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1

General Mach Discussion / Rapid Traverse stopped working with shift Arrow command

« on: January 25, 2019, 05:58:54 AM »

Hi
Any suggestions welcomed to sort me out on this please.
I am running Mach 3 Mill and suddenly my rapid traverse in continuous mode using shift on the keyboard and up/down or the  arrow keys on the keyboard has stopped working and just works in slow traverse mode. Its as if the Shift Key has not been depressed. It also doesn't work either when I use the arrow keys on the Control Buttons Flyout. I have tried another keyboard so I know it not a keyboard Shift Key problem.
G00 rapid traverse commands in all axis work fine at full speed.

Any thoughts?
Thanks
Tony

2

General Mach Discussion / How do I change Output signal Active status from within a G code program

« on: March 19, 2017, 01:06:57 PM »

Hi
I am trying to switch on and off the voltage on pin 14 on my parallel port from within the g code program run within Mach 3. I need to do this to control an auto tool changer.
I have set up output 14 in the Mach 3 Ports and Pins Output Signals tab to be Enabled on Port 1 (I only have one parallel port on my PC), set Pin No. 14 and set to say Active Low with a red cross.
I can go into the Ports and Pins output screen and set the Active Low from red cross to green tick and I can see the voltage chance on pin 14 on my controller board, but I just can figure out how to change the status from within a G code program.
I suspect I have missed something really easy in the manual but I cant find it. It must be possible as switching on suds pumps etc must be done this way I presume.
Any guidance gratefully received.
Thanks
Tony

3

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 XP pulse rate problem

« on: April 20, 2016, 03:55:41 PM »

Hi
I have been running Mach3 for my milling machine for some time under XP and my old computer stopped working. So I have purchased a second hand desktop computer also running XP. I installed Mach 3, rebooted as per the manual and loaded my licence and also loaded the profile I used to use on the previous computer. (luckily I had a backup of the profile)
All works fine for about 10 seconds and then my drive motors go into a very rough mode and make a grumbling noise. If I reboot the computer and try again then the same thing happens. If I just shut down Mach 3 and try again then it dosnt even give me the 10 seconds of smooth running.

I suspect it is a pulse rate problem but I don't know what to do about it. My kernel speed is set to 25000hz and I haven't ever changed that.
Here is what I have done.
I ran the driver test.exe program and this tells me that the system is pulsing too fast and then too slow and the Pulses per Second value in the box at the top of the screen is fluctuating between 2000 and 6000 pulses per second. I also have a lathe controlled by Mach 3 on another computer and I ran the driver test.exe on that computer and it was steady at 25000. (Incidentally if I plug my mill into the computer I usually use to control my lathe and use the mill profile it all works fine so I am fairly sure it is the computer and not the Mach 3 configuration I am using)
So I read the manual and saw that there is an option to revert the computer to use the older i8529 interrupt driver so I ran special driver.bat to do this without success. I then ran OriginalDriver.bat to put it back to the standard driver. I rebooted after doing each of these steps but no luck.
I then loaded the Mach3 driver manually as per 2.4.2 in the Mach3 manual and rebooted but also no success.
I have reloaded Mach3 completely three times to have the install program auto install the drivers  and rebooted each time but the problem persists.

Any ideas or should I buy another computer.
Cheers
tony

 

4

G-Code, CAD, and CAM discussions / Recommendations on a good CAM system for Mach3 please

« on: December 26, 2014, 04:53:02 PM »

Hi
I am looking for a good quality CAM system for turning to go with Mach3 and drive my Denford Orac lathe. I am turning outside profiles only, but they involve complex curves which need to be read from a .DXF file and need to be able to cope with an auto tool changer.
I have tried Lazycam and found it difficult to use and I could not fathom the user interface, and the tool paths it generated were just a nonsense. Budget is not the problem and I am expecting to pay much more than the good old $50 dollar programs which seem to proliferate the internet.
I am new to this whole subject, so any recommendations would be gratefully received.
thanks
Tony M