Messages

1211

General Mach Discussion / Re: I'm a little confused?

« on: March 27, 2021, 03:58:08 PM »

Hi,
believe it or not I still think you are on the right track.......excepting only your choice of motion controller.

The Novusun board is to my knowledge a Mach3 only board, that is to say that it will run only with Mach's trajectory planner,
no other software will work. You can of course persevere with the Novusun controller and get it to work but minus extra support
that you might have obtained from the forum.

One of the problems of Chinese made motion controllers is that they only very loosely follow Mach3 protocols and therefore many of Mach's
features don not work as intended. Probing is a particular problem with Chinese made boards as they were intended to be run with pirated
(altered) versions of Mach3 rather than the genuine article.

While it may not be what you want to hear I would regard the Novusun as a mistake and discard it. In finding a replacement reject out of hand
anything Chinese, they make many great things but Mach ready motion controllers are not among them.

In short I’m in France, it costs a fortune to get anything through customs.

If you buy a Mach license, be it Mach3 OR Mach4, you pay for it online and the license file is emailed to you....no shipping....no customs.

PoKeys, CNCDrive and CSLabs are all European manufacturers, if you can't get one of their boards cheaper than I can....then emigrate, New
Zealand is a fair choice, in the South Island where I live we haven't had a community case of COVID for 10.5 months.

The reason I wanted to use Mach 3 is that it has been well received over the years and I only wanted to do simple stuff with it.

That is a laudable sentiment, although I would recommend Mach4 over Mach3, but still both a very well suited to what you want to do.
I notice that you said that you liked VB.......but why? Mach, 3 or 4, is a Gcode interpreter and trajectory planner and does not require VB
(or Lua in the case of Mach4) to operate. Certainly you can program your own macros in VB (Lua in the case of Mach4) if you want but many, even
most, Mach users NEVER program anything like that....and don't need to. In fact when I started to program my own Mach3 Macros in VB
six years ago I was so disgusted with VB as implemented by Mach3 that I ditched Mach3 altogether and bought Mach4, and have never looked back.

While this forum is abut NFS products, namely Mach3 and Mach4, and it it not really appropriate to mention or promote a competitors
product, in the interest of open and frank discussion....UCCNC software which is manufactured by CNCDrive, the same Hungarian manufacturer
of the UC series of controllers. I personally have never used UCCNC but by all reports is better than Mach3 and very close to Mach4 in performance.
Another alternative is LinuxCNC, free open source software and very capable indeed.

Thus you have three excellent choices of software, Mach4, UCCNC or LinuxCNC.....but all three have one thing in common....you'll not be able
to use your Novusun board with any of them.

Craig

1212

General Mach Discussion / Re: I'm a little confused?

« on: March 27, 2021, 06:51:31 AM »

Hi,

I purchased a good quality kit based on review that didn’t cost the earth.

That's a very good start, now all you need is a motion controller and CNC software and you are in business.

The question I have is why you have gone to the trouble and expense of buying a good machine but then try
to get the cheapest controller/software solution? You have clearly done some research on the machine before deciding to buy,
had you done any reading here you would have found plenty of advice on suitable motion control hardware that is
compatible with either or both Mach3 and Mach4, including the admonishment against Novusun.

The carriage costs from America costs for most part more than the item

I live in New Zealand which is as about as far as you can get from the US and still be on the planet, and it cost $20USD to get it here.

A big share of micro electronics are produced in China. I suspect even the UC100 boards are.

Rubbish, the UC100 is made by CNCDrive which is a Hungarian company  and they manufacture in-house. You buy a genuine
UC100 and you are buying a European made product.

If you want a European product then any from the CNCDrive stable, UC100, UC300, UC400, AXBB-EE, or one of the PoKeys
57CNC, 57CNCdb25 are excellent choices.

Mach 3 is expensive for a product going out of service and I can’t afford Mach4 on top

Mach3 is $175USD. Mach4 is $200USD. You don't have to buy Mach3 in order to use Mach4...they are different products, you buy the one,
and only the one, you want to use. If you think VB is good  then you have not tried Lua.

Craig

1213

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: help for repeatability with mach 4

« on: March 26, 2021, 03:22:35 PM »

Hi,
at a guess I would say that you have a conflict with your BoB and stepper drivers.

Lets say your stepper drivers are active low whereas you BoB has a pull-down resistor. In that circumstance
if your controller offered 20 steps CW followed by 20 steps CCW your steppers would advance 20 steps CW but
only 19 steps CCW.

Craig

1214

General Mach Discussion / Re: I'm a little confused?

« on: March 26, 2021, 03:15:19 PM »

Hi,
Novusun have eternally blotted their copy book, do yourself a favor an buy a US or European made motion controller.

One of the simplest and cheapest is the UC100.....and don't be tempted to buy one of the dozens of Chinese rip-offs
of the same product that abound on Amazon and Ebay....they are not a patch on the real thing, buy genuine or don't
buy at all.

If you want a better controller consider the Ethernet SmoothStepper (Warp9TD). It is ethernet connected and has much
more IO (51 inputs and outputs).

