Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Issue with XHC USB Controller and axes direction

« on: January 05, 2018, 04:07:34 PM »

Moving forward! (and backward)

Turns out I had to remove the jumper wire and actually put an additional wire for the +5. So now I have 4 wires to the M542 stepper driver from the controller. The gantry moves in both directions for each axis as it should.

I've also determined that the PE wire needed to be connected to a 0v pin. I used one of the pins associated within the "24v-Power Out" area closest to the Input area.  So I now have the E-Stop working and the Probe!

New issue is I can't get the Reference All Home to work. The axis moves, reaches Home, switch triggers as indicated on Diagnostics tab, axis reverses and goes completely to the other end and crams until I hit the Esc key. When I do hit the ESC key the axis reverses again (like a double touch off) but once it hits the trigger it reverses yet again. It takes two ESC and a Reset to get out of the whole referencing loop.

I'm still playing around with settings but getting nowhere. I been using Mach3 with a parallel port for years. This USB Controller is nice, but worthless if I can't get the Referencing to work.

My shop is warm with a nice wood stove, but the wood pile is dwindling along with my days off from work.

Anybody?

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: Reference not stopping

« on: January 05, 2018, 01:05:04 PM »

I'm having the same issue. I had a 3-axis XHC version IV controller which worked fine for homing and probe. Swapped it for a 4-axis version V and am struggling to get everything sorted out.

Interested in your findings.

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Issue with XHC USB Controller and axes direction

« on: January 03, 2018, 06:27:23 PM »

Thanks for the responses.

I need to clarify about servo/stepper. I have stepper motors; my comment about servos was related to to uncertainty whether the separate 5+ are needed for servos since my previous experience with steppers only have used a single 5+ to supply both the Step & Direction.

I'm using the M542 drivers originally supplied in the CNC 6040Z purchase. All I've done is swap the 3-axis controller for the 4-axis controller, but it has not been a simple wire/pin to wire/pin swap.

I looked closer at the instruction and now see that the 5+ is separated, both from the controller and to the driver. I'll be doing that as soon as the weather warms a bit.

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Issue with XHC USB Controller and axes direction

« on: December 31, 2017, 06:08:23 PM »

I pulled the "+" loop wire leaving it only connected to the Dir+. Now all axes move when the + or - direction keys are pushed, but still in the same direction regardless. Even set one axis to have the 5v only on the Pul+ which oddly yielded the same effect.

At least I know I can get movement from each key, now i just to get them to reverse direction.

15

General Mach Discussion / Issue with XHC USB Controller and axes direction

« on: December 30, 2017, 06:41:09 PM »

New XHC USB 4-Axis controller
Mach3 (licensed to me)
Windows10, 64bit

I had a perfectly working 3-axis XHC USB controller but I am setting up for a laser and wanted to use a 4th axis to control the laser output. Hence, I purchased a 4-axis controller from the same company with the latest version of firmware or upgrades.

I followed the directions for installing the new dll's, macros, etc. to the correct directories and began tuning the stepper motors by simply copying the data from screenshots from the other install, i.e., all the settings for steps/per, accel, velocity, etc., saved for posterity (read sanity).

On this latest revision (V) of the XHC 4-axis controller, the board has moved some of the pins over to the other side of the controller as well as adding both Dir+ and Pul+ for the steppers. The 3-axis only had Dir-, Pul- and 5V. It also dropped the PE (primary earth?) pin altogether (more on that later).

Reading as many posts here as I could (mostly for parallel ports, not USB) and from what I could gather from the internet, I only needed to put a connecting wire between both "+", tieing the stepper's "+" signals together for each axis. Seems logical, but as I know nothing about servos, I can only guess there's a need to have them separated. Unsure.

Anyway, the first problem is I can only move in one direction but not the other on all three axes. When using the keyboard's keys to move the gantry, say for the Y-axis, the movement from the up arrow takes place, but nothing for the down arrow. Stay with me now... if I use the MDI and call for "G01 Y-0.5" in moves, but if I call for "G01 Y0.5" it moves too, BUT in the same direction! Same holds true for Z-axis. But when I call for "G01 X-0.5" it moves, but no response when I call for "G01 X-0.5".

