Messages

561

Mach3 under Vista / Re: No Driver Sensed Installed. OS-Windows 7

« on: July 04, 2010, 05:14:10 PM »

Justin, yes Soigeneris.com is my website. The SmoothStepper is an external motion controller designed for Mach. It connects to your computer through a USB port and provides two ports that are wired like parallel ports. Basically, the SmoothStepper plug-in continuously talks to Mach and gets a list of the next moves that should be made and reports the state of the inputs. Since the SmoothStepper does all the time critical step pulse generation in dedicated hardware the result is much faster and smoother step pulses than are possible through the parallel port. To use one you need the SmoothStepper board of course, a LPH26 to DB25 cable (plugs-into the SS and gives you a 'parallel port' type connector, and a USB cables (shorter cables are always better.) I am out of them at the moment but will hopefully get some in the end of next week.

562

Mach3 under Vista / Re: No Driver Sensed Installed. OS-Windows 7

« on: July 02, 2010, 10:51:43 PM »

I believe every version of Win7 has the XP emulation mode. You still can't run the Mach three driver with it though.

563

Mach3 under Vista / Re: No Driver Sensed Installed. OS-Windows 7

« on: July 02, 2010, 09:53:40 PM »

You also cannot use the parallel port driver on Win 7 64-bit. You'll have to use an external motion controller like a SmoothStepper.

564

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper Motors Overheating

« on: June 30, 2010, 04:50:27 PM »

OK, let's start back at the begginning -

1) What current level do you have teh drivers set to?
2) Define what you mean by 'overheating'. What temp are the motors gettign to?

565

General Mach Discussion / Re: Stepper Motors Overheating

« on: June 30, 2010, 03:29:42 PM »

I am using appropriate power supply and drivers.

If you were your motors would not overheat 

You have a problem with your motors, drivers and/or power supply selection. Mach can do nothing to cause your stepper to overheat.

566

General Mach Discussion / Re: Closed loop system, encoder connected to mach3

« on: June 26, 2010, 12:07:44 PM »

There are a few different points to consider here.

1) If a stepper system looses position you are doing something wrong.
2) There are closed loop stepper systems available, but what does that mean?

#1) A stepper will always go where you command - unless you overload it, (or have an issue with the quality of pulse stream driving it.) A servo on the same system 'may' have enough power to bully through what would stall a stepper but you still have a problem where the potential stall occurred. If you ask either system to feed faster than it is able you will have a problem. Having a closed loop stepper does not make the stepper any more powerful, or capable of anything that it could not do when driven open loop.

#2) What does a closed loop stepper system get you? Well, since a stepper motor is a constant power device if you are near a stall condition you will not have any reserve power to try and accelerate to catch up. That leaves only two options: just report an error occurred, or ask the pulse generating device (i.e. Mach, EMC2) to hold up whilst the machine tries to catch up. (This second option is what controller manufacturers like to tout as 'closed loop back to the controller'.) For Mach the first option, reporting an error and stopping is viable. There is at least one BOB available that does this, and the Taig DSLS system does this as well. The second option, asking the controller to hold up, is not a viable option with the parallel port driver, an external motion control board could do this as generally they just grab the next n moves from Mach's buffer and process them, since they are in control of the motion they can hold up processing moves.


Still, if you are stalling a stepper system then you have a problem with what you are asking it to do. The value of a supervisory system depends on what type of system you are building.

567

Mach3 under Vista / Re: USB connection in win7

« on: June 22, 2010, 09:38:15 AM »

You plug a USB cable in between the computer and SmoothStepper. Ports 1&2 on the SmoothStepper are deigned to be Pin by Pin compatible with a standard parallel port, you use the LPH26 to DB25 cable to convert the SmoothStepper 26 pin header sockets into a regular parallel port cable connector. There is a driver and Mach plug-in that you install.

568

Mach3 under Vista / Re: USB connection in win7

« on: June 21, 2010, 03:57:30 PM »

You need an external motion controller card to run your machine over USB. I use/sell the SmoothStepper and find it works great. It supports about 95% of the functionality of the parallel port driver. http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx

569

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Updated SmoothStepper Installation and Upgrade Tips

« on: June 18, 2010, 10:38:06 PM »

Try again, I just clicked on it and it worked.

570

SmoothStepper USB / Updated SmoothStepper Installation and Upgrade Tips

« on: June 12, 2010, 08:30:16 PM »

I just updated the SmoothStepper upgrade guide first posted a few months ago. The new version is here: http://soigeneris.com/Documents/Installing%20and%20Configuring%20the%20SmoothStepper.pdf