Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 table size and drawing units confusion

« on: September 10, 2012, 04:32:13 AM »

Hi All

I got it all to work pretty close now !
Looks like the settings is 33.33333333 after all. Last time this didnt work, but i must have commited somewhere to it, and it looks like the movement is pretty close to the correct movement. I will only know once i get the laser focus lens. ...still in the post somewhere..
I got to work on the limit switches and table settings ...i`m getting there slowely.. There is a nice video on home switches and table setup on the forum video section..

Thanx again HOOD and RICH
much appreciated
Andre

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 table size and drawing units confusion

« on: September 06, 2012, 03:23:36 AM »

When i think about it now, the wheel attathed to the gantry moving the gantry , is about 100mm across. If i need to move the gantry nozzle 1mm, the wheel hardly need to move. I turn of this wheel via the belt , would move the gantry about 60mm as i had it. So it all start to make sense now. ...sometimes i just need to think before i do.

It just a question of getting the move of 1mm to be 1mm and not anything else.

I will try again today and report back.

Andre

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 table size and drawing units confusion

« on: September 06, 2012, 02:30:47 AM »

Hi

The steps/unit was wrong. I just dont have a solid idea of how to get this set correctly yet. I tried the auto setup option on the settings screen, but that didnt fix anything.
What i did here was : You select the axis and then it asks you how far you want it to move. I put 1 into the box . The axis move and then i measure it , which comes to 60 mm. I then put 6 into the box and the axis get set to 33.33333333. It is still too big. I know from playing with the settings , that the smaller the number, the closer the machine gets to the correct size.

So, thinking more about it today i was thinking....... 1 unit in the axis box translates to 60mm when the axis move and i measure it. Should it then be 1/60 = 0.0166666666666667 . This is on both axis.

This makes sense to me, but i havnt tried it yet. Did i math it correctly ?

I also noticed that the velocity and speed settings inputs need to be ridiculously high  ....in the thousands in order to get the axis to move at a decent speed, because of the small setting input on the steps/unit....the x-axis had a setting of 300 000 when i had the steps/unit set to 1. Now it will be even higher if the steps/unit get set to 0.0166....
Am i on the right path ?

Thanx
Andre

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 table size and drawing units confusion

« on: September 05, 2012, 07:41:30 AM »

Hi

The units in mach is set to mm and my drawing that came out of Cambam is also in mm. So i quess this rules out those possibilities then.
My attention shifts to steps /unit ... i think this will be a good starting point.

Thanx , will give this a looky when i get home

Andre

25

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 table size and drawing units confusion

« on: September 05, 2012, 04:58:23 AM »

Hi All

I have been thinking and reading bout this for a while now.
I have read the manual on the home position and re-setting the actual home position to where you want ..offsetting is what they call it i think.

I have a test gcode file that is 237mm wide. When i pull the file into mach, it seems that the size of this object is all the way across the table. My table is like 1,5 meters across by 900 mm in the y axis, so its a pretty big working area.
Now my question : If i load this file, why is it so huge and all across the table width of nearly 1.5 meters when its actually only 237mm wide. I`m obviously missing something..

Thanx guys
Andre

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM signal not showing correctly

« on: September 04, 2012, 12:45:56 AM »

Its Working ....YIPEE !!!!

I had a missing wire from my hobbycnc earth to my Homann controller earth/ground/common...
I could not believe that i had no picked this up before. After hooking my multimeter up to the output on pin 1 and the printer port ground, the output started to change as i was inserting the speed into the spindle speed box ...i was extatic..

I still dont know how i missed this wire ...i was sure i had it ...well, it works, and now i can move on to the next level..

I`m sure i will be asking more questions as time goes on.

TWEAKIE AND HOOD, A BIG THANK YOU AND ALL OTHERS WHO CONTRIBUTED..


Andre

27

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM signal not showing correctly

« on: September 03, 2012, 06:03:03 AM »

Hi

I will download the file and post tomorrow. I have actually read the file that report on the status of the ports and pins. There it had some error messages on the step pins, but the motors ran fine, so i assumed it meant nothing. Also, i had followed the setup instructions from the hobby cnc documentation on what pins to use. It specifically stated what pins to use for the direction and step.

Thanx
Andre

28

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM signal not showing correctly

« on: September 03, 2012, 04:28:45 AM »

Hi

No, doesnt work. I have tried it ...always 100%  ...although the spindle speed box is showing the correct speed as picked up by the cnc code, but the laser output is not responding to it ...always just 100%

The other thing i`m thinking of is that the hobbyCNC board might be the problem. I have sent mail to Dave Rigotti to ask him bout it. I dont know how the signals work inside the pc printer port, but it might be that the board interferes with the pwm signal inside the pc.

THX
A

29

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM signal not showing correctly

« on: September 03, 2012, 01:20:48 AM »

No progress. I have been at it all last week, but i just cannot get a nice pwm signal. Now i know i `m getting some kind of signal out of the pwm pin, as i do get a trigger to fire the laser. When i disable the pin output, the laser stops working, so i`m at the right pin.
I dont want to stare myself blind on the pwm signal as it is propably working correctly as i do get an output, but it will be nice to know that it does work and i can look further down the line. I dont think my scope can read the signal correctly. Its already more than 15 years old , so it might be faullty. I`m going to try and dowmload  pc scope software and see if that doesnt work....i`m becoming obsessive of the pwm signal :-)

Another thing that lead me to believe that the scope is faulty, is the fact that i`m also battling to see a normal radio control pwm signal....i can parcially see it , like only half of it ..never a nice clear all the way across the scope, but just enough to know that its there.. :-(

Thanx for all the feedback and info so far.
A

30

General Mach Discussion / Re: PWM signal not showing correctly

« on: August 30, 2012, 09:01:49 AM »

Sorry, i have sort of double posted my message