Messages

411

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 22, 2014, 07:05:11 AM »

Trent:

   You have reversed th eStep and Dir pin on that axis. The dim ilghting is the step, the hard on led is the DIR, sounds very much like their reversed
in your setup. Reverse the step and dir pin and see what happens..

Art

412

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 21, 2014, 09:46:17 PM »

Hi Guys:

  Thx for the reports. I double checked the code due to a report of flashing led's.. I did find where
the DIR bits may have gotten reset. This version unfortunately requires another driver update to version 1.18
which youll see on the waterfall screen if properly installed.

 My appologies for the weird symptoms some of you may have gotten..

Art
 

413

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 21, 2014, 08:58:11 PM »

Trent:

 My system isnt much better really. Is your CPU usage high when 4 is running?

 You say only Y?  Id advise checking it one bit at a time. Does your Breakout Board have LED's? Does the DIR led toggle when you jog right
and left? Make sure all outputs are disabled to ensure none of them conflict with a motor pin. Turn on only one motor till its perfect...

Art

414

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 21, 2014, 07:49:00 AM »

Thx,

  Its good to know it made a difference, I guess those printer ports chips dont like operating at 16 bits , Ill bear that in mind.
Glad to hear things are btter, Ive been running m4 alot last 3 days, no issues noted other than a few small api items Ive sent to the developers.

Art

415

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 20, 2014, 08:04:59 AM »

Hi All:

  I dont think freezing issues are Darwin related. At least I havent seen any that were. I highly suspect more reported
issues are script related at this point. M3,M4, and M5 dont work because the scripts arent designed to actually do anything,
at least on my versions.I think youll have to wait for the full release versions for proper scripting, or as users play with various
plugins as they get released youll see scripts being written and tested.
   I guess as Darwin is the first plugin to be seen by the masses I think its done pretty well and at least helped to identify some
of the shortcomings of the API which will get corrected as time goes by. M4 doesnt for example tell a plugin if a signal is low active
or high active, it just send a 1 or 0 to the signal. While that may work on some systems, I think its important for the plugin to KNOW
this is an ON condition which happens to be a 0, or a OFF condition that happens to be a high. Im sure such things will change over
time as these shortcomings are found. Ill let Darwin sleep for a short while now while others test and report, and the M4 team get
things more ramped up. Gearotic's new CAM modules are calling me and my laser is getting close to experimenting level, so
forgive me if I disappear for a bit, Ill answer questions and such as they appear but I think Ill leave development of Darwin alone till
it all catches up to me.

Art

416

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 19, 2014, 09:46:27 PM »

Peter:

  Thank you for the testing, between you and Sage you've helped me clear a great many weird bugs out of the hay.
All future users of Darwin owe you both a debt of gratitude. Ill let Darwin rest for a few days while you guys figure out
if anything else is nonsensical.  I never would have found that 8-bit chip fetch error without someone unlucky enough to have such a
control chip onboard.  :-)

Art

417

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 19, 2014, 09:09:51 PM »

If it works, Ill leave it as is. Its only a few nanoseconds.. I was being anal even attempting using 16 bit fetches from those chips..

Art

418

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 19, 2014, 09:01:31 PM »

Peter:

   this final version of Darwin ( for tonight. ), has driver version 1.17 on the waterfall, its a driver replacement as well. It allows only
8 bit transfers from the port chips, so if Im correct in my guess, your second port will now show the proper data..

Art

419

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 19, 2014, 08:43:05 PM »

Peter:

  I think Ive figure out your issue. Most printer port chips can handle a 16 bit fetch of data in one call, but a few cannot. They have ports that
can handle only 8 bits of transfer. Mach3 used 8 bit transfers, but Darwin uses 16 to try to speed things up a bit. Due to your machine
showing this screwy input corruption, Ill change that this week to grab ony 8 bits at a time. That will hopefully fix your trouble and prove
it was really a chip compatability issue in the hardware. Interesting result if true.. and Im thinking it probably is.

Thx
ARt

420

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 Printer Port Discussions

« on: August 19, 2014, 08:40:28 PM »

Hi Guys:

   For the record:

The plugin is a file ending in .m4pw ( Mach 4 Plugin (..beats me what the frig the W is for.. lol )
The DLL is a system interface dll.
The .sys is a system level driver. Its the pulse timer and main brain of the system.

Thx
Art