Messages

231

General Mach Discussion / Re: Reoccuring problem installing NFS wizards license

« on: March 21, 2013, 12:21:11 PM »

I had a problem with the license with NFS Mill Wizard not installing on my Dell 8400 XP pro. Sometimes it would recognize the license and sometimes not. Turned out to be the Netgear 150 wireless adapter plugged into the USB port that was causing the problem. NSF wizard uses the ethernet MAC address to determine the pc ID# for the license. If the Netgear wireless adapter is disabled it locks out the MAC ethernet address. It might be part of the Netgear security scheme. Enabling the wireless adapter NFS wizard license would load without issue. I forward this info to Scott at NFS and they are checking why this happens. I'm not familar with Windows 7 but would check  the ethernet setup MAC address to see if there is a conflict. I left the wireless adapter enabled... it doesn't seem to cause problems with Mach 3 or Mill Wizard.

232

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Value increases on its own - Problem

« on: March 20, 2013, 12:10:15 PM »

I used the feed hold then jogged the cutter back in the Y axis to clear chips. Then resumed cutting. I noticed the Z axis pulsing 0.001" back to Z home at 2 or 3 seconds intervals. The stepper motor was moving. I reloaded the program and continued without problems. Later I ran another program and used feed hold. After restarting again the Z axis (motor and DRO) was pulsing 0.001" towards the home position.

233

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Value increases on its own - Problem

« on: March 20, 2013, 08:15:08 AM »

I experienced the same problem but only happened after I used the Feed Hold command then back to cycle start. The z axis slowly creeps back toward the home position. It seems to be a mach 3 problem. The problem occures on several gcode programs. As long as I don't use feed hold... I don't have the z creeping issue. 

234

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Axis Creeping after Feed Hold

« on: March 12, 2013, 08:24:47 AM »

Hood, Do a forum search on "Feed Hold" and you will find several threads. Using a X axis sufacing wizard written by Kirk that is included with Mach 3. The gcode looks ok.  As I said... as long as the Feed Hold command isn't used it runs ok.

235

General Mach Discussion / Re: Z Axis Creeping after Feed Hold

« on: March 12, 2013, 05:54:28 AM »

Using the PC keyboard. The problem on happens after a feed hold command. Did a search on this forum and there are several threads with feed hold problems that resulted positioning problems. Seems to be a bug in Mach 3.

236

General Mach Discussion / Z Axis Creeping after Feed Hold

« on: March 11, 2013, 12:16:35 PM »

Pressing "Feed Hold" and jogging away to clear chips, I press the "Cycle Start" to resume and noticed the Z axis starts creeping (0.001" every 2 or 3 seconds) back to home position. No issues with the X or Y axis. I've duplicated this issue several times to verify. As long as I don't use Feed Hold everything works ok. Using Gerry's 2010 screenset, licensed V.066, Gecko 540 driver.  Any suggestions?

237

General Mach Discussion / Re: Urgent help needed. Setting up MACH 3

« on: January 14, 2013, 12:27:37 PM »

Ok... I just looked at the Dell PC Optiplex you are using. I read someplace, and I try to find it, that Dell's Optiplex line of PC's parallel port BIOS doesn't give the option to be set for EPP mode so it won't work with Mach 3. If this is the case I would go with Smoothstepper and use the USB port.  

238

General Mach Discussion / Re: Urgent help needed. Setting up MACH 3

« on: January 14, 2013, 12:14:49 PM »

Make sure the PC parallel port config is for EPP mode. If its not set for EPP it won't communncated correctly to the motor driver board.

239

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach Turn Index Pulse and IPR question

« on: January 12, 2013, 09:00:57 AM »

Hello all,
I'm new to the CNC world and in the process of building a machine with a 2.2kw, water cooled motor and VFD. My background is a controls and VFD drive engineer. Some of the problem posted by spencyg could be related to interference from improperly grounded or no shielded motor t-lead cable. I see this situation all the time with customers. Improperly or no grounding can cause havoc with electronics caused by VFD output inductive noise.

Using a VFD requires shielded motor cable which is specially designed for this application. Igus, Belden and several other to name a few make shielded flexible t-lead. All shielded cables must be grounded to a central point and only on one end. Never daisy chain ground connections from one device to another - use individual ground runs back to a central point.  

Do not ground the shield at both ends of the cables, this creates a secondary path for voltage ground looping through the equipment frame work. And always avoid running motor lead (AC) cable next to and parallel to low voltage (DC) signal cables.

Hope this helps...