Messages

371

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Will MACH3 ever support 64-bit systems? Officially? FYI, it's 2010

« on: September 08, 2011, 06:51:15 AM »

'Mach 3' itself runs just fine on Windows 7 64 bit. The parallel port driver does NOT run on 64 bit systems. The parallel port driver is 32-bit only, there is nothing you can do to make it work on a 64bit operating system.

If you want to use a 64bit OS for running a machine than you have to use an external motion control card.

372

SmoothStepper USB / Re: MACH CAN NOT COMMUMICATE WITH SS

« on: September 06, 2011, 07:54:01 AM »

Sounds like your BOB or ribbon cables are bad.

373

SmoothStepper USB / Re: MACH CAN NOT COMMUMICATE WITH SS

« on: September 05, 2011, 07:57:15 AM »

Please try this:

1) Unplug everything from the SmoothStepper
2) Make sure the SS is set to be powered by the USB cable
3) Plug the USB cable in and note the LEDs which are on
4) Start Mach

If you have problems with the above try again with a new USB cable.

Please respond back with what you find.

374

Mach3 under Vista / Re: Unable to use SCREEN4 Under Windows7 31 bit

« on: September 01, 2011, 09:24:00 AM »

You may have to use 'Run as Administrator' to make it work.

375

General Mach Discussion / Re: Damaging Geckodrives G540

« on: August 29, 2011, 07:36:00 PM »

The point is it 'can' happen. As has been mentioned if you turn a stepper motor by hand it becomes a generator. The voltage your generating gets fed back into the drive. The drive's output transistors will have bypass diodes built in to handle the 'back EMF' but like any electronic component they are designed to work within a certain range, beyond that and they can be damaged. Given nearly infinite range of stepper motors that could be hooked up to a given drive and various speeds at which they might be turned (and the wide variation in voltages produced) it stands to reason that some drives will be damaged sooner or later.

376

General Mach Discussion / Re: Damaging Geckodrives G540

« on: August 28, 2011, 09:42:17 AM »

Another thing that can damage stepper drives is turning the stepper motor by hand without unplugging it from the control first. This gets further complicated as you must turn off the control before unplugging the motor.

377

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Smooth Stepper Grounding

« on: August 24, 2011, 08:15:41 AM »

No, I would not reccomend bonding the SS to earth ground. Sounds like it would be a better idea to figure out how to bleed of any built of static charge from the enclosure or use a diffrent enclosure.

378

SmoothStepper USB / Re: "time out error getting data" wtf

« on: August 19, 2011, 03:45:22 PM »

Read the document I linked to above

379

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Is SS still being supported

« on: August 13, 2011, 10:37:21 AM »

There have been several new updates made the SS USB driver and Mach plug-in so far this year. If you check the downloads page you will see the latest versions.

@bushells - You might get more responses if you start a new thread for your question. It sounds like to me that you may not have the power savings things set up correctly on your PC. Go to www.soigeneris.com and look in the documentation section for a SmoothStepper installation guide I wrote. I may help.

380

SmoothStepper USB / Re: "time out error getting data" wtf

« on: August 06, 2011, 09:55:53 AM »

This can also have a lot to do with your settings in Mach or even other programs running on the PC. Please take a look at: http://www.soigeneris.com/Documentation-content.aspx and look in the SmoothStepper section for the Installation tips. That should help you with the most common causes of problems.