Messages

401

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: August 23, 2014, 10:18:36 AM »

Tweaky:

 lol, yes as we all know the path to hell is paved with good intentions.. ( and idea's..).

  Ill show in a video how it all works out..

Art

402

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: August 23, 2014, 07:29:12 AM »

Tweaky:

>>In the attached pic. of one of my earlier test samples, there are two changes of S word occurring when switching from an ‘engraving’ to a ‘cutting’ >>toolpaths and in both instances the increase in PWM pierced the work (shown by the arrows) at the end of the ‘engraving’ toolpath.
>>This fooled me a bit to start with but thanks to help by Craig and Scott adding a delay in the Mcode switching macro’s resolved the issue. Just how this >>can be resolved when using an axis direction pin for laser switching I have yet to discover but it is all part of the great learning experience.

  Cant happen in this method, no laser is emitted when turning on the PWM, the panel gets the new power within a few ms.. but even that time doesnt
matter as radiation only happens as the step pin pulses. The step pin, resets the pulse counter which then allows radiation only for a set number of pulses
and then stops..unless another step pulse comes along. The next step pulse resets the counter and radiation starts again..or continues as it may have still
been shooting as a result of the last pulse. 

  In other words you can turn on the spindle , go for a walk, come back and then jog, the laser cuts only during motion.. Its my hope this cures many ill's
in terms of early trails and such.. mainly because you can enter a spindle delay.. a few ms will do it, and your power will always be proper no matter
if your in Mach3 or 4. This panel is designed to work as easily on M3 as M4 or EMC.. all you need is the 5 wire hookup to the breakout board.

 I hope to turn on power this week and test rather than just look at numbers, so we'll soon see if Im barking up the wrong tree.

Art

403

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 08:30:13 PM »

Hi Trent:

>>I was able to get all the motors moving as they should - in the process I built an LED panel to make it easier to see the appropriate LEDs as my BoB is upside down under my table inside an old PC case, so was hard to see using a mirror under the table :/-

    I understand, mine is a bitch as well..

>>Initially, I had expected that the step LEDs should all be lit.  But it turned out they were not.  After some trial and error, I figured out that I had to >>negate the step settings for each port.  With that done, all LEDs for step are now lit. Now expecting that the step signals were coming through correctly, >>I expected things to work, and as expected all motors now move.  I also negated the Dir settings for each as well to get the motors moving in the right 

  Some driver require a high on that led, others require a low, negating as a test is a good diagnostic .. but the most important diagnostic was the
drive to keep hacking.. well done!

Art



Thanks again for the advice and encouragement Art.

404

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 08:06:50 PM »

Ryan:

 If the motor isnt enabled, then it shouldnt move. Unless something points to its step pin, it should stay still..
Ill keep my eyes open for what might cause that..

Art

405

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 08:05:28 PM »

Jerry

The index doesnt matter, its just a count of how many steps it has moved since turn on..

Art

406

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 03:47:11 PM »

Ahh, pin 8..

 Ill run a check just to be absolutley sure ..

Art

407

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 03:30:58 PM »

Well, that proves its not Mach then.

 OK, so we need to know why pin 3 doesnt work ( Im assuming the STEP pin is pin 3? )
Well ignore the DIR pin as if it was bad the motor would still move, just in the wrong direction.
So search for any signal you may have turned in in other motors, or outputs that is set to pin3.
Its about the only thing that can stop you. The pin will not be set to step unless no other pin uses it.
  Pin3 is a bit in the 8 bit area of pins 2-9 , so theres nothing particularly special about it, so I cant see
anything other than 2 possibilites, the Y axis isnt working or the pin 3 signal is getting overwritten by an output
or other motor..

Any chance its that?

Art

   

408

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 02:58:17 PM »

Hi Jerry:

>>I have everything working on my 3D printer except no movement on Y axes.
>>X pins 7 and 1
>>Y pins 3 and 8 ( I tried switching them but same thing)
>>Mach 3 same computer works fine.
 
  If you switch the X and Y settings, does the Y then move when you try to move X? Does X move when you try to move Y?

Art

409

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: August 22, 2014, 02:03:28 PM »

Hi Guys:

   I jus finished hooking up the new control panel. It now takes a 50hz PWM and converts it to 5Khz PWM. So now I have Mach4
so I can type an Sword from 1 - 100 and get 0-100% power in 100 steps. Thats was job 1. I also have an override for that by a pot on the panel so I can override the Gcode program on the fly by turning the pot like a brightness pot to control the output.
   Also, rather than actually turn on the laser, the PWM , when sensed, just tells the laser to be prepared to fire at that power, if PWM is not sensed
but the Spindle on command goes high, the panel then uses just th epot for power. SO when Darwin ( or mach3) commands Spindle on, the laser gets
ready. The panel is also wired to the X and Y step and direction lines. ( you have to hook up 5 wires from the panel to the breakout baord.).

   SO now, when an step is sensed on X or Y, the laser will trigger off a shot of n pulses set by the user on the panel. When it exhausts those n pulses
it stops. Each time it sees a step it resets the counter, so if you move slow or fast, the power per step is the roughly the same, this should make grey scales easier as in this method speed is not as important.. more as I do more testing...

Art

410

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 01:32:23 PM »

Pablo:

 As of last nights version, yes, it is turned on. Set the MPG count and encoder number and it will send a message each time the increment is
equal or more than detent.

Art