Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: getting started

« on: January 28, 2013, 08:21:30 PM »

by the way, thanks chaoticone. you have been the most supportive

12

General Mach Discussion / Re: getting started

« on: January 28, 2013, 08:19:11 PM »

alright. got the drivertest to work. thanks.
Using the formula to figure the steps per inch, i come up with 20000. 1.8 degree motors x 360 dgrees= 200. xthe dipswitch setting at 10=2000. x 1 to 1 ratio.x 10 revolutions per inch.
  when i calibrate the axis, it bumps me up to 158000.
what am i missing?

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: getting started

« on: January 28, 2013, 03:01:32 PM »

another question.
I have movement of my motors...good. Now I am trying to calibrate them.
I have my drivers set at 8 steps per revolution. Ten revolutions per inch. This seems to be the fastest I can get the motors to go without stopping. If I set it for more steps then it is creepy slow. No matter what I set the motors at.
My gantry slides really easy,so I know its not binding.But I cant get any real speed out of it.

What is the normal setting for the d.i.p. switches on the driver?
When I go to calibrate the axis in settings, it changes my settings in motor tuning. Then when I do a second calibration, the motor tuning is wrong and wont move the motors.
I am still in demo mode. I would like to get this setup before I purchase.
 This is where I was at when I reloaded the mach3 demo software. Gets frustrating.

Also, on the artsoft video, it had a drivertest.exe to see that the driver was running right. I cant get this to run either. Is this my problem?

I downloaded the install and configure document,loaded the software like it said. Rebooted.

Is there a driver I need to download?

14

General Mach Discussion / mach3 purchase question

« on: January 28, 2013, 01:56:11 PM »

Here is my situation....
I have yet to purchase a mach3 license. Still working in demo mode to work out some bugs. My computer for my machine isnt hooked to the internet. Didnt want any problems with viruses spam or whatever.
Question is ...when I purchase the license, am I going to be able to put it on a disk and transfer it to the offline computer?
Also, I have bobcad cam. Will I be able to draft my project on my laptop and put the code on a disk and cut it on the other offline computer?
I work on the road a lot, and have time at the other end to draft my projects. Kind of wanted to use my downtime away from home to do the drafting and come home and do the milling.

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: getting started

« on: January 28, 2013, 01:21:50 PM »

well,i finally got it. The first time i loaded it, it was using the communications port. This time it is using the lpt port. had to uncheck an automatic settings box and put that port address. and it worked. DRO's seem to be working also. Although i haven't checked with the dial indicator yet. Speed doesnt seem to have changed either. But actual movement is a step forward.

16

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: New people welcome !! Come in here and introduce your self!

« on: January 28, 2013, 11:54:43 AM »

 hello everyone.
fishkiller is a nickname i stuck to my son on a day of fishing.lol...he was catching em all and i ,of course didnt get a bite.
 i have been in the metal fab field for about 15 years. not a lot of cnc, and what there was doesnt help much.
i had been looking into a plasma table for a while(years). but couldnt afford one.
  So I finally started building my own, wanting versatility. I ended up building a router table which has tables that i can switch out and go to plasma.
 

17

General Mach Discussion / getting started

« on: January 28, 2013, 11:27:30 AM »

hey everyone. i started building my own cnc a couple years ago. I had a friend that understood the software,but had to move and now cant reach him for support.   i downloaded mach3 trial version onto my computer a while back. Had the motors running, but couldn't get any real speed out of it. literally about 5 inches a minute. T he DRO's wouldn't calibrate. I would move it an inch and the DRO would be at huge numbers. No pattern.
  So, if all else fails, go to the beginning. I thought maybe I had a corrupt or old mach3 download. I loaded it onto a disk to put on the cnc computer. The computer for the machine doesnt have internet access. So, saved the mach3 to a disk two years ago, hence the reason i thought it may be old. Saved a "fresh" download of mach3 and uninstalled other one and installed this one.
   Now i cant get any movement from the machine at all.

Please help. Any positive feedback and suggestions would be a godsend....