Messages

251

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Closed Loop Monitoring of Mach4?

« on: February 18, 2023, 08:18:54 PM »

Hi,
I rather think that mach4 can do what you require, its all about timing.

When most people talk about 'closed loop' they think of Mach trying to maitain angular position control over the shaft of a motor.
Windows is not a realtime operating system and therefore Mach4 is a bufferd control which precludes from the microsecond timining that
such a closed loop requires.

If however you are talking about Mach4 being stopped while an image is collected, and then execute certain actions as a result of processing that image, then yes
it could do so.

May I suggest you write your Python program to collect the image data and output a signal (digital), or signals (binary), or even analog if you have an analog capable
motion control to Mach. Having Mach execute certain chunks of code based on an iput should be no trouble.

Craig

252

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 17, 2023, 02:50:59 PM »

Hi,
NEMA 24???...there is no such size.

NEMA23 yes, that is a size standardized by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. This is a US based association and has no sway outside of the US.

In order to maximize sales opportunities many manufacturers', US and elsewhere, manufacture the 23 size. The '23' refers to 2.3 inches across the flats
or 58.42mm.

Other manufacturers, mainly European, Japanese and other Asian countries which are metricized have adopted a size of 60mm across the flats.

A 60mm motor does not quite fit into the hole that a 23 size motor came out of, and likewise trying to fit a 23 size motor into the hole a 60mm motor
came out of is not easy either. The bottom line is that you buy either a 23 size motor OR a 60mm motor depending on the dimensions of your machine.

60mm=2.362 inch, or with rounding becomes 24. It has become common practice to say NEMA24....when there is no official 24 size in the Nation Electrical Manufacturers
Association literature. What is actually being referred to is a 60mm motor.

If you ask a simple question, you'll get a simple answer.....questions scattered all over the spectrum less so.

Craig

253

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Macro mystery

« on: February 14, 2023, 03:01:00 PM »

Hi,
could there possibly be another either/or m205() or m206? Maybe a remanent of a previous macro similarly named. May have deleted the .mcs file but a .mcc
file still exists?

Craig

254

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Base PC for Mach 4 query

« on: February 13, 2023, 10:46:28 PM »

Hi,
I run my machine on a Dual core Atom single board mini-ITX PC, with no graphics card, ie on chip graphics.
This PC wouldn't 'pull the skin off a rice pudding' and yet it runs my machine fine. The only time I ever notice just how gutless the PC is
is when I load a largish file, say 5MB, it can take the best part of a minute, but thereafter it works fine.

It would be hopless for a general purpose machine, CAD/CAM etc....but I run Mach4 and a few auxiliary apps alone on it.

The bottom line is that mach4 is not a power hungry application. What the PC needs is to be uncluttered with software, either running or installed, and
any non-essential services, so that the PC can service Mach4 on a regular basis. Any hiccup that causes the PC to be 'off doing some other thing' will result in your motion
controller running out of data, usually fatal.

The PC you've linked to will work fine. Can I have one too?

Craig

255

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 13, 2023, 04:34:05 PM »

Hi,
yes you can get Mach to control the speed, Mach produces PWM which can control the speed if you have a suitable speed contoller for the spindle.
If your spindle is just a plain brushed DC motor then a variable voltage supply is enough.

Unless you need it why bother. 99% of the time you want your spindle to go flat stick....who cares if you can slow it down? If anything you want it to go
faster,more power, FASTER, FASTER!

Get get the thing going and worry about the rest later. You seem to be doing everything BUT get it going. Is there a reason?

Craig

256

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 13, 2023, 02:34:01 PM »

Hi,

so i just put 24v to the motor and see if it works

YES!!! Its the simplest thing in the world to run a  brushed DC motor....just hook up a power supply. Higher voltage makes it go faster, lower voltage
makes it go slower. Reverse the connection and it goes backwards. So simple.

Unless you need speed control all you want is a switch to turn in on or off. If you desperately want to have Mach turn it on or off then you need a relay.
Don't get hung up about a relay.....you've wasted enough time doing everything BUT get the bloody thing to go! Until and unless it goes then everything
else is irrelevant. Stick to getting the motor to run. The tacho generator, if that's what it is, which is still questionable, is just going for a ride, you don't need it,
so ignore it.

Craig

257

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 13, 2023, 12:58:02 PM »

Hi,
the two are not matched.

The photo of the motor is a brushed DC motor with an encoder fitted.
All that is required to run this motor is to hook up a DC power suppply....you don't need a driver at all. A variable voltage
supply would be nice if you want speed control, but mostly you'll run at full speed all the time. So just a power supply and a relay
to turn in on and off.

The driver you have pictured is for a brushless motor.
The drive is for a different kind of motor altogether.

What about the motor you have already got?
Did you get around to doing any of the measurements I suggested?

Craig

258

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: What is Out-Of-Band Motor?

« on: February 12, 2023, 10:58:46 PM »

Hi,
Mach4 can handle six coordinated axes, but each of those axes could have as many a six motors, one master and five slaves.
Thus Mach4 could in theory drive 36 motors simultaneously, in six coordinated groups.

In a more normal machine you might have five axes, one with a slave, thus six motors, which would allow scope for another thirty OOB axes, arranged
in groups of six. Thus OB1 is master with up to five slaves. OB2 is master with up to five slaves etc.

All the motors of OB1, master and slaves will operate simultaneously, as will all the motors of OB2, but OB1 and OB2 are NOT coordinated with each other.

This make Mach fairly capable, but most motion control boards cannot do all of that. For instance my ESS has six Step/Dir motor pairs, say four coordinated
axes and two OB axes. The ESS can drive a spindle with Step/Dir which is counted then as one of the six available motor channels. If however it is run as PWM and On/Off
then it is not counted as one of the six motors, nor in fact is it counted as an OB axis. It is if you like a seventh axis but with curtailed control.

To my knowledge there is no Mach4 motion controller that can do anything like the number of motor that mach is capable of. I think it may be possible to have many
more OB motors with Ethercat, which of course does not require a motion board at all. Ethercat can address up to 100 nodes, say 90 motors and 10 IO nodes, should
be enough for most purposes!

Craig

259

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 12, 2023, 05:50:21 PM »

Hi,
questions like this are pointless until you confirm what sort of motor it is. The age suggests that this is a brushed DC
motor, but either its faulty, say the brushes worn out, which would explain the high resistance reading you are getting.
Until and unless you can find the armature resistance or equally low stator resistances its not going to run no matter what.

Craig

260

General Mach Discussion / Re: just bought a little baby cnc 280mm square davinci style thing

« on: February 12, 2023, 04:47:36 PM »

Hi,
redo your first measurement. The resistance of the armature will be low, well lower than 10Ohm

Maybe try measuring between other combinations of wires, somewhere you must find a low resistance, be it the armature if its a brushed motor,
or a stator winding if it is brushless.

Craig