Better still both of these units have a Mach4 plugin. If you have not bought a Mach3 license then you should definitely go
to Mach4. All development of Mach3 ceased six years ago. Mach4 has so many improvements:

https://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=42891.msg278176#msg278176

Craig

1215

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing accuracy measurements

« on: March 16, 2021, 01:22:56 AM »

Hi,
that is incorrect, Mach cannot capture a moving DRO, it has to stop before it can read it.

This is from the Mach4 API, and Mach3 performs nearly indentically:

Probing
Motion plugin probing procedure.
The probe moves are really just G01 moves in exeact stop mode with the addition of being marked as EX_PROBE in the execution_t struct from mcMotionCyclePlannerEx().

When executing a G31, the core considers the move as an exact stop move and therefore will request a motor stop report. It waits on one of two conditions:

A probe strike condition where the motion plugin calls mcMotionSetProbeComplete().
An end of move condition where the motion plugin reports the motors as being still.
Until either of these conditions are satisfied, the core will generate no more moves after the EX_PROBE marked moves. In other words, all you will get out of mcMotionCyclePlannerEx() will be EX_NONE type data. In the event of a probe strike, this makes it safe to clear the planner and be sure that future moves are not removed by accident.

A motion plugin should implement probing in the following way:

Upon seeing the first move marked as EX_PROBE, the plugin should arm position latches on the hardware.
Then consume the EX_PROBE marked moves as normal.
If the probe stikes, the plugin should:
Cancel any motor stop report requests (retrieved from then execution_t::move_t::exMotors structure). (see below. VERY important!)
Report the latched positions via mcMotionSetProbePos() for each motor.
Clear the hardware of any additional moves.
Call mcMotionClearPlanner() to clear the Mach planner of any unretrieved EX_PROBE moves.
Update Mach with the hardware's current position via mcMotionSetPos().
Call mcMotionSetProbeComplete().
If any motor stop report requests has been received, do not acknowledge them. mcMotionSetProbeComplete() does this for you and a position sync as well.
If no probe strike, then the move continues to it's end point as if it is a regular move.
The plugin should ack any motor stop report requests with mcMotionSetStill().
The positions latches should be disarmed (if needed) when a MSG_PROBE_DONE is seen.
In the event that the probe move is aborted, the plugin should:
Call mcMotionClearPlanner() to clear the Mach planner of any unretrieved EX_PROBE moves.
Call mcMotorSetPos() for each controlled motor.
Call mcMotionSync.
Call mcMotionSetStill() for each controlled motor.
Probe Operation Overview.
Upon executing G31, the core will mark those moves as EX_PROBE in the data stream.
If the probe strikes before the end of the G31 move, the plugin aborts the rest of the probe moves as described above. If a probe data file has been opened via mcCntlProbeFileOpen(), then the positions recorded by the motion plugin are inserted into the probe data file in the specified format.
If the probe doesn't strike and the G31 move reaches its end point and a probe data file has been opened via mcCntlProbeFileOpen(), then the end point positions are inserted into the probe data file in the specified format.
Using the probe data file routines.
int mcCntlProbeFileOpen(MINSTANCE inst, const char *filename, const char *format);
The format argument is a printf style format with expanding macros for the axis values. AXIS_X, AXIS_Y, AXIS_Z, AXIS_A, AXIS_B, AXIS_C. It is used in the following manner:


mcCntlProbeFileOpen(inst, "myProbeFile.csv", "%.4AXIS_X, %.4AXIS_Y, %.4AXIS_Z");
This will produce a probe file in CSV format like so:



1.0000, 2.0000, -1.4356
1.0100, 2.0000, -1.4343
1.0200, 2.0000, -1.4324
...

A format of "X%.4AXIS_X, Y%.4AXIS_Y, Z%.4AXIS_Z" would yield:



X1.0000, Y2.0000, Z-1.4356
X1.0100, Y2.0000, Z-1.4343
X1.0200, Y2.0000, Z-1.4324
...

A format of "X%.4AXIS_X\tY%.4AXIS_Y\tZ%.4AXIS_Z" would yield a tab delimited file:



X1.0000 Y2.0000 Z-1.4356
X1.0100 Y2.0000 Z-1.4343
X1.0200 Y2.0000 Z-1.4324
...

int mcCntlProbeFileClose(MINSTANCE inst); Closes the probe data file

Craig

1216

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing accuracy measurements

« on: March 14, 2021, 01:52:45 AM »

Hi,
I don't use Mach3, and haven't done for years, I use Mach4 instead.

The software utility Autoleveller is what generates the Gcode for the probing net, but the code itself is nothing too
difficult, just  series of G31's with a G0 move to the next probe point in between.

Craig

1217

General Mach Discussion / Re: Probing accuracy measurements

« on: March 13, 2021, 06:37:52 PM »

Hi,
I use probing to measure the Z height of PCB blank material which is then used in a software levelling program. Each circuit board
may have up to a hundred or so sampling points stored in a probe data file.

