in custom hardware that is designed just for that task. I am partial to the SmoothStepper as I have been using them since they came out and was so happy with them that I eventually became a dealer for them. If you have an existing system that you want to add a SmoothStepper to you might be interested in my 'SmoothStepper in a can': http://www.soigeneris.com/motion_control_and_i_o_boards-list.aspx . I came up with this a few years ago when a customer wanted to upgrade their router table without needing to rewire anything.

170

General Mach Discussion / Re: Another G540 VFD Output setup

« on: May 08, 2013, 04:35:34 PM »

Sorry I did not see this before. I don't have a G540 to test with right now but I did scan through the profile and noticed that you have the Spindle relays outputs disabled. Is there a reason for this? I don't know if that will mess up mach3 outputting a PWM signal our not. I do know that the parallel port driver will not output a PWM if an M3 is not issued first.

With the parallel port you generally would set the spindle speed, then issue an M3 (which tells mach3 the spindle should be on). Then when you issue an M5 (spindle off) the PWM will stop.

S5000
M3
...do some stuff
M5

When using a G540 with a VFD I like to use one of the relay outputs to trigger a small relay that provides the start/fwd signal to the VFD when M3 is seen.