Messages

721

General Mach Discussion / Re: homing order

« on: October 20, 2009, 11:58:20 AM »

Ah come on Hood  I was hoping to plant the seed of curiosity and maybe get a newbie to try the forums 'Search' features, or maybe something really wild like look through the Mach manual.

Not picking on you jg123, just wanting to encourage you to get familiar with all the resources this website has to offer.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: homing order

« on: October 20, 2009, 08:52:55 AM »

Edit the homing macro 

723

General Mach Discussion / Re: minimum PC requirements for Mach3

« on: October 19, 2009, 01:01:22 PM »

Win 7 , like Vista , sucks big time. 7 doesn't even come with an e-mail program.and it's bloated like Vista.

Blah, blah, blah, MS sucks, blah, blah, blah...<insert the rest of the standard mindless MS bashing here>

Actually when you install Win7 Pro, one of the updates it will ask you about is called something like 'Windows Live Essentials', which includes, Messenger, mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Family Safety, etc, etc. So they are not including things that may not be required by all folks using Win7 Pro but they are available for FREE download. (Is that the 'crap' you were complaining about?) In a similar fashion Win7 Home and Win7 Enterprise will have different things included based on the general requirements of that target audience.

Windows always has been a general purpose operation system, there will always be a few things running that all users will not benefit from. But they had to include a set of features that would meet the needs of 80% or the target audience.

If you think Windows sucks so bad then why not write your own OS from scratch?

Sorry, nothing personal but mindless bashing of MS or anything else annoys me...

724

General Mach Discussion / Re: M03 Won't turn my spinle on MO5 works fine

« on: October 18, 2009, 03:27:38 PM »

You have to map the M3/M4 commands to Mach's logical output numbers and map the output pin that should turn on your spindle to the same Output. Look under Config->Ports&Pins. You will be interested in the Spindle tab and Output tab.

BTW, also look at the Support tab on this for for Documentation. Download the Mach manual. It has all the info you will ever need on configuring the spindle.

725

General Mach Discussion / Re: e stop requested ?

« on: October 15, 2009, 09:24:50 AM »

'E-Stop Requested' means that an external input to Mach, set up in Ports&Pins as the E-Stop input, triggered the E-Stop condition. If you press the button on Mach's screen then you get an 'E-Stop Pressed'.

Your problem is NOISE, you can try setting a debounce value in Ports&Pins to see if that helps. Something on the order of 100ms should be plenty. It could also be that you will need to track down the source of the noise to solve the problem.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Dell PC any good ?

« on: October 13, 2009, 10:38:36 PM »

Rich, I was talking about the OP's settings. He mentioned something about not being able to get his limits etc set up and working.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Dell PC any good ?

« on: October 13, 2009, 10:01:05 PM »

It is really pot luck whether or not a particular PC will work well with the parallel port driver. I've used a Dell GX270 before with Mach. From the limited description given in your post it is hard to tell if the problem is associated with the PC or with how you have Mach configured.

728

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 and Geckodrive G540

« on: October 13, 2009, 11:29:46 AM »

The fit of the G540 is dependant upon the type of motors you have, how they are wired, and what performance you wish to get out of them. Take a look at the G540 docs: http://geckodrive.com/product.aspx?c=3&i=14469 to get an idea of the ideal range of motor sizes / inductance for the G540. Gecko also has a good guide to steppers at: http://geckodrive.com/upload/Step_motor_basics.pdf, starting at page 10 it talks about power supplies. For the G540 sized machines I prefer to use a switch type power supply as they are more compact and much more efficient (for instance the model I sell is more than 90% efficient), they also generally have over current, over voltage, over temp protection built in. They also have a formula floating around somewhere for doing a rough calculation on the 'ideal' power supply voltage.

Depending on your machines configuration there may not be a single 'ideal' power supply voltage. I just built up a special STDR-4C drive system (G540 based) for a customer that had a 4'x8' commercially made router. The stepper motors installed at the factory were all over the ballpark as far as size/inductance. Gecko had recommended they replace their existing NEE controller with a G540 and after finding out the motor specs and how the motors were wired it was apparent that there was no one 'ideal' power supply voltage (or driver for that matter) but the G540 was a good fit and was no doubt much better than the original drivers. I'll have pictures of the custom STDR-4C up on my website soon.

One thing to keep in mind is that the G540 has a fixed 10x microstepping. From a performance standpoint that works out great as it gives very smooth low speeds and as the G540 morphs to full steps as the RPMs increase higher RPM performance is good as well. The step morphing is an internal function, you just set Mach's steps / unit for 10x microstepping. If you have a lot of gear reduction and a slowish PC it could have the potential to cause problems if your LPT can't generate pulses fast enough. Usually it is not the case and increasing the pulse time or selecting Sherline 1/2 pulse mode will get it working fine. On my Taig mill the steps/unit with a G540 comes out to 40,000. My old shop PC can run the machine close to 90 IPM with the SS it can go faster.

If you can find out the specs on your motors someone may be able to give you a more exact answer.

729

General Mach Discussion / Re: EStop won't work

« on: October 08, 2009, 10:32:42 AM »

That is true! The other parts of an E-Stop system depend entirely on your machine, drive, etc. Generally speaking an E-Stop condition will remove power to the drives (by switching off the AC to the power supply) and may also switch in braking resistors (for servos) and/or axis brakes.

730

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Hissing noise from Idle Stepper Motors with Smoothstepper

« on: October 08, 2009, 09:35:45 AM »

Presumably if the SS is not powered up then the motors will not be powered up, i.e. the drive is not getting any signals from the SS. In my experience noise from the steppers is related to the drive. Since you notice it when the motors are idle it may just be from the idle current reduction? What type of drive are you using?