I always review the raw data before I commit my Gcode to the levelling program so I see the raw results, and as I use this program for
work, I see it at least daily, more often several times a day. I have never bothered to do any statistical analysis of the results but I expect, in fact demand,
that the probing accuracy be at least as good as 0.01mm or 10um. In practice I achieve better than 5um repeatable accuracy.

I used this same procedure with Mach3 some six plus years ago with the same result as Mach4 which I have now used for six years.

In short probing has proved to be very accurate.

One determinant of good and repeatable probe data is machine acceleration.

A G31 probing command, for example G31 Z-5 F100, will cause the Z axis to descend at 100mm/min until either it detects a probe strike OR it reaches -5mm
WITHOUT encountering a probe strike. We will assume that the probe does in fact touch the workpiece, the electrics of the probe are good and therefore Mach detects
the probe event. Mach will decelerate the Z axis at max tuned acceleration until stopped and then record the Z axis position as the probe data.

If the machine has very slow acceleration then the probe will strike but the machine will continue descending in Z until it stops, called probe overrun. The slower the
machines acceleration the greater the overrun. Unless you have a very slow machine OR you attempt to probe REALLY fast it is seldom an issue.

For example my machine is tuned for accelerations of 375mm/s², respectable but not blinding fast. I have settled on a probing approach speed of 100mm/min
as a good balance of time taken and accuracy. With that acceleration and probing speed the probe overrun is 3.6um....which is highly acceptable accuracy to me.

Craig

1218

General Mach Discussion / Re: circles not round

« on: March 13, 2021, 12:50:58 AM »

Hi,
interpolated circles will, and can only be, round if:

1) No backlash
2) No backlash
3) Correct steps per unit, both axes
4) No backlash
5) Related to 3), no missed steps in either axis, its equivalent to having incorrect steps per unit programmed. It as bad as backlash.....
have I mentioned that backlash prevents interpolated circles from being round?

Craig

1219

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Smooth Stepper Ethernet + Mach4, where am I wrong?

« on: March 11, 2021, 07:00:45 PM »

Hi,
I have used an ESS for six years and in the last year or so, daily.

The ESS settings for look-ahead and  buffer are at default, 180ms. You can notice, just, FeedHold delays and FeedRate delays but are so insignificant I don't
worry about them.

I run a dual core Atom single board PC with on-chip graphics. That must be about the lowest possible powered PC to run Mach4......and it runs seamlessly.
The only time I really notice the 'gutless' little PC is when I load a largish file....it can take seconds or even minutes for really big files. Once the file is loaded
it runs perfectly. I have had three 'Run Out Of Data' issues in six years, two of which were related to electrical interference by the spindle, and the last
one was over the summer when the temperature peaked at 38C....and the little Atom struggled,it has no fan at all.

From what I understand, Mach4 is powerful as software and requires high performance hardware.

That is contrary to my experience. The bottom line is that Mach4 IS NOT  a CPU power hungry application and even very low power PCs will do a good job with an ESS.

I'm building a new mill with servos and its capable of G0's of 25m/min and max G1's of 15m/min. The Atom/Mach4/ESS/BoB do the whole lot easy.
My steps per unit (mm) is 1000. Thus to get to 25m/min the max step rate is 416kHz, so I used differential signalling to the servos. The ESS is capable
of 4Mhz, ie eight times faster than I require!

Craig

1220

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps per Inch Question with Slaved Axes

« on: March 05, 2021, 12:53:04 AM »

Hi,
I found that Mach3 worked, but yes it had bugs. When I started trying to code my own macros however I 'spat the dummy' at
VB, or rather Cypress Enable that Mach3 uses as scripting language. I thought if I'm going to invest the effort to learn a new
coding language I should learn Lua as it was going to last whereas Mach3 and VB are in their sunset years. Ergo I adopted Mach4.

Mach4, at least to start with, is a quite a challenge....but well worth it. By and large it is stable and few bugs.

Mach3 evolved and grew haphazardly over the years, often with new features braking old ones, or relying on 'dodgy' practices,
and as a consequence Mach3 is/was a nightmare to support.

Mach4 on the other hand was designed. It has a clearly defined structure and protocols that allows development without screwing
other parts up.

Mach4 all but relies on an external motion controller. There is a parallel port version for Mach4 called Darwin ($25 license fee applies),
and as good as it is it misses on a lot of realtime supports like lathe threading, realtime THC etc. Darwin is fine if your on a real tight
budget but otherwise best avoided. Aside from anything else Darwin still requires a 32 bit OS, Windows 7 or earlier to run.
Compare that to any of the half dozen or so Mach4 ready motion controllers and they will all run on 64 bit OS's including Windows 10.

When I took up Mach4 I also got an Ethernet SmoothStepper and while it took a bit of effort to set it up initially it proved to be a huge step
up in smoothness and reliability of operation over the parallel port I had been using.

Regrettably my ESS is still just nailed to a piece of wood, I did that as a temporary measure six years ago and it still like that!
'There is nothing so permanent as a temporary measure.'

Craig