Simplier: X, Y & Z move in one direction only with keyboard, but MDI has a different response depending on the axis.

The second problem is the probe light doesn't light up when grounding. Let's go back to the PE pin being no longer present in Rev. V of the board. When I first turned everything on, since I couldn't find a place to put the PE wire from the original setup, I left it disconnected to err on the safe side. When I launched Mach3, I got an error message that said "Is the XPod Inserted OK? It has ceased to Respond,..". So I went to the troubleshooting/FAQ's and sure enough the solution was to "connect the ground wire (PE) of the inverter and the ground wire of the shaft to the earth".

Shut everything down and got out my multi-tester. After unplugging the power cord from the back of the controller, I probed the ground pin at the plug jack and the side of the power supply. Great! That's where I'll connect the PE. Did that and rebooted, launched Mach3 and the message was no longer there.

One of the probe wires fed into the PE pin, then back out to one side of the E-Stop. That's why I though I was killing two birds with one stone.

Spindle is working without issues. Comes on and off and changes speed based on whatever Speed I throw at it, so all good there.

I've played with pin settings, port settings, etc. but still no joy.

It took me 6 weeks to get the item here so I'm not enamored with having to send it back and wait again. I missed making the holiday gifts I wanted to make because of the delay with Customs and China.

Any ideas from anybody would be most appreciated.

XML file attached

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Using USB and Parallel Port together

« on: August 25, 2017, 08:02:08 AM »

Thanks for the quick responses.

Oddly, I didn't get notified that the other thread had a response.

I know now what I have to do to move forward.

17

General Mach Discussion / Using USB and Parallel Port together

« on: August 24, 2017, 09:58:07 PM »

Is it possible?

I recently purchased a 6040 CNC router with an XHC Mach3 motion controller (USB) which seems to be working very well.

I want additional outputs though and was thinking about adding a parallel port to my Windows 10 machine to get them.

Again, just checking on feasibility at this point.

When I installed Mach3, I purposely did not install the parallel port driver so I know I'd have to do a re-installation oh Mach3 and add that.

I'm mainly concerned about conflicts in configurations.

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Threading Wizard

« on: August 23, 2017, 08:33:13 AM »

Is it possible to use two cards one USB and one parallell and connect the index sensor to  the parallell card?

I do not know if that  will work.

RICH

Was wondering the same thing. I have the 6040Z USB (XHC MachMotion), but would like to have more inputs/outputs. I did not install the parallel port driver as instructed by seller. I know I'd have to do that but am concerned about conflicts with all of it.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Tangential Control

« on: February 25, 2016, 06:24:40 PM »

Have you looked at Donek Tools website?

If you have software the will read a Microsoft Excel format file, there's a free download of their xls spreadsheet that will convert your GCode to one that works well with a free swiveling knife blade.

Yeah, I know you're wanting to control the rotation with the A-axis, but the file may be worth studying if you have the inclination to do so.

Look here and then back out to their home page.

Pretty cool stuff and hardware.

20

General Mach Discussion / Using PWM with DAC board for Laser diode output control

« on: February 19, 2016, 12:14:09 PM »

I've purchased a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) board to start down the path of gray scale laser engraving. I've read many threads, documents, etc. found throughout the web. However, so that I don't toast my second laser diode, I need a little hand holding.

The DACtem I've purchased can be found on Amazon shown here

I've purchased a Laser Diode (NDB7875) from DTR's shop (found here).

I've also purchased a Laser Driver board from eBay seller "x-wossee" but he doesn't have one for sale at the time of this posting.
Mine was: 3Amp Analog PWM Laser Diode Driver with Thermal Protection 445nm 638nm 520nm.  Currently, they have one that's 6 amps.

Unless I reading something incorrectly, the DAC shows that it maxes out at 10mA. My gut feeling tells me that since the diode appears to be capable to above 2A, the laser driver board (LDB) from x-wossee is actually the one that provides that amps, but the signal coming from the DAC tells the LDB how much amperage to put out. Correct?

I would also appreciated some guidance on the connecting wires that go between them all. I believe I can handle the Mach3 settings if I get it wired correctly.