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Messages - Jeff_Birt

661
Bob, I would respectfully disagree that there are 'all sorts of things' that don't work on the SmoothStepper. The number I am aware of is down to a handful. I use quite a few SmoothSteppers in my controls and have to say that the number of things I have found my customers wanted to do that can't be done currently with the SmoothStepper I can count on a few fingers. That's not to say there is not room for improvement.

Art has taken many years to get the parallel port driver to its current level of functionality and Greg has done a great job of capturing 95% of that in just a few years with the SmoothStepper. As Art has said in the getting the first large chunk of functionality is the easy part, the last few % is much, much harder. Another issue is that there are a few tricks that folks can use with the parallel port driver currently that were not designed in 'features', like having two axis mapped the same in Ports&Pins and then selectively enabling them while the machine is running. Obviously that is not the ideal way to implement using a single axis in two different ways but Mach does not support a better alternative at present. I don't think we'll ever see these 'unintended features' replicated in any external motion control device, but I do think we'll see Mach and products like the SmoothStepper grow to support a better way to do things like this.

As we see Mach mature to work better with external motion control boards we will see better motion control boards as well.


662
My $50 7 year old HP that I use in the shop will drive my Taig at 40,000 steps/inch close to 90 IPM, but it does not work nearly as well as the SmoothStepper. With the SmoothStepper it runs much smooth, 100IPM is no problem and I've had it cranked up to 250 IPM (which is not very stable with the lead screw flopping like mad and the steppers singing at 5K RPM.)

No matter whether the driver is 32bit or 64bit there will ALWAYS be a limit to the stability of a software (interrupt) driven pulse stream, the underlying PC hardware is just not designed to do what Art manges to so 'Artfully' to get out of it. A bit of dedicated hardware like the SmoothStepper can do all the timing critical stuff while the PC does what it does best, crunch numbers and provide a great UI.

Then you have to add in the fact that 64bit driver have to be signed or they won't be allowed to run....

663
SmoothStepper USB / Re: New SS user seeking Mach info
« on: January 27, 2010, 07:55:54 AM »
Quote
Didn't expect to find answer in the middle of post!! . . .

Yeah, that's why I linked to the exact post in the thread. I should write that up and post it separately as I think most folks just leave the SS at the default settings due to not understanding how to come up with the correct settings.

664
SmoothStepper USB / Re: New SS user seeking Mach info
« on: January 26, 2010, 09:04:56 PM »
1) Don't mess with teh kernal freq in Mach. It is not used for the SS.

2) I've explained this a couple of times on this section of the forum. Check this post for more information: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,13762.msg90877.html#msg90877


665
General Mach Discussion / Re: rolling to a new computer
« on: January 26, 2010, 12:44:52 PM »
Install Mach on your new PC and then copy over the profile you are using, i.e. myprofilename.xml and the macros folder for that profile.

666
I had not thought about a dip switch and resistor array, good idea! There is more than one way to skin a cat (as we yanks say.)

667
Owning to feedback from some of my customers I came up with a new way to terminate the stepper cable wires to the DB9 connectors used on the G540: http://soigeneris.com/gecko.aspx. Five solder pads are provided on the board four for the stepper connection and the center one is for the shield braid. There is also a small 5K pot on board so you can adjust it to program your motors current setting and not have to fuss with soldering to the DB9 or finding the correct resistor. The best thing is that the whole board fits in a standard DB9 shell!

I’ve been shipping these for a few months now just by word of mouth but have not been promoting them or had them up on the website. They ship as a complete set of four, with the shells and all.

Thanks,

668
SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper losing communication
« on: January 18, 2010, 11:05:47 PM »
What are your steps/unit and max velocity for each axisd?

669
SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper losing communication
« on: January 18, 2010, 10:43:32 PM »
Don't know about fiddling. I've been using them for more than a year with great results...

670
SmoothStepper USB / Re: smoothstepper losing communication
« on: January 18, 2010, 02:51:12 PM »
The first thing I would check is your SmmothStepper configuration. Configure your 'Max Step Frequency' and 'Velocity Update Frequency' to match you system. See this post for details: http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,13762.msg90877.html#msg90877.

Next thing to check for is noise in the system: Is the USB cable wrapped around the stepper wires, do you have a line filter on your spindle motors, etc.