Messages

51

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Mill - Power Reset Issue & Spindle outputs - FIXED!!

« on: November 02, 2008, 09:58:17 PM »

I Found the problem!!!!

So here's the deal. Later versions of XP will poll the parallel port until it has been accessed every 5 seconds. Toggling any input pins will cause XP to query the parallel port to see what's there. This does funny things to all the output pins. In my case when I toggle my ESTOP button which happens before any other parallel port access it would trigger this query and mess things up. This would clear up after I toggled the spindle on and off a few times. XP would give control back to Mach3 and it would not look at the parallel port again until after a reboot.

So here is the fix. Add this entry to the registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Parport\Parameters\DisableWarmPoll

This registry entry should be of type DWORD and have a value of 1 (0x00000001).

Reboot and problem solved.

52

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Mill - Power Reset Issue & Spindle outputs - UPDATED

« on: November 02, 2008, 08:50:20 PM »

So this problem is related to pin 15 which I have setup for ESTOP input. Even without the software loaded if I pull pin 15 low it freaks out the parallel port. XP must be doing something with this pin. I'm researching that or if anyone has run across this before please let me know.

53

General Mach Discussion / Mach 3 Mill - Power Reset Issue & Spindle outputs - UPDATED

« on: October 30, 2008, 01:04:30 AM »

Just downloaded the latest copy of Mach 3  and it still has a problem I reported in ver. (.068) with power off resets. I have my spindle controls setup on two relays, one for each direction. They are controlled by pins 8&9 and are active low. When I reboot my PC and load Mach 3 Mill both pins go active after I reset. They will stay that way and even do some strange toggles until I cycle the spindle 2 times in the diag screen. I can move the other axis's and it still will not set these pins correctly. Luckily my relays prevent the possiblility of both being on at the same time so I didn't have a shop full of smoke. Obviously I do not want the machine coming up with the spindle on however so this needs addressed. After this first episode I can close and open Mach 3 all day long and it works fine. Just the first power on load causes the problem. 

Another note is that before the Mach software loades the output pins are inactive (High).

The hardware is a P4 3.2Ghz running XP. Anyone have a clue what is going on?

54

Forum suggestions and report forum problems. / Problem with Mach 3 Mill Reset

« on: May 03, 2007, 07:30:47 PM »

Just downloaded the latest copy of Mach 3 (.068) and it still has a problem with power off resets. I have my spindle controls setup on two relays, one for each direction. They are controlled by pins 8&9 and are active low. When I reboot my PC and load Mach 3 Mill both pins go active after I reset. They will stay that way and even do some strange toggles until I cycle the spindle 2 times in the diag screen. I can move the other axis's and it still will not set these pins correctly. Luckily my relays prevent the possiblility of both being on at the same time so I didn't have a shop full of smoke. Obviously I do not want the machine coming up with the spindle on however so this needs addressed. After this first episode I can close and open Mach 3 all day long and it works fine. Just the first power on load causes the